The Darlington Substitution (From The Deed Box of John H. Watson MD)

by Ashton, Hugh

  “I suppose there is no harm in your knowing something of the matter. I suspect it to be connected with his heart,” I answered.

  “Ah, his heart. He’s got a good heart, has the young master. Or he had one, anyway, until the accident. Not like some,” replied the one who had been referred to as “Jim”. “After the accident, he changed, as I suppose you’ve been told, sir.”

  I had no immediate answer to give to that, and was relieved to see Bouverie returning, with an elderly man in a black frock-coat, gripping a black bag, whom I took to be the local doctor.

  “Brendell,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand for me to shake. “Glad you were here, Dr—“

  “Watson. John Watson,” I introduced myself. “Are you Lord Hareby’s usual physician?”

  “When he is at the Hall, yes.”

  “Have you observed a previous weakness in his heart?”

  “Yes, indeed. He suffered from rheumatic fever as a young boy, and it left him with a permanently strained heart. Has he suffered from some kind of strain on the heart?”

  “That is my belief,” I answered. “I administered a few grains of digitalis, which seem to have afforded some relief. A word in your ear, Doctor Brendell, if you please?”

  We moved away from the two grooms, and I asked him about the large number of medicine bottles by the side of the bed.

  He gave me a smile which I could only interpret as being conspiratorial. “Most of them are nothing but water or alcohol,” he confided in a whisper. “The old Earl is adamant that something be done for his son in this condition, and quite frankly, this case is beyond my comprehension. I believe that the placebo effect of these bottles does no harm to the patient, and increases the confidence of those around him, if you take my meaning. I assure you there is nothing there that can do him any harm.”

  I was somewhat revolted at this cynical attitude towards my profession, but endeavoured to hide my feelings. However, I felt it incumbent upon me to say something. “If you felt the case was outside your sphere of competence, surely it was your duty to ensure that he received treatment at the hands of those better able to supply that care,” I remarked.

  “That’s as may be, Doctor,” he replied, “but I have a living to make.”

  At this point, I was having severe doubts as to the wisdom of allowing Lord Hareby to travel to the hospital in the company of this doctor, whose competence I had no means of knowing, but whose attitude towards his patient gave me cause for worry. I was torn between my duty to Holmes and to justice, which demanded that I stay in the Hall, ensuring that no evidence of any possible criminal activity was disturbed or destroyed, and my duty to my Oath, which bound me to take care of my patient.

  However, Brendell seemed to sense my dilemma. “Doctor Watson,” he addressed me. “I may be an old man, and my medical technique may not be as advanced or as up-to-date as yours, but I do care for my patients. Believe me, Lord Hareby will be well attended in his journey to the hospital.”

  This reassured me somewhat, and I supervised the transfer of the unconscious man, following the stretcher down the stairs to the carriage drawn up outside the front door of the Hall, which had been admirably equipped for his transfer to the hospital. I saw him safely into the carriage, which trotted away down the drive, and as I turned back to re-enter the Hall, I saw Bouverie, mounted somewhat incongruously on a bicycle, coming the other way towards me. I waited until he arrived at the steps leading up to the front door and dismounted.

  “The telegram has gone off to London, sir,” he informed me. “If there is a reply, I have arranged for it to be brought here as soon and as quickly as possible.”

  “Excellent,” I replied, and entered the Hall, and mounted the staircase. When I returned to the room, I discovered Lady Hareby standing beside the now empty bed. I inwardly cursed my folly in leaving the room, but recollected that the justification I had previously given regarding the prohibition on entering the room, that the patient should not be disturbed, no longer held good, and that there were few satisfactory reasons I could give for continuing the ban on her entry.

  -oOo-

  “So, Doctor,” she greeted me. “i suppose we have reason to be thankful that you are with us today? According to my father-in-law, your diagnosis is that my husband has suffered some sort of disorder of the heart.”

  “I believe that to be the case.”

  “And what, in your professional opinion, would be the cause of this?” She stood, framed against the light from the window, which shone through her hair, creating an aureole of gold around her face, and making it difficult for me to judge her expression.

  “There are many ways for such a condition to occur,” I told her. “It can be the result of strain and stress, either physical, mental or emotional. It can occur in patients who seem otherwise seem healthy. To be frank, modern science is still at somewhat of a loss when determining the cause of such things.”

  “Could it be caused by artificial means? Would it be possible for another to induce such a condition?”

  “It is possible, but impossible to determine with any certitude at this stage.” I was unwilling to commit myself to any definite statements when talking to this woman, whom I could not help but suspect of some nefarious activities.

  “And you have sent him to the hospital together with Dr. Brendell?” she laughed. “That old charlatan.”

  “What reason have you to call him by that name?” I asked her.

  “Doctor John Watson, I had assumed that your association with Sherlock Holmes had led you to observe things that escaped ordinary mortals. Obviously that is not the case. Dr. Brendell learned his medicine in another age, as is made painfully apparent every time I go to Town to consult my physician in Harley Street.”

