The Night Calls

by David Pirie

  ‘I do not know why you are here, sir,’ she said in a friendly tone, looking up at me and smiling, and I saw that her little teeth were very white against her red lips. ‘But it is my good luck for I have a condition and I wish you to give me your opinion, sir.’ She spoke very sweetly.

  ‘I will do that if you wish,’ I replied, ‘but you must help me first. You have no idea of an American gentleman?’

  ‘None at all,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you should ask Jenny, but she is not here now and has not been for a few days. Now, sir, can I show you.’

  ‘No, just tell me where the pain is.’

  Her face was suddenly concerned. ‘It is a swelling,’ she said. ‘You will have to feel to understand. I am so fortunate to meet you, sir. Perhaps we can be friends.’ And she looked up imploringly.

  Standing over her there, I felt a little giddy. I had had nothing to eat or drink since waking, but had come directly here as soon as I read the letter. Now I was staring down at a woman who was sweet and voluptuous, a fact which no doubt accounted for her success on the streets and for the butcher’s leer. I took a breath, forcing my head to clear.

  ‘Will you just give an opinion, sir? It is all I ask.’ She threw back her hand to look up at me, squirming a little as she did so, and I wondered if she was indeed in pain.

  I collected my thoughts. There could be no harm, but I must not linger. I wanted to try to find the other girl.

  So I nodded, bending forward, and she took my hand and with her other hand pulled down the bedclothes. The chemise did not extend below her waist, her legs were sprawled open and without any hesitation she placed my hand firmly just inside the full moist lips of her pudenda, arching her back and pressing me into her.

  Stupidly I had been taken by surprise. My hand lay there and I could feel her breath on my neck as her other hand sought to pull me down to kiss these bright red lips. It had been so long since I had had physical intimacy of any kind at all with a woman that of course I felt desire and a sudden longing. What man would not? My whole body responded and there was a moment when I felt I might succumb, a moment I am sure she recognised, for she pushed my hand further in and gave a great sigh of pleasure. But also, fortunately, in that same instant, I thought of how I had resolved I would be prepared and felt a sudden fury and revulsion at myself for being so easily deceived. With an effort I pulled back. She was still trying to excite me, lying languorously back to show me as much of her as possible.

  But I simply pulled the covers over her and stepped away.

  ‘I would never tell a soul, Dr Doyle,’ she murmured.

  At this I reacted and even looked around, half expecting Neill himself to step out, laughing, but at least I had made sure the room was empty. ‘How do you know my name?’

  Her guile left her almost as rapidly as it had begun and she started to look irritable. ‘Will you not take some pleasure in me? You have paid, sir. Though we hoped to get a little more.’

  ‘I have not paid,’ I said. ‘I never saw you before.’

  ‘You must ask Jenny. She knows more of it.’

  ‘But you do not know where she is?’ I felt foolish and compromised, which was no doubt what was intended.

  ‘Not for days, sir. I have not seen her. Nor has anyone.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, gathering my thoughts. ‘You must tell me everything you know. It is a criminal matter and there will be serious trouble if you do not.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, I cannot see how,’ she said, turning around to get more comfortable, again an expression of irritation on her. ‘A gentleman’s game is nawt to do with us.’ But she had heard the urgency and impatience of my tone and continued. ‘For that is all I know, sir. A gentleman paid for me to do this. Not one I ever set eyes on. But Jenny says she has and he gave money to her and me and says if a medical man comes calling, we were to treat him extra well. And, if we did, there might be more for us then.’

  ‘Who was this man?’ I said.

  ‘I have told you I know nothing of him. And I have told you all she told me.’ She was losing interest. ‘You will have to find her. But I cannot see that you will.’

  ‘But when?’ I asked desperately. ‘When did she give you the money? How long have you waited?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘Some weeks ago I think, sir. It has been a little while.’

