The Night Calls

by David Pirie

  A small bag lay at the back of a drawer which seemed to contain her best things. This was of good quality, which suggested it was reserved for special occasions, and without much hope I looked through it. There was almost nothing inside: a comb, a handkerchief, and a little card which I took out. On it was printed, in firm respectable letters:

  THE LEAGUE OF HOPE AND SORROW

  ‘The League!’ I exclaimed, for the words triggered a memory as I turned the card over and read the back.

  Charitable loans and services provided in confidence to those who are in need.

  The Doctor was beside me in a moment. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe I have heard of it. It is a philanthropical society which arranges loan for those who are in need of them. The Morlands have taken their charity.’

  Bell took the card and stared at it. ‘There is an address here, but only a forwarding agent by the look of it. Well, perhaps it is worth further study. Your Morlands may help us to decide.’

  Soon after that we left and, as we made our way back along the street, I had of necessity to explain to the Doctor that the matter of Morlands’s debt was a sensitive one. I went on to describe my adventure in the opium den and how I had found him there. In some respects this was breaking a confidence, but I was sure it was the best course, for I had always trusted Bell implicitly in such matters.

  The Doctor showed a very lively interest in my story, asking all manner of questions. He insisted on hearing everything else I had seen and heard. And then, with typical impetuosity, he declared that he would like to walk up to Shad Thames and see the alley for himself. In daylight it seemed we could hardly be in danger, and so we made our way north, turned up that forbidding street and soon stood before the Lord Lovat.

  There was not much to see, the tavern was doing only modest business and the alley had not a soul in it. At my insistence we went only a short way along but Bell stared with enormous interest at the steps and the den itself. At any moment I dreaded to see one of the two figures I had glimpsed the previous evening, and I was glad when he turned away.

  Bell was thoughtful on the journey home. ‘Geography,’ he said at last, ‘has never been a major interest of mine, Doyle, as you once deduced from my library. But even so I have always wanted to write a treatise on its connection to crime. I am convinced it is not a fanciful subject. What is it that makes some places indefinable in their darkness? Would we feel the same thing on a mountain where many explorers had died? Their bodies would, after all, be perfectly preserved, for beyond a certain altitude they could not be buried or even carried down. They must lie there as you climb past them.’

  I told him the idea was horrible.

  ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘that alley has something of the flavour. A tavern beside it and yet so empty. Did you smell anything?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘it is more of an instinct than anything else. But in our own way we are explorers and I have a feeling we will be visiting it again.’

  THE MESSAGE FROM HELL

  The following week I had a message from Bell, telling me his investigation had not progressed very satisfactorily. As expected, the pathologist had decided Harriet Lowther died of a heart attack, a verdict with which he was most unhappy. My days were busy and I saw only a little of the Morlands but sensed their worry. Martin was working long hours to make up for the time he had missed. Sally, meanwhile, did her best to keep a brave face and never talked again about the debt, so I hardly liked to return to the question of the League, even though I knew Bell wished to hear more.

  And then one morning at breakfast Sally was talking of her longing for a garden like the one at Turnham Green when she smiled and exclaimed, ‘I nearly forgot, you have a letter.’ She handed me an envelope. ‘And now I can hear the children are thumping on the floor, which usually means they are getting too excited, so I will leave you to enjoy it in peace.’

  I glanced without much interest at the envelope before me. It had, as I observed at once, been forwarded from my home in Southsea in a plain packet. A bill seemed the most likely contents. When I took out the envelope inside, I saw that the writing was plain and clear. Yet any clerk could write like this so it hardly seemed important and I opened the envelope with no great trepidation.

  Inside were four closely written pages in much the same style. There was no greeting, no address, but just a heading. It read:

  A DAY OF LITTLE ACTIVITY

  This meant nothing at all to me. I wondered if it was some mistake. Perhaps my colleague in Southsea had somehow confused it with another letter yet this seemed unlikely, so I started to read.

  I decided I would today try Jones Street, for it was a rough place not far from the port and one thoroughfare of that kind I had not enjoyed before. I had risen late, spent some time over my lunch, and then walked out, reaching it by the middle of the afternoon when I was amused to see already women were standing in the doorways, for all the doors in that street lay back about eight feet between area railings.

  I chose a well-built woman with bright dark eyes who smiled out at me from one of them. I made sure the street was empty and then approached her, merely nodding my head. Soon I had gone up with her to a small and disappointingly bare room and she started to take her clothes off. I allowed her to do so and then made her sit down and told her I was a doctor who would examine her …

  Despite the broad, neutral handwriting, this narrative had begun to alarm me almost immediately, and at the word ‘doctor’, my heart missed a beat.

  Her form was not a bad one, but after an insertion, using my stick, which in her ignorance she accepted as a medical instrument, I saw she was suffering from some inflammation so I could not conscientiously enjoy her. Instead I pretended I was satisfied but wanted to wait a little. Then I produced my flask and said we should enjoy a drink together. She seemed quite happy with this but I insisted she bring glasses and with some reluctance she procured some from a room opposite. I poured out two generous portions of drink and as I was about to swallow mine, I drew her attention to a mark on the wall behind her. Most of my glass went into hers and the rest on to the rug. They can find it there but I doubt they will even look.

