The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  “But you raise more questions than you answer,” protested Ledyard. “Charles Alderton also died in the pit, alone. And there has been a legend about the Beast that dwells there for hundreds of years.”

  “I know,” said Darwin. “That was a real problem. As I told Jacob, the idea of an immortal being, or one with a vast lifetime, is anathema to me. It would be contrary to the survival of that species. So, I turned the question around. Accept that there had been strange events in the Alderton Pit for hundreds of years. What could it be, that could endure for five or more generations?”

  The other three were silent. “Some kind of spirit?” ventured Alice.

  “No spirits. For me, that would be the court of last resort, and contrary to all that I believe about the natural world. Is there anything else that could persist so long? I can think of one thing.”

  He turned to Ledyard. “Doctor, forget the pit, the Immortal, and all the talk of supernatural events. Imagine that you had just entered the room tonight for the first time. You went to the pit, I know, to protect Alice from what you had come to fear as a werewolf. You may be comforted to know that I believe your attack on Philip Alderton truly saved Alice’s life. But suppose all that had not been in your mind. As a doctor, what would you have diagnosed in Philip Alderton, when he rose from that chair?”

  Ledyard stared thoughtfully at the table for a few seconds. He looked up quickly, dark eyes full of surmise. “With those symptoms? They could well have been the onset of grand mal.”

  Darwin clapped his hands together. “Exactly. They could indeed have been caused by an epileptic seizure, a convulsive fit. Now that, as we well know, can be carried for many generations. It is a disease with a strong tendency to perpetuate itself through a family line. Charles Alderton, as you had already told me, died of a seizure. He had been alone in the pit when it happened. A severe convulsion, with no medical help nearby, could well be fatal to one of advancing years, who was already in failing health. The strain to the system is great in a case of grand mal.”

  “But Philip is not an epileptic,” cried Alice. “His health has always been good. I have known him for over a year, and he has never been sick in all that time.”

  “And what does the pit have to do with all this?” objected Ledyard. “If Alderton were to suffer a seizure, why should it be only when he was in a hole in the ground?”

  Darwin had picked up the same meat pie and was again sniffing at it suspiciously. “I hope that the cook has not been foolish enough to omit the cloves from a squab pie,” he said in a worried voice. “I can smell mutton, onions and apples—but where are the cloves? I must have a word with her tomorrow.”

  He again replaced the pie on the table. “Why in a hole in the ground? Yes, indeed. That was a most difficult question. Accept that Philip killed Barton and the hounds, when he had no control over his actions. Remember, too, his look of the Viking, and recall the berserker, who showed tremendous strength when the killing rage was on him in Norse battles. Recall that Philip’s clothes showed that he had been in some desperate fray at the bottom of the pit. It still left the question: why in the pit? And what had Gerald Alderton’s old warning about the moon, the wind and the mill to do with all this? That was when I decided that I had to look at this pit, when the conditions were right for the appearance of the Beast.”

  “I wish you had told me more of this at the time, Erasmus,” grumbled Pole. “I don’t know anything about your grand mal, but the idea of being down there with the Lambeth Immortal was quite a grand enough mal to frighten me. ‘Wind strong on the Mill’ was quite right—you could hear my bowels churning with it from twenty paces.”

  “You surprise me, Jacob,” Darwin said. He smiled his gap-toothed smile. “Are you not the man who tells of the midnight ascent of a Shiraz temple, guarded by the spirits of a thousand years of dead priests? You told me that on that occasion you did not turn a hair.”

  “Nor did I.” Pole sniffed. “But there were rubies promised at the end of that climb. And a collection of heathen spirits are not half so alarming as a giant hound, ready to rip my backside off while I’m trying to scramble out of the pit.”

  “There is a legend of gold near the pit, also,” said Ledyard. “A Viking treasure that was buried somewhere near here.”

  “Now, you should never have said that.” Darwin swore heartily. “I’ll never get him away from here now. Jacob, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, with or without you.” He turned again to Ledyard. “Did you ever read any of the works of Fracastoro of Verona? It is no idle question,” he added, seeing Ledyard’s puzzled look.

  Ledyard shook his head.

  “You should do so,” went on Darwin. “His book on the methods of infection, De Contagione, sets a new direction for the analysis of disease propagation. He was an acute observer, and an ingenious experimenter. I thought of him when we were in the pit the other night. In one of his works, there is a brief discussion of epilepsy. He asserted, without further comment, that seizures can in some cases be induced artificially in a patient. He talked of exposing the sufferer to a regular, flickering light, as might be accomplished by a rotating wheel that intercepts a beam of sunlight entering a darkened room.”

  The others looked again at the instrument that stood at the far end of the table, the fan motionless on its front.

  “The sweeps of the mill,” Alice said suddenly. “We saw them tonight, cutting across the moon’s face.”

  Darwin nodded. “If James Ledyard had not come tonight, you might not now be a living woman. When you are at the bottom of the pit, the rising moon strikes behind the mill. A strong wind turns the sweeps at their highest rate. The latticework in the rotating arms makes that flickering pattern to the eyes. I noticed it, thought of Fracastoro’s remarks, and tried to time the period of the light. That device”—he pointed along the table—“achieves the same effect, independent of mill, moon, and wind. I had to have a way of varying the pace, since I was not sure of the exact frequency that would affect Philip Alderton.”