  “If you have such a low opinion of him, why do you allow him to continue treating your husband?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “Some decisions are not mine to make,” she replied. “He has been the family’s doctor for many years now, and it would take an earthquake to shake my father-in-law’s opinion of him. But you are assuming, are you not, Doctor, that I truly wish to make a change in the treatment of my husband?”

  I had no answer to this, since her words coupled with her physical proximity as she took a step towards me, baffled me and left me unable to arrange my thoughts, not for the first time since I had arrived at Hareby.

  “Never mind,” she said mockingly, observing my perplexity. “I can see that I will learn nothing from you. Maybe there is nothing in you to be learned, anyway.” She held her head high, and with an audible sniff, swept out of the room.

  Looking at my watch, I guessed that several hours would elapse before Holmes arrived, and I resigned myself to a lengthy wait. I glanced at the few books in the room, both to determine if there were some suitable reading material that would enable me to pass the time, and as a way of discovering, if possible, some more about the character of the unfortunate invalid. Not altogether to my surprise, I discovered that all the books concerned themselves with ghosts and superstitions, and all appeared to have been purchased from London booksellers in the past few months; that is to say, following the unfortunate hunting accident.

  I took down one of these books as a way of passing the time, and soon found myself engrossed, despite my better judgement, in a book telling of a house which, if the story were to be believed, had more spirits of the departed than of the living inhabiting it. The story was presented as one of sober fact, and I could not help but smile as I read the tales, imagining how Sherlock Holmes would disperse these superstitious fancies with his incisive reasoning powers. I had finished the first chapter, which continued to make me chuckle, even though that was almost certainly not the intention of the author, and found myself drawn to read the rest, much against my usual habit.

  The book took quite some time for me to finish, and somewhat to my surprise, I found myself reaching for the next book on the shelf after that, having found the first volume to be a
t the least an entertaining way of whiling away the hours. I was interrupted by the butler, Bouverie, who brought me the telegram from Holmes informing me that he was coming to Hareby, and who also, to my surprise, informed me that it was time for lunch. I felt it was not advisable for me to move away from my post, and I requested that a tray be once more brought to me. I informed Bouverie of the train that would be bringing Sherlock Holmes, and asked that a carriage be sent to meet him at Berwick station.

  The lunch was excellent, and it was hard for me to keep my eyes open when I had finished it, but the book I was reading held sufficient interest to keep me from falling asleep completely, though the volume slipping from my hands once or twice brought me to full consciousness with a jerk.

  -oOo-

  Chapter 9: Mr. Sherlock Holmes

  AT length, the sound of wheels outside the window told me that a carriage had arrived, and my guess that it was the carriage that had transported Sherlock Holmes from the station was confirmed when my friend entered the room some minutes later. He was dressed in clothes suitable for the country, in a suit of tweed, and a heavy ulster, with his flapped travelling-cap on his head.

  “Well, Watson, I caught some of the news of the excitement from my worthy coachman. Lord Hareby was taken ill this morning, it appears, and is now in hospital at your orders. What is your diagnosis?”

  “Heart,” I replied, “though I am unsure as to whether it is a natural strain on the heart or has been induced by some person or persons unknown.”

  “You suspect foul play, then?”

  “It would be easier to give you this than for me to explain,” I answered him, handing him my second report which had remained unsent in my pocket for the whole day.

  He scanned it through briefly. “Why did you write this in two different places, and what caused your agitation?”

  “How did you...?”

  “Tush, man, it is simple enough. The quality of the ink and the shape of the pen nib both change halfway through the document, showing that you were in a different location using different implements. If that were not enough, note how the first part of the note blotted on the opposite side when the paper was folded, but not the addendum. Why? Because the addendum was written long after the first part, and the ink was allowed to dry, whereas it was not for the first part. As to the agitation of spirit, it is obvious in the way you form the loops of the ‘y’s and the upstrokes of the ‘l’s and ‘h’s. The pen also digs deeper, almost tearing the paper in places. One would quite believe you had seen a ghost.”

  I could feel myself flushing, but felt the time was inopportune to tell Holmes of the nocturnal visit of Lady Hareby to my bed-room. With a rare tact, Holmes refrained from questioning me further on the matter, though it must have been more than obvious to him that something was amiss in my manner.

  He made his way to the bedside table. “With your medical background, what do you make of this?” he asked me, indicating the mass of bottles and potions. “What do they indicate to you?”

  “That there are rogues in the medical profession, sad to say. I was told by Doctor Brendell, who has charge of the case of Lord Hareby, that the majority of the prescribed medicines are little more than placebos – that is to say, harmless mixtures which have no effect on the taker. His reason for this is to maintain his position as the family doctor. He is baffled by the case, and has no wish to admit it to Lord Darlington for fear of losing a lucrative case, so has adopted this method of ‘treating’ his patient.”

  “At least he does no active harm in this way,” commented Holmes, with more than a touch of cynicism in his voice. “So all these are merely water or some such?”

  “Other than the patent medicine in the bottle with the orange label. That contains a little alcohol, caffeine and some extract of the coca plant, as a general restorative.”

  “Which one is that?” asked my friend. “I see no such bottle here.”

