by Pirie, David
And, happy to have regained the initiative, if only with more boasts, he proceeded to lecture me on his intention to create his own form of drama. I gathered this would embrace people from life rather than actors, but the details were hard to follow and I found myself staring round at his study’s bizarre furnishings. Beyond the furniture was a large space, which seemed to contain a bewildering mass of billiard cues, packing cases, pistols, rifles and cartridges, as well as what looked like an electric battery and a large magnet. The walls at this end were pocked with bullet marks.
With his usual acumen, Cullingworth saw my interest. ‘You wish to know what it is?’ he demanded. ‘Then I will show you. You are looking at my magnetic ship protector.’
I assumed he must be joking. Of course, I should have known better. ‘I will demonstrate it,’ he said as Hettie appeared through the door with some fresh brandy and water. ‘I am taking the thing up with the admiralty in a week or two.’ And he sprang to his feet and went over to the magnet. I followed him.
‘Hettie, come here,’ he called. ‘You will help me to show Dr Doyle?’
‘Why, yes, sir, of course,’ she said, smiling prettily.
He picked up the magnet and, to my amazement, pulled Hettie’s head towards him and started fiddling with her bonnet and hair. ‘What I will do’, he said, with more excitement than I liked, ‘is to put this in Hettie’s hair here. And fire six rounds straight into her face. How’s that for a test? You wouldn’t mind, Hettie, eh?’
The girl went a little pale, but she smiled and nodded submissively.
Quickly I snatched it away. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I will be the guinea pig.’
Cullingworth looked a little peeved, but he could hardly insist. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said. ‘But it’s perfectly safe with steel bullets. I’ll use the pistol. Hettie, you may go.’
Hettie left us, looking relieved. I held that magnet as far away from me as I possibly could and he aimed the pistol. ‘See,’ he said. ‘I aim at your finger and you will find I do not hit it. The magnet will take the dart. When the ships are protected with my apparatus, why nobody will be able to hit them for a farthing! See?’
He fired and the magnet went flying. ‘There!’ he shouted triumphantly. ‘Plumb in the middle, eh?’
‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘You never hit it at all.’
‘Never hit it? I must have hit it.’
‘You did not.’
‘So where’s the dart?’
I held up my bleeding forefinger with the dart still in it. ‘Here.’
‘My dear chap,’ said Cullingworth, ‘I must have moved. Quickly.’ He rushed me to the basin and used his forceps to remove the thing, bandaging me up with great care and solicitude. ‘My profuse apologies, Doyle. Tomorrow we will study the trajectory on the target. I must be out somewhere on my calculations.’ But fortunately we never did study it further. For, by the next day, Cullingworth had moved on to plans for his newspaper and a new political party.
It was a part of the odd routine of Cullingworth’s strange practice that every Wednesday he abandoned his noisy flock, changed his working methods and offered paying consultations.
The object here was to attract a better class of patient and certainly none of the usual rabble put a nose inside the practice on that day, though it could hardly be said we saw enough people to make up for their absence. It had been on a Wednesday, while Cullingworth was away pursuing some scheme for patenting bullet-proof steel, that I encountered Miss Heather Grace and a few days later that I made the visit to the road by her house. In the weeks that followed I found myself constantly hoping she would return. But for two Wednesdays running there was no sign of her.
Instead, as I waited listlessly in the corridor with little to do, I was introduced by Baynes to Cullingworth’s proudest Wednesday catch, a large and evidently wealthy Spaniard with gold rings on his fingers, called Garcia. Señor Garcia grinned at me and shook my hand, and had so much trouble saying ‘Good morning’ in English that I was surprised Cullingworth could converse with him at all. But his suit was resplendent, a velvet and lace affair with silver buttons like tiny mirrors. The man also had an odd mannerism of touching his ear lobe as he talked, though it was hard to understand much of what he said.
‘The man is stuffed with money and I have made quite a friend of him,’ Baynes said to me after he had shown Garcia into Cullingworth’s consulting room. ‘He keeps several hundred in a chest in his house just for eventuality. Why, if we lured him into a game of cards, perhaps I could come by some of it and we could turn our backs on this place for good.’
After that, we went on to talk gloomily about our respective futures. Baynes, who as always was juggling a pair of gaming dice in his agile, delicate hands, told me he would have to go back to Barts and finish his training, while I saw little hope of easily obtaining another job until I had something behind me. I would have to continue here until I had saved some money.
By this time I was in truth heartily sick of life in Southsea with Cullingworth. Our night-time drinking was already a thing of the past and much of his friendliness had vanished. The quarrel over the tonic was never overtly renewed but the memory clearly rankled and he would make sly remarks about my ‘pauper’s sense of honour’. I could ignore this and I could avoid him, but I had begun to ask myself what exactly I was doing with my life. It was not as if I seemed to be making much of my medical degree. I had struggled to find a position, yet my patients were few and far between, and in the one case where I might have done some good I had behaved like an inept Don Quixote, leaving my patient more confused and demoralised than before. Little wonder she had not returned.