  “And Charles Alderton was similarly affected?” asked Ledyard.

  “And Gerald Alderton also.” Darwin nodded. “Gerald somehow discovered the circumstances that led to his seizures, and he tried to warn his descendants, while not revealing the family’s misfortune to the world. It is ironic to think that it was his message that lured Charles and Philip to the pit, and assured the new appearance of the Immortal.”

  Bretherton entered the room as Darwin was speaking. “Mister Philip is awake. He seems very tired, but otherwise in no discomfort. He is bewildered to again be in his bed, when his last memory was of sitting in the dining room. I have told him nothing.”

  Ledyard stood up. “I will go to him. He is still my patient, regardless of tonight’s events.”

  Alice did not speak, but she rose to her feet and left the room with Ledyard and Bretherton.

  “She’s had a terrible shock,” said Pole. He was looking at Darwin shrewdly. “Her fiancй is a murderer. How will she react to that?”

  Darwin shook his head. “I cannot tell. Alderton is not a pleasant man, and he is overbearing and graceless with the servants. But he must be pitied.”

  “James Ledyard is very fond of Alice,” probed Pole. “And I think that you are very well disposed toward Ledyard. Do you now propose to have Alderton arrested as a murderer, for the killing of Tom Barton?”

  Darwin sighed. His grey, patient eyes were troubled and weary. “Don’t bait me, Jacob. You know the answer to that question very well. I am a doctor. My task is to save life, not to take it.”

  “And you think that James Ledyard has the same view?”

  “His feelings for Alice make his decision harder, but I think he will reach the same conclusion. Our concern must be only to make sure that nothing like this can happen again. The Alderton epilepsy is a rare form, apparently called forth only by that special stimulus of a flickering light. When Alderton finds out what he did, I hope that he will offer himself for tre
atment or restraint.”

  “And if he does not choose to do so?”

  Darwin sighed, and shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Then he must be forced to accept medical help, or placed where he can do no further harm. Remember, he must not be blamed for the sickness itself. He cannot help that disease, any more than you are to be blamed for your malaria. But he must accept responsibility for its control. Gerald Alderton faced a similar problem, and when he found out the truth he gave his life to religious works. But he already had children. Philip may decide, faced with the facts, that the Alderton line must end with him. That is not our decision.”

  He looked across at the remains of the food. In an absentminded way, he had slowly disposed of most of it, even the despised cloveless squab pie. He pushed his chair away from the table.

  “If that happens,” he went on. “I feel sure that James Ledyard will be more than happy to comfort Alice—and even squire her around the tombs of Egypt, if she wishes it. Ledyard has a genuine flair for the interpretation of early history.”

  “And you still propose that we should be on our way tomorrow for Lichfield?” asked Pole. “You are really willing to let Philip Alderton, James Ledyard and Alice Milner resolve the rest of this matter between them?”

  “I think so.” Darwin yawned and rose heavily from the table. “It is no longer our business. Come on, Jacob. I want to take a look at Philip Alderton, and it’s getting late. We’ve had a busy day. One way or another, we’ve ended a family line, removed a Beast from the pit, and killed an Immortal. Now I have to go and look at a patient.”

  THE SOLBORNE VAMPIRE

  It was late afternoon on the shortest day of the year. An iron frost had lain since noon on the ground outside, and now it was settling on the flat roof of the square brick warehouse.

  At nine o’clock of that same morning, the building roof had been comfortably warm. The temperature inside had been scorching hot, well over ninety degrees. The explosion of the boiler, at twenty-seven minutes before midday, had taken out every window and scattered fragments of glass and black iron a quarter mile in every direction. The inside heat had been bleeding away ever since. Wet towels were turning rigid, and soon once-boiling water in jugs and bowls would freeze.

  The injured had been treated and the dead removed. The clean-up crew had done their best and were leaving. Shards of metal, embedded deep in solid brick walls, would have to wait, as would a thorough examination of the shattered relic in the middle of the room.

  Just two people remained. The younger, a man of about forty with a gloomy, introspective face, was pacing one wall. He would not look at the ruined steam engine.

  “That’s it,” he said. “It’s all over. I should never have left Glasgow. I’ll not build another one, no matter how you and Matthew urge.”

  Erasmus Darwin had been picking up bloody rags and swabs and dropping them into a bucket. Now he straightened. He had worked through the previous night with a difficult delivery, and awakened to come to the Birmingham suburb after only three hours of sleep. His fat face was grey and he drooped with fatigue, but he permitted no sign of that to show in his voice.

  “You won’t build another tonight, Jimmy, that I will admit. But tomorrow? Wait and see. I’ll wager you will see differently.”

  “You would lose. I’m finished with all of this. I’ll go back to instrument making.”