  “It is the one just—” I checked my words, as I failed to discern the bottle in the place where I had first seen and remarked it. “Holmes, it is gone!”

  “You are sure it was there?” he asked, somewhat dubiously.

  “How can you doubt my word?” I pulled out my notebook in which I had sketched the disposition of the bottles as I had observed them.

  “Very good, Watson,” he remarked after a minute’s study. “You have demonstrated a truly excellent attention to detail. Now we must ask ourselves who could have taken it, when they did this, and why they did so. Have you been in the room all the time?”

  “I confess that I went out of the room for a few moments when Lord Hareby was transferred to the carriage to take him to the hospital. Maybe an unpardonable lapse, but I felt in that particular instance that my duty was to the sick man.”

  “I cannot blame you,” said Holmes. “Though I am unlikely to encounter the horns of exactly the same dilemma, I would almost certainly have done the same as you under the circumstances. Have you any suspicions that anyone might have entered the room while you were away?”

  “More than a suspicion, I fear,” I told him. “When I returned after seeing Hareby into the carriage, his wife was in the room.”

  “I see. And obviously you suspect her, though I see you have some reasons for not telling me the whole story. Never mind, my dear Watson, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I perceive, though, that this is not the time to do so.”

  I guessed that Holmes had deduced my state of mind from my agitation, and therefore refrained from asking him about the processes that had led up to that statement.

  “So you suspect foul play?” he asked me. “Are there any other facts you have observed that would support that idea?”

  “When I entered the room this morning, the curtains were drawn halfway back. I spoke to the maid, and she informed me that they were in that state when she first entered the room.”

  “That is an interesting piece of data,” replied Holmes. “Last night was a new moon, and there would be no light from outside at night. We must therefore conclude that the curtains were drawn back this morning after sunrise, if they were drawn back for the purpose of admitting light to the room. This window faces north-east, does it not, judging by the current position of the sun? We can therefore conclude that if the curtains were drawn for the purpose we have just described, it would be in the early morning.”

  “What other purpose can you imagine?” I asked.

  “Why, for the purpose of entry, naturally,” he answered. “As I was driving, I noticed that the outside walls of the Hall are covered with some creeping plant that would provide excellent assistance to any person attempting to climb up to the window. I take it you have not checked for signs of entry?”

  “The thought never occurred to me,” I confessed.

  “Well, then,” said Holmes, withdrawing a large magnifying lens from his pocket, and moving to the window. He used the lens to examine the catch and the wide window-sill thoroughly, before dropping to his knees and subjecting the carpet under the window to the same intense scrutiny. “No,” he declared at length, “no-one appears to have entered through the window. Let us make perfectly sure.” He grasped the catch and forced the casement window, which made a loud creaking sound as he pushed it open. “That sound alone is enough to tell us that there has been no attempt to gain entry through this route,” he said. “Furthermore, if we examine the ivy outside, there is no disturbance to the leaves or twigs such as we would expect from such an attempt. Assuming, as we may, the curtains to have been drawn in the early morning, this would have been done for the purpose of admitting light. These curtains are remarkably thick, and I can imagine that if they were closed,” twitching the curtains shut, “as you can see, it would be almost impossible to carry out any kind of action in this room.”

  “What sort of action?” I asked.

  “That, Watson, is what we are to find out. In your experience as a medical practitioner, I ask you once more whether you consider that Lord Hareby’
s heart trouble to be natural or caused by some malicious influence?”

  “It is quite frankly impossible for me to answer that question.”

  “Let me put a slightly different question to you? Would it be possible to produce a feeling of fear or terror on Lord Hareby such that it would result in the illness you have diagnosed?”

  “In the usual run of things, I would say that it was not possible for an ordinary healthy man to suffer in that way. However, as you know, Lord Hareby was by no means healthy, and his nerves had been shattered as a result of his accident. I would say it was perfectly possible for that to have taken place. But I have no idea what sort of horrors you are suggesting, Holmes.”

  Nor I,” he shrugged, “at present. Let us admit light to the chamber once again,” reaching up to the curtain. “Halloa!” he cried, staying his hand. “Do you see something?” pointing to a spot on the carpet at the foot of the bed that appeared to be glowing with a pale green fire.

  “I see it, but it is a trick of the light, surely?”

  “Not so. May I trouble you to go to that spot and put your finger by it. Take care not to cover it or touch it.”

  I did so, and perceived that the spot indeed appeared to be glowing with its own light, rather than being a reflection or some such, as I had first suspected. Holmes drew back the curtains, and the spot faded.

  “Aha!” Holmes exclaimed as he joined me, and brought his lens to bear on the portion of the carpet beside my finger. “I believe we have a spot of phosphorus here. Most unusual. Watson, mark down the exact position of this spot.” He drew a folding rule from his inside pocket and measured the distance from the bed and from the walls, calling out the readings, which I then duly noted in my notebook. He then stooped down once again, and carefully used the point of his penknife to pick up the almost invisible speck of material and transfer it to an envelope.

  “What is the meaning of this, Holmes?” I could not help asking him.

  “If I knew, I would be a happy man. Stay, what is this?” He picked up a length of white thread, about six inches in length.