  Of course I asked a dozen questions more but she seemed to have told me everything she knew. The missing Jenny, whose full name it seemed was Jenny Galton, had told her little beyond the fact that she had met a man who gave her money: the condition was that she and Elsie were to look out for a medical man called Doyle. And if they treated him ‘extra well’ there might be more, though how or why there would be more, the elusive Jenny never said. Even her meeting with the man lay in question, for Elsie seemed to recall her saying something of a message, as if perhaps the man had sent a letter or a note possibly via someone else. The more I asked, the less clear it became, but finally I was convinced I knew all that Elsie knew.

  The practice, I fear, saw little of me that day. It was spent in a hunt for Jenny Galton which proved just as fruitless as Elsie claimed. None of her regular haunts had seen her for at least a week, not that this was considered unusual. At times she might go off with a gentleman friend for as much as a month or more. It seemed she had two lodgings, including the place I had visited, but at each the story was the same. And even her meagre belongings seemed to be absent from both.

  In the late afternoon I returned to Bell’s hotel, where I found him awaiting me in his sitting room, having received my telegram about an hour earlier. He was far from pleased. ‘I wish you had waited,’ were almost his first words. I was pent up enough to say something I might well regret, so I said nothing and I believe he saw this and relented. ‘I am sorry, Doyle,’ he went on more softly, ‘but the matter needs to be taken step by step. You have the letter?’

  I nodded and handed it to him.

  He sat reading it in silence, saying nothing. And then he got to his feet. ‘Very well, I will study it further, but you must tell me everything that has happened to you as we travel to Wych Street.’

  A hansom was summoned instantly by the hotel porter and we were on our way, but I found it far harder than I had foreseen to give Bell a full account of my day. When I reached the most delicate part of the story, I said merely that Elsie had attempted to seduce me, and tried to describe all that had happened since. He listened carefully and then returned to the letter. Finally he handed it back. ‘So it is dated only a few weeks ago?’

  ‘That is only one reason I believe he is here. And has been for some time.’ I said. ‘The letter could easily have been sent to a friend in America and sent back to me. That is simpler than anything else.’

  ‘It may also be what he wishes you to think, Doyle. Nothing would give Cream greater pleasure than for you to see his shadow everywhere. If he is here, why need he conceal it? But to play this game from Chicago, all he needed was knowledge of these women and their address, which from your description is notorious. As to how? There are, it seems to me, a number of ways. Imagine, for example, that he fell into the company of travellers from London who like to discuss such conquests. This is by no means improbable given his tastes. At once he sees his chance and charges one of them with the paid commission to bribe these women to seduce you. Your Elsie is muddled, but she seems to recall hearing of a message or a letter brought via another man.’

  ‘Yes, it is possible,’ I granted. ‘But how much easier if he were here himself. For otherwise how could he be sure with such a transient trade that these women would still be here?’

  ‘Exactly,’ the Doctor came back quickly. ‘That was indeed his risk and you will note one of them is not.’

  ‘But in all of this there is such a sense of his presence!’

  ‘Which is exactly what he intends,’ said Bell. ‘Of course he would like nothing more than for you to descend into this twilight world and spend your time in futile searching.
I want you to promise you will be cautious, but before we go further let me make this visit to Wych Street and also put the word out for Jenny Galton.’

  At first I suppose I felt a little relieved that the matter was in his hands, but I cannot say the rest of that day was remotely productive. Elsie had gone out so much time was spent in waiting. When she returned, she was the worse for drink and in a foul temper which did not improve when she saw me. It is true that, using all his authority, Bell managed to make her answer his questions seriously, but even so he heard nothing more from her than I had. And, after this, our energies were expended on a second hunt for Jenny Galton which proved utterly fruitless.

  I have rarely seen Bell looking so tired and demoralised as he did after we gave it up and journeyed back. ‘I am afraid,’ he said at last, ‘today confirms all my worst fears. You are being tempted into a search for a will o’ the wisp that is almost certainly not here at all.’