What was worse, a part of me felt more than ever concerned that Miss Grace did need some kind of help. I was haunted by the memory of that road and the rectory, and the fierce figure I had seen at its door. There was a sense of fear about the place. Yet, if anything, I had only added to her unhappiness.
The fact that I had so little to do made things worse, for it gave me time to indulge myself in such introspection. Looking back, I was indeed very lonely. And I could not even write home to Edinburgh, for in the sense I had once known it there was no home. My father was in an asylum and had been for some years. My mother had abandoned Edinburgh for Waller’s estate in Masongill on the Yorkshire borders. She had her own cottage there, from which she wrote, but Waller ruled the whole place as his fiefdom. It was very hard to think of it as home.
And so it was that my thoughts turned back to Joseph Bell. As I have said, our meagre correspondence had faded out completely, we were estranged. Yet I often thought of him, and since leaving Edinburgh I had rarely been so much in need of a friendly letter and his advice. Moreover, I reflected, he might be interested to hear I was working with another of his old pupils. Once I had thought of it, the idea took hold. I would write to the Doctor …
Inevitably, perhaps, in the circumstances, the letter grew. I wrote of my lack of success abroad, I wrote of Cullingworth’s practice, I wrote of various features of my current life and, of course, because I felt it would interest him, I wrote in confidence of my patient, Miss Grace, and her persistent cyclist. Also, knowing that Bell quite often came south on various matters of business, I expressed a hope that we might meet at some future date.
I sent the letter off full of anticipation and was severely disheartened when a week went by without even an acknowledgement. The doctor was a meticulous correspondent, so I wondered if he thought it better to end our acquaintance. Given my silence and our past disagreements, it would in some ways be understandable.
One afternoon, at the end of a day when once again I had seen no patients, I was seated in my consulting room deep in such gloomy thoughts, when slowly I became aware of raised voices outside in the surgery corridor. At first I thought one of the patients had had a seizure, except I knew the practice was almost empty. Then the door of my consulting room flew open and Cullingworth burst in. His face was flushed red and he had a lette
r in his hand.
‘Not only do I regard it as a breach of etiquette,’ he was shouting. ‘It is a breach of hospitality! And worse, of friendship!’
‘What breach?’ I stood in surprise.
He brandished the thing in front of me. ‘I bring you in, Doyle. I entrust you with my practice, my household and even show you my magnetic ship protector. In return you whine on about ethics to anyone who will listen, run your work like a charity and now you steal my patients.’
‘Steal?’ I asked, baffled.
He was so angry it was hard to follow him, but his next outpouring at least gave me the writer of the letter. ‘What the deuce is this about you helping Miss Grace with her mad problems? Is this more of the detective babble you spoke of one night? Why, you would no more make a detective than an egg-laying hen.’
‘But I merely helped her in a small matter …’ Of course I knew Cullingworth’s whims, but I was still at a loss to understand this outburst.
He was shaking the letter in his fury. ‘And now she says she wishes you to have exclusive claim as her practitioner. She was always a liar and a trull! Why, she was once in an asylum!’
I understood at once, now, and my pleasure in the contents of the letter was matched by my anger at such vicious insults. ‘I know, Cullingworth,’ I said, my fury making me speak slowly and distinctly, ‘that this practice is run on exploitation and greed. But I scarcely realised it also attacked and dishonoured its patients.’
His face became even redder. ‘Now you question my honour!’ He dived for a cupboard where some sporting equipment had been stored and grasped two pairs of boxing gloves. ‘Then I will fight three rounds with you here and now.’
‘No. This is tomfoolery.’ He seemed to have taken leave of his senses.
But he pulled the gloves on himself and squared up to me. ‘Come on.’
I would have none of it. Cullingworth taunted me, however. He moved round me, whirling his arms, still roaring, and landed a punch on my shoulder, then one much harder on my solar plexus.
‘It is absurd,’ I said, putting up my hands to calm him. But this only goaded him to further fury.
He swung savagely at my head, landing a blow that knocked me back on my feet. I saw the idiocy of it all, but I was past caring now myself and another punch almost cut my eye. That was enough. I was not going to let him use me as a punchbag, so I pulled on the gloves, squaring up to him.
He smiled at this, but not for long. I feinted with my left, landed one hard on his head and then jabbed another squarely under his chin, which sent him reeling back; indeed, he almost fell to the ground.
As fate would have it, this was just the moment that Baynes looked in and grinned broadly to see his employer nearly on the ropes. Cullingworth ran over to the door in a fury and slammed it in his face. Then he turned back to me and, seeing I was fully prepared to dish out more, he changed tack.
‘No, you refuse, you will not fight? Well, so be it, but I will not stand by while you let this practice go to the devil. We part company here and now, laddie. And if you think yourself so highminded a doctor, then you may take your chances on your own.’
‘Once you pay me for my services, I will certainly try,’ I replied.
‘I will give you more than I owe,’ he said. ‘Only in rent.’
‘In rent?’ I was not sure what he meant and, rather ominously, I noticed his good humour was returning.
‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘I already have a town house earmarked for the expansion of my practice. I will pay your rent for a year, which is more than I owe you. The sale room will give you credit for a desk and a couch, and the chemist for drugs. You may box foul, but let us see who does best as a doctor. We will discover how you fare with your milk-and-water tactics soon enough, laddie.’