  “You cannot do that.” Darwin bent to pick up one last rag, grunted at his aching bones, and moved to where his medical chest stood on a work bench. Somehow, despite his weariness, the smile on his pockmarked face managed to be reassuring. “You must labor on, Jimmy. The world awaits the perfection of your ideas. The day will come when they”—he swept a hefty arm to take in the whole of the north of England—“will use your engines to drive a million spinning jennys. Your inventions will run the world. A hundred years from now, water power will be one with Nineveh and Babylon.”

  “Waterwheels at least do not kill and maim.”

  “One man died here—miracle enough, seeing the force of the explosion. And I gather that Ned Sumpton disobeyed your orders.”

  “I told him not to start without me, that I would be busy at the Soho works until noon.” For the first time, the balding Scotsman glanced at the wreckage of the engine that reflected so much of his dreams and labor. “Ned was so impatient. I said to him, time and time, steam is not a toy, it’s a force of nature. You treat it lightly at your peril. And then to ignore the pressure, and never to check the safety valve…”

  “Whatever he did, he paid for that and more.” Darwin closed the brass clasps on his medical chest. “Jimmy Watt, if you have trouble handling your job, how would you deal with mine? You’ve seen just one death today. Do you realize that it’s my second, and close to being my third? I was able to save the mother—I hope—but the baby died within two hours of delivery.”

  “I couldn’t handle your job, Erasmus. I know it, and you know it. Even if I had your medical knowledge, I lack your fortitude.”

  “As I lack your skills as engineer. There is space in the world for many complementary talents. As for fortitude, that is not innate. It is acquired by practice.” Erasmus Darwin glanced out of the nearest window, now a ragged square of emptiness in the whitewashed wall. “Jimmy, tonight I think I will have to throw myself on your hospitality. I do not see a trip home as feasible unless I abandon the sulky. Even then it would be difficult. The roads were bad coming, and now they’ll be like iron.”

  “Of course.” The other man roused himself. “I’m a barbarian. You must be exhausted and starving. And in any case, if I sent you off without his seeing you, Matthew would never forgive me. You can stay with me. Let’s go and have dinner now—if you feel ready for it?”

  “I can hardly wait.” Darwin hefted his medical chest and braced it against his broad chest. “I am famished. Will we eat at your home, also?”

  “Oh, I think not. I’m not much of a one for eating, the way that you are.” Watt surveyed Darwin’s ample stomach, and for the first time since the accident a glint of humor came to his eye. “I think we’ll dine at Matthew’s. He has more money than both of us together, and he keeps a far better table. And he’ll be agog to know what new ideas you’ve had since the last Lunar Society meeting.”

  “You mean I will have to sing for my supper? What makes you think I am ready for that?”

  “If you’re not, it will be the first time ever.” Watt was leading the way through a battered warehouse door that hung crooked on its hinges. “Come on. A wash, a nap, and a good meal. I’ll send word to Lichfield that you won’t be home tonight.”

  * * *

  As the first night of winter put its lock on the land, the chance of more visitors to Matthew Boulton’s sprawling and battlemented house seemed small. The house turned inward, shutters barred and doors bolted. Outside, a light fall of snow had begun. It was too cold for large flakes. The tiny stinging crystals did not settle where they fell, but blew restlessly across the surface in response to variable breaths of wind too weak to move tree branches. Small drifts built up against the hedgerows. Badgers burrowed deeper in their sets, and foxes followed their noses across the frozen countryside in search of winter hares.

  Within the house, all was snug and festive. Christmas was only four days away, and ivy, holly, and mistletoe hung above the fireplace of the great dining room. At the long table, dishes came and came: smoked eel, broiled turbot, veal and ham pie, quails stuffed with chestnuts, stargazy pie, capons stuffed with onions and oysters, a great smoking round of roast beef flanked by roast parsnips and potatoes and carrots, brandied plum pudding with candied peel and hard sauce, and finally a whole wheel of Stilton cheese. Boulton, owner of the finest metal works in Europe, knew his man. He offhandedly apologized for the absence of roast goose and suckling pig. The staff had scheduled those closer to Christmas. If only he had known that Darwin would be here…

  “You would have done no differently.” Restored by an hour of sleep and a mounta
in of food, Darwin was in his element. An appreciative audience inspired him. Between mouthfuls of dried apricots he had been enlarging on Dr. Withering’s extraordinary and recent success with the humble foxglove to alleviate or even cure cases of dropsy, and the potential of that new dried-leaf decoction to supplement Jesuit-bark, aloes, and guaiacum. Even Watt seemed, in his interest in the subject, to be forgetting the day’s disaster— except at some deep inner level always present in the gloomy, self-doubting Scot.

  “You are, Matthew,” Darwin went on, “a person of method.”

  At that moment the iron knockers on the great double doors of the house sounded like the hammer of doom.

  Watt and Darwin jerked upright. Boulton did not react at all.

  “Happens every night of the year,” he said cheerfully. “Creditors, or councilmen, or couriers. Seeing it’s close to Christmas, maybe it’s carollers. Musgrave will see to them. Go on, ’Rasmus. You were, I think, about to enlarge on the uses of tartar of vitriol.”

  Darwin was not listening; or rather, he listened to something else: voices resounding in the slate-floored and oak-panelled entrance hall.