  Of course I knew there was some sense in his words, even though I was not yet prepared to be convinced. But before he got down from the cab that was taking me on to the Morlands, he was kind enough to clasp my hand.

  ‘Please, Doyle,’ he said, ‘try to rein in your thoughts of him as far as you can. You will come and dine with me tomorrow night and we will talk it over.’

  I must have looked an exhausted and dispirited figure when I finally returned to my lodgings, inventing a story that my ‘friend’ had proved more ill than I expected, but had rallied, and was now out of danger. I had already sent another message to the practice and Sally told me they were sympathetic, but I could see that she was not wholly satisfied by my explanation. However, she asked no further questions.

  Perhaps it was the fruitlessness of the day, perhaps the accumulated shock of his return into my life. I only know that what followed was easily the worst night I had spent since I arrived. A fierce storm arose in the late hours to rattle the roofs and chimneys, making matters worse. Utterly unable to sleep, as the hours wore on I was by turns anxious, apprehensive and, I will admit, frightened.

  That monstrous letter had confirmed in a dramatic fashion just how spectacularly Neill was transformed from the person I had once known. Even at university he had concealed so much from us, pretending merely to be a spirited rebel and carefully hiding the extent of his appetites. But now it seemed he had indulged these appetites and diversions to a point where he was a wholly different person, one who seemed capable of innumerable horrors and would justify them by a rhetoric of nihilistic madness.

  If Cream were truly in London, as I believed in my heart he was, I dreaded to think of what he would do next. It had evidently taken him only a little research to discover my practice in Southsea. If he applied there, he would be given my forwarding address at the Morlands. It was now too late to avoid this. And then what would amuse him? A crude physical attack was unlikely. It would be something far worse. Perhaps he would turn up on the doorstep in the dead of night with some subterfuge of his own devising that would terrify the entire household. My imagination began to work itself into such a state that I almost thought I could hear his footsteps on the pavement outside or on the stairs leading to my room.

  Finally I could bear it no longer and got up and went to my bag and took a small dose of an opiate. But I fear it only served to give me a series of terrifying dreams. In many of them, Cream’s head – severed from his body – towered grotesquely above me, boasting of monstrous crimes. And I believe there was a horrible nightmare before dawn in which he menaced Sally and her children, but fortunately I awoke and could not remember it.

  THE LEAGUE OF HOPE AND SORROW

  The morning brought a little relief from these night phantoms, but I was still flushed and tired and the storm continued unabated outside. I decided to avoid breakfast and left a note for the Morlands saying I had made an early start. Fortunately the day that followed was quiet, perhaps because our patients were deterred by the weather, and most of my time was spent on calls in the neighbourhood. But I know I was not entirely myself and was quite sure that Baird and some of the other doctors saw it. Around five o’clock I told Dr Baird I feared I was going down with a cold and he seemed a little relieved, advising me not to come in the next morning, which was in any case a Saturday when duties were generally light. That would afford me two days to try to weather it.

  As I entered her sitting room, Sally Morland looked up from her embroidery and her smile turned to concern. ‘You look tired, Arthur and I am sure you have had nothing all day.’

  ‘That is not true,’ I said, ‘but in fact I came to tell you I have a dining engagement with an old friend.’

  ‘It is just as well, for there will be little good company here,’ she said gloomily. ‘Martin should be home shortly but will have to go out again at eight, for he is making a further application to the League tonight. I just pray they will agree.’

  ‘The League of Hope and Sorrow?’ I asked, remembering the card in Harriet Lowther’s room.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Hope and Sorrow. And I know they mean well, but sometimes I wonder if there is not more of the latter than the former.’

  ‘Where do they meet?’ I asked, aware that Bell would like to know.

  ‘Oh, in different places, I believe. They must keep the meetings private for their business is highly confidential and they help people from all walks of life. Martin said tonight it is in some church hall, although not for once across the river. But why do you ask?’