With that he clapped me on the back, for all the world as if we were the best of friends again, and summoned me for a brandy that would seal the end of our association. Of course, his sudden generosity could not be taken at face value. He had an agenda of his own. But over the years I have come to believe there was more to it than that. I think, thanks perhaps to his odd intuition, he sensed something of what lay ahead for me and it gave him pleasure.
THE SOLITARY CYCLIST
And so it was that a few days later I stood somewhat aghast in the hall of a large town house that now counted as my own. Everywhere was silent and deserted. I was the occupier of a property in a pleasant road and yet there was not a stick of furniture in the whole place. After a night on a bare bedroom floor, I spent hours renting the meagre furniture I could afford and the best of it had to go into making a credible consulting room. I struggled to pull in a desk, two chairs, a table and a cabinet. Soon it was the only properly furnished room in the whole place, though I tried to make two bedrooms habitable for I reasoned I would be of little use to patients without sleep. Some hours later, in the dead of night, I mounted my plaque outside the wall.
Next day, a Tuesday, I arranged my credit with the druggist, asking him to put word around and optimistically awaited my first patient. After a time I stood nervously at an upstairs window, counting the few pence I had left in the world and watched the street. A few passers-by saw the plaque but seemed to make nothing of it. Soon it was past one and my pride began to drain away. I was wondering what I had let myself in for.
On Wednesday and Thursday I spent my time watching from the window or walking through the town in the vain hope of seeing some kind of accident. By Friday I was beginning to realise that, while my old employer had not succeeded in beating me at boxing, he had certainly set me up for a fall. It was not as if I could even have upped sticks and gone back to Edinburgh. For now I owed money, which I did not have, to the chemist and the sale room.
But at least one matter diverted me. On the first evening after I left Cullingworth I wrote to Miss Grace, explaining that although my circumstances had changed I would be more than grateful to attend her as my patient in my own premises. There was no reply by the Friday but even so I had decided to occupy the useless time I had at my disposal that weekend by a further attempt to help her and perhaps solve her puzzle.
With no prospect of borrowing Cullingworth’s bicycle on this occasion I had to walk and so I did, for thirteen miles that bright Saturday. Fortunately I knew Miss Grace was likely to cycle the road for she had given me a full account of her weekly journeys. Her uncle was very particular about his Sunday fare and various fresh items were always collected from a nearby farm late on a Saturday. So, unlike before, this would enable me to watch her outward journey on the road as well as her return home.
I had also made up my mind that she would only learn about my weekend expedition when I had something concrete to report. If she was suffering from some form of hysteria, I had no intention of aggravating her condition by announcing another failure. So I took up my position early on that Saturday afternoon with some care. I reached the start of the lonely stretch of moorland road some time after two, and arranged myself behind a broad bank that was covered in grass and bracken. With a long wait ahead of me, I whiled away the time by trying to recall Bell’s precepts for the task ahead. The Doctor had Four Stages of Detection he would always intone: Investigation, Observation, Deduction, Conclusion. Of course, a part of me feared there might be nothing at all to observe on this occasion, but I was still resolved to follow the precepts as carefully as I could.
Far away to my right I could just see the gibbet and, as I stared, I almost fancied I saw a grey shape swaying in the breeze below it, but I knew perfectly well it must only be a branch. Then I became aware of some movement beyond the shape. Only a blurred outline, but it was growing in size and soon I could quite distinctly make out Miss Grace cycling furiously towards me along the road.
I watched her intently but could observe absolutely no sign of anyone else. This made it all the more vital she did not see me, so I crouched down very low to be sure I was invisible. Now I could only watch the road directly ahead of me and within
a few moments she came into view, looking straight ahead, pedalling fiercely. Her appearance shocked me. She was pale and frightened, utterly rigid in the saddle, all her features tense. She seemed determined to keep going at all costs and I found the spectacle thoroughly unnerving. There was nobody else on the road. She was obviously fleeing from some phantom of her mind. How was I to tell her this?
After she flashed past, I lay there with a heavy heart. But just as I started to get up in order to watch her disappear round the bend of the road, there came a noise like rasping breath. A shape loomed up directly in front of me. It was on a bicycle and crouched very low as it rode, but it was travelling fast, so fast, indeed, that the head seemed a mere blur, yet there was a horrible intensity about its posture. It reminded me of some quivering insect closing on its prey. Then it was gone.
I had no scruples about showing myself now and leapt to my feet. Miss Grace had turned the corner but the figure was still visible and I ran into the road after it with a shout, cursing the fact that I had no bicycle of my own.
I do not know if I was heard, but it seemed to ride faster. I always had speed on the rugby pitch and now I set a pace as fast as I could. Not fast enough, for the shape reached the corner of the road. I was there a few moments later and turned. Stopping in amazement, gasping for air, my heart pounding. Far ahead of me in the distance I could see Miss Grace and the outline of the farm that was her destination. But that was all. The mysterious pursuer had vanished. There was not a sign of it anywhere.