  She turned now and I pretended to have just swallowed the last, but she was a little quicker than I would have liked and chided me for the largeness of her portion. Even so she drank, and the sweet brandy drowned out the taste, at least long enough for her to drink it down.

  I looked at her then, marvelling that her fate was sealed. No man would ever enter her again, indeed she would not even drink again. When I told her she was about to die, she laughed but then I think she felt the first stirrings because her laughter died and she whimpered a little and said, ‘What have you done?’ I watched the rest quietly, it was not much of a show for which you must accept my apologies. There was little vomiting but the stuff could not in any case, as I knew, be brought up. She barely managed to get to her feet, choking and staggering, though to my amazement she did manage a look of baffled reproach.

  This is unusual: I suspect she had considerable will power. ‘You are dying,’ I observed. She had ceased to listen now but I continued. ‘You gave yourself to me,’ I said softly. ‘All of you for me to consume as I wished. You made yourself worthless. And I am only doing what I enjoy, taking all of you.’

  She had collapsed back on the bed and there was the rattling rasping noise that sometimes comes in their throats and her limbs flailed and the eyeballs bulged until after a time she was utterly still. That was the first of the day.

  I went to a coffee shop in good humour and had some refreshment and then a safe distance away once it was dark I chose another. Fair-haired and well fed. This one was excited and voluptuous and seemed clean enough so I took her but was interrupted when a child cried out below. The child saved her life for it stirred others in the house and I had to leave but I may go back there and finish it, perhaps this evening …

  I had had t
o force myself to keep reading to this point where the narrative broke off. Now I put the letter down. Just a few sentences were left, but they were clearly different from the rest, some wild scrawled capitals, and I had no stomach for them yet.

  I found I was pushing my hands down on the table, for my senses were swimming. I feared I might faint but, as some clarity returned, I thanked heaven that I had read the letter while I was alone. Above me, like some mocking contrast to this ghastly narration, I could hear the domestic sounds of the house. Sally Morland was laughing with her children and I found myself thinking how dreadful it would be if she read these words. And I made a kind of stumbling vow then that nothing of him, not even his reported deeds, would ever enter this house. The letter must be concealed where nobody, except of course the Doctor, would ever see it.

  The reader may find it strange that it was only now that I properly scrutinised the postmark, but I had assumed the contents would reveal the sender. In the event it was faint and difficult to read but I could see it was foreign, and once under the light, the words were decipherable.

  Chicago,

  Illinois.

  This, then, was something, and I returned quickly to the end of the letter only to find it was as if he had read my mind.

  TRAVELLED A LONG WAY TO MAIL THIS SO HAVE NO WORRIES YOU WILL FIND ME HERE. GO INSTEAD AS SOON AS YOU CAN TO ELSIE OR JENNY IN WYCH STREET AFTER THE BUTCHER THEY EXPECT YOU

  I could not at first take this in, but I stared back at it with dawning apprehension that was no less intense than my disgust at what I had read before. Was this a trap of some kind? In any case how could the writer of a letter, posted some weeks before in Chicago, have any recent knowledge of Wych Street, which I was dimly aware lay north of the Strand? My mind raced with wild speculation. Was it even possible he was here? And of course I thought again of the drawing in Tussaud’s.

  I sat there, trying to take in what I had read, attempting to analyse the position as the Doctor would. This letter was surely evidence of a kind, evidence of cold-blooded, disgusting murder. Yet, though I knew its author, it was signed with no name and it was perfectly possible the street names were disguised. Nor did I even know what city contained this ‘Jones Street’, for Chicago seemed to be ruled out.

  My mind turned to the message at the end. I knew I would feel no rest until I had acted, and therefore I must do so at once. In the first place I would cable the Doctor’s hotel, though he was an early riser and I knew there was little hope of finding him there at this time in the morning. Then I would try and uncover what this last sentence meant. I was aware I must proceed cautiously, for I had not forgotten the opera glasses. But delay was not to be borne. This was, after all, my first real trace of the man who had killed Elsbeth. And besides, even if Cream was waiting to make some murderous attack upon me (though the letter’s postmark made this seem improbable), I would relish the chance to lay my hands on him.

  Of course a reader, who has appraised these pages with any care, will be aware that a murderous attack of a straightforward kind was hardly my enemy’s style. But he should also understand how desperately I had longed for avenging action ever since the murder and here, at last, even though on his own terms, was something I could do.

  I memorised the exact wording at the end of that foul note and then set about carefully concealing the letter about my person, even though I knew nobody in that house would ever spy on my personal correspondence. After this was done, I went through to where Sally and the children were looking at a storybook.

  She turned with a smile to greet me and I smiled back but I should have known there would be no concealing my mood from her. ‘Why, Arthur,’ she said, ‘what is the matter, you look flushed!’