  I told her I thought I had read about them, and we changed the subject for it turned out Sally and her children had one piece of good news at least. Their Uncle Tim had written to say he might pay a surprise visit within the next month and I found myself wondering if this splendid uncle – though it seemed he was a friend rather than a relative—would not be able to help the Morlands with their pecuniary difficulties.

  When I reached the hotel, Dr Bell was seated in exactly the same armchair beside the fire in the public room where I had first encountered him, but his greeting was very different. Then he had sprung up to shake my hand, now he merely scrutinised me intently as I walked towards him and waved me into a chair.

  ‘You have had another bad night, I perceive?’ he said.

  There was no point in denying it; his eye was far too acute for that. ‘I admit you are right,’ I said, sitting down. The fire was bright but the cheerful room of armchairs was almost entirely empty apart from a family gathering up their things to leave.

  His eye was still fixed on me. ‘He wants to stir your imagination and I fear he is succeeding all too well. You took something last night?’

  I was a little irritated by this interrogation, for my health was hardly a major issue considering all we faced. ‘Is it important?’

  ‘An opiate?’

  ‘A small quantity only,’ I said.

  ‘Of laudanum, I assume. I recall your experiments with gelsemium. And you really think it is worth putting that kind of burden on your system at this time?’ He was leaning towards me, his eyes still on mine.

  The room was now empty and I raised my voice. ‘Doctor, I do not seriously think …’

  But he interrupted me, speaking quickly, a finger raised. ‘Do you not see how he would rejoice if it took hold. And even in minor drafts it may affect your judgement, Doyle! No doubt you do dream of him under its influence. And it may also explain your sense of his presence.’

  I could hardly disguise my anger at this. Perhaps I felt vulnerable about my occasional use of the drug, but surely he must see my consumption was in no way comparable to the kind of excessive use we had witnessed in others. ‘I can reassure you without qualification.’ I said tersely. ‘Yes I have taken laudanum from time to time. It is not something I generally prescribe, but I find it can be effective. So please disregard that possibility. I may be wrong but I still implore you to believe me when I say that I sense him.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, after looking at me, ‘it is not my place to legislate on such things for y
ou now.’ And then he fell to examining Cream’s letter again. After a time, he told me he was even more firmly inclined to the view that it was part of a game being played from a distance. ‘And one we should be extremely cautious about playing. For he means only to distract and discompose us, so I promise you there will be no genuine clues. Of course I am using all the means at my disposal, including the redoubtable Inspector Miller, to pursue Jenny Galton but in the meantime I urge you not to return to Wych Street.’

  I could assure him of that for it was certainly not my intention, and the mention of Miller returned us to the case of Harriet Lowther. The Doctor asked if, as requested, I had sounded out the Morlands about the League of Hope and Sorrow? I started to tell him what I knew but, as soon as I mentioned Martin Morland’s meeting that night, he jumped to his feet. ‘Then why are we sitting here? The more we can learn of it, the greater the chance of discovering if the card has any importance to the case.’

  ‘But they will never admit us,’ I said without moving, for not only did I think it was an irrelevance but, after all that had happened the day before, I had little appetite to leave this safe haven for the rain and wind of the streets.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Bell, turning to seize his coat, ‘which is why we must follow him.’

  The plan was concocted in a hansom that Bell had instructed to drop us close by my lodgings. ‘I suggest,’ he said, leaning forward eagerly, obviously glad to be doing something, ‘that we follow Morland separately rather than together. If he sees you, you can make up some explanation, but with any luck he will not see me.’

  In truth I could not at all understand why he thought this mission important, especially at so critical a time in my own affairs. I was still smarting, too, from his words about my mental reliability in the hotel.

  ‘But Doctor, this is surely a fool’s errand?’ I said, turning to him to give my words greater emphasis. ‘I cannot see what you hope to achieve. The League is evidently some philanthropic society which administers loans to the needy. Sally Morland indicated that they have many clients from all walks of life. Perhaps Harriet Lowther herself hoped to secure a loan. But why is that of any importance to you?’