  ‘Only because I ran up the stairs,’ I lied. ‘But the truth is I have had some news. Nothing too serious, but an old friend is ill and I want to visit him. I will send a message to the practice. Fortunately they are fully handed again and I feel sure they can spare me for an hour or so.’

  ‘Of course they can,’ she said, looking at me intently. ‘Is your friend very ill?’

  ‘No, it is not so bad,’ I said, turning away. ‘But I want to go at once. I will see you tonight as ever and tell you more.’ And I waved at the children and retreated before she could ask me further questions.

  After sending a cable to Bell announcing I had heard from Cream, I was in the Strand about half an hour later. Wych was one of a wilderness of intersecting streets to the north crossing Newcastle Street, Drury Lane and several others. I had never been here so early before but it was no brighter or happier than in the early evening. There was a stench of human waste in the roads, and most of the thoroughfares were very narrow, with tall cramped houses that seemed almost to overhang the pavements.

  Soon I reached Wych and stopped by the Olympic Theatre, which was the only semi-respectable landmark in the area, turning over the words of the letter in my head. Go … to Elsie or Jenny … after the butcher. There had been some sunshine that morning but it had now clouded over, and I stared through the gloom without seeing anything like a butcher’s shop.

  As I walked away from the theatre and the street curved round, it seemed more and more as if the houses were leaning out above me to cover the sky. There were a few dingy shops, some children ran about and I saw two men lounging in a doorway. Perhaps, I thought, the butcher was a nickname of some kind, but I might as well walk the street before I started to ask. I trudged on past a narrow grimy courtyard, trying to avoid the mud thrown up by a cart.

  And then I saw the sign. It was so dirty I was barely able to read it but I could be quite sure it was a butcher from the meagre display of hung meat. I walked into the close and came past the shop to a crumbling brown four-storey dwelling with a peeling dark green door which was half open.

  ‘An early one, are you?’ The gruff voice came from beside me and I turned and saw a swarthy butcher in his apron. He winked and I realised he had been watching me with amusement as I studied the house.

  I hated his leer, but I went on at once, walking straight into the place without looking back, for no doubt if I hesitated I would face even more derision. The hall of the house was dark and dingy, but I could hear shouting and noise from a room at the back and what sounded like an argument between two women. I called out and a haggard woman with grey hair appeared and stared at me.

  ‘Is Elsie here?’ I asked.

  She took a step forward, still staring. ‘Elsie Farr? Of course but she’s sleeping it off, you want to come back later.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I wish to talk to her.’

  She burst out laughing. ‘A strange kind of talk. Well, I suppose a few coins will wake her up.’ And she pointed at a door up the stairs on the next landing. ‘Shall I go out to fetch something?’

  ‘No, there is no need,’ I answered quickly and began to climb the filthy steps. The woman glared at me rudely from below, and I suppose she was displeased because sending her out for beer or food was part of the accepted practice of the house. But soon she disappeared.

  I reached the door, which had some old bottles beside it, and knocked firmly. There was no reply. Rather than stand there, I opened it and went in.

  The room was in near darkness, or so it seemed at first. I waited where I stood, trying to make something out. There was a hanging on my left over the window, so I moved it slightly and a little murky light filtered through.

  Now I could make out that I was standing in a good-sized and not uncomfortable bedroom. There was, it is true, a faded screen to one side of me and the place was hung about with cheap flimsy material. But the mantelpiece had crockery, ornaments and a rosewood-framed mirror while the bed in the corner looked crisp and clean. A woman lay in it but she was not sleeping soundly. And as the light came into the room, her eyes opened and she looked around and saw me. I suppose I expected her to be startled but she merely eyed me curiously. She had goldenish hair and pretty features, though her face was sallow.

  �
�You are Elsie?’ I asked.

  She sat up slowly in a long cream chemise that must have been chosen to show off her charms.

  ‘Yes, and who are you?’

  ‘You know someone called Jenny?’

  ‘Of course,’ she was wide awake. ‘What has she done?’

  So I had found them. ‘Nothing, I just had to be sure there was no mistake. I wish to ask you something, Elsie. Do you know any medical men? Any doctors.’

  I had hoped this would alert her but it seemed to mean nothing. ‘Oh, Lord, I see a lot of men, and they don’t always tell me much either. What do you want?’

  ‘You never see an American gentleman?’

  Again this brought no reaction. ‘Why do you want to know anyway? ’ she asked. And then her expression changed and a look came into her eyes, a little smile. ‘Ah, wait now, if you look for a doctor. Are you yourself a medical man?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then will you come here, sir?’

  I hesitated and then went over to her bedside.

  She lay looking up at me and I saw I had underestimated her appearance. She may have used herself badly but she was still lovely, her hair long and golden, her features pert, her lips full, her eyes wide. In Edinburgh, while I searched for Agnes Walsh, I had seen many women who gave themselves for money and some at Madame Rose’s were undoubtedly handsome, but I had never met one as fair as this. It was a wonder, with looks like hers, that she had come to the profession at all, but no doubt there was a reason.