Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  I nodded. ‘That is what my theory argues.’

  ‘How many different blood groups have you identified?’

  ‘Four, so far.’

  ‘Might there be more? Might there be very rare sanguigens?’

  I shrugged. ‘It is possible. As I said, opportunities for research have been limited. My paper has hardly set the scientific world on fire.’

  ‘But it has interested me.’ Lord Ruthven smiled. ‘And I am a very rich man, Dr Eliot.’

  ‘So you have said.’

  Lord Ruthven glanced at Haidée. For a few seconds, there was no sound but the ticking of the clock. Haidée, who had been staring into a candle flame since first sitting down, slowly raised her eyes. She licked her lips with a quick, darting tongue and her teeth, I noticed, were very sharp.

  ‘We are both of us,’ she said, then paused, ‘… ill.’ Her voice was silvery and clear, but very distant too, as though coming from a great depth. ‘We would like you to help us find some cure, Dr Eliot.’

  ‘What is its nature?’ I asked.

  ‘It is a sickness of the blood.’

  ‘Yes, but how does it manifest itself? What are its Symptoms?’

  Haidée glanced at Lord Ruthven, who was gazing into his wine. ‘I believe,’ he murmured, still not looking up at me, ‘that we suffer from a form of anaemia.’

  ‘I see,’ I studied him, observing his pallor. ‘And hence your interest in receiving transfusions of blood?’

  ‘Yes,’ He inclined his head faintly. ‘And hence in turn our interest in finding out to which sanguigen – which blood group – we belong.’ Lord Ruthven looked up at me at last. ‘Find out for us. Restore us to our health. Cure this sickness which infects our blood.’ He paused. ‘I can assure you, Doctor, it would be worth your while to have me in your debt.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ I answered, ‘but really, a bribe is not necessary.’

  ‘Nonsense. A bribe will always help. It is only vanity which makes you claim otherwise.’ Lord Ruthven removed a paper from the inside of his jacket and glanced at it. ‘How much would it cost to install the basic equipment your hospital needs?’

  I considered carefully. ‘Five hundred pounds,’ I replied.

  ‘You have it,’ he said at once. He scribbled briefly, then pushed the piece of paper across to me. ‘Present this to my bankers tomorrow. They will see that you receive the money.’

  ‘My Lord, this is remarkably generous.’

  ‘Then, please’ – his eyes narrowed – ‘respond to it with some generosity of your own.’ Still staring at me, he reached for Haidée’s hand and grasped it tightly. A shadow of pain seemed to pass across his face, but was gone as soon as I had noticed it.

  ‘I will need samples of your blood,’ I said, scraping back my chair.

  Lord Ruthven nodded. ‘Of course. Take it now.’

  ‘I can’t, I don’t have the equipment, but if I come back tomorrow…’

  Lord Ruthven held up a hand to silence me. He reached down, and I heard the click of a case being opened and something removed from it. Then he sat upright in his chair again and laid down two syringes in front of me.

  I shook my head. ‘But the blood will clot…’

  ‘No.’

  I looked at him in surprise. ‘But I have no sodium citrate, I will need…’

  ‘We will not wait, Doctor. listen’ – he leaned forward – ‘it is a feature of our sickness that our blood will always remain fluid.’

  ‘Haemophilia?’

  Lord Ruthven smiled mockingly. ‘Our scars heal. Our scars always heal. But when blood is taken directly from the vein, removed as you will remove it through a needle’s point, it never dots. If you don’t believe me, Dr Eliot, you have only to put it to die test.’

  I stared at him doubtfully, but he had already removed his jacket and was rolling up his sleeve. He pinched a blue vein and, staring at it, I saw him close his eyes as though in ecstasy.

  ‘I will need a container, a flask to transport it in,’ I said.

  Lord Ruthven smiled, and gestured with a turn of his head at the maidservant. I glanced at her and saw she was holding two champagne bottles. I opened my mouth to protest, but Lord Ruthven raised a hand. ‘These will be perfectly adequate,’ he insisted, ‘so please, not a word.’

  I shrugged. His taste for melodrama was dearly something I would have to ignore. I took one of the bottles, laid it by Lord Ruthven’s arm and then picked up the syringe. The flow of blood from his vein was very fast and as I withdrew the syringe I saw on his face an expression of deep pleasure. He watched unblinkingly as I decanted the blood into the bottle, then corked it. He picked up the bottle and stared through the thick green glass at the blood. ‘How charmingly Gothic,’ he murmured. He raised it to me. Tour very good health.’

  I repeated the process with Haidée. Her vein was much tougher than Lord Ruthven’s had been. At my first attempt, the point of the needle failed to enter it. I apologised to her, but she seemed to feel no pain and instead merely smiled – sadly, I thought. At the second attempt I succeeded in drawing her blood; it seemed almost impossibly thick. When I decanted it into the second bottle, I saw how dark it looked, and glutinous.

  I have kept the two samples separate and divided them in turn. One test-tube of each patient’s blood I have stored in the cold room; the other I have before me on my desk as I speak. I wish to test Lord Ruthven’s assertion that his blood will not dot. I shall leave it at room temperature until the morning. But for now, it is very late and I must withdraw to bed.

  16 May. – Lord Ruthven was quite correct. It seems impossible, but all the samples of blood – both those in the cold room and those preserved at room temperature – have remained fluid. Am keen to analyse them. Will do so once my morning ward-round is complete.

  1 p.m. – Separation of red blood cells and plasma far advanced. A curiously rapid process: it has taken, I would estimate, thirteen or fourteen hours rather than the customary twenty-four. Significant?

  2 p.m. – Extraordinary results. The red blood cells, in both the residue at the bottom of the test-tubes and in the plasma on die surface, are dead; Lord Ruthven’s self-diagnosis of anaemia is clearly correct, for the red cell count is remarkably low – around 20-15 Per cent haemoglobin, I would estimate. In view of my patients’ otherwise apparent good health last night, this reading was startling enough; but the greatest surprise came with my analysis of the white blood cells which, viewed under die microscope, have proved still to be alive. Not only alive but in great concentration as well, and subject to remarkable protoplasmic activity. It is inconceivable that red blood cells should be dead while the leucocytes remain alive – and yet this seems to be precisely what has occurred.

  Have stored different samples of the leucocytes at different temperatures. Interested to know which will be the first to die. When I have the results, will return to Lord Ruthven.

  Late. – Have been reading through my notes on Kalikshutra. Remarkable points of correspondence with the case in hand. I don’t know what to think.

  I wonder why Huree hasn’t written to me.

  18 May. – Two days gone. Leucocytes remain alive in all four samples. No sign of any degeneration.

  19 May. – Samples as before. In Kalikshutra, the leucocytes were dead two days after extraction from the veins. At the time, I had thought that impossible; but it is clear now that I had not realised what impossibility might be.

  Addendum. – Have wired Calcutta. Huree, it seems, is attending a conference in Berlin. There are aspects of this case he might find interesting. I shall see how the course of my research goes.

  20 May. – Increasingly distracted in the surgery by thoughts of the blood samples upstairs in my room. Still no degeneration of white cells. Uncertain as to how I should proceed.

  An encouraging talk with Mary Kelly, though. I hesitate to repeat the claim, but she seems well on the way to a full recovery. She has been telling me the story of her life – a sad one, as
I had known it would be. A terrible waste, for she seems intelligent enough, and educated too. She talks of returning to her lodgings. I wish I could help her to something more than a single room in some squalid tenement At least now, with Lord Ruthven’s help, I can afford to give her the treatment she still needs.

  Late. – A note from George, obviously written while drunk. He wants to visit Lilah again, and asks if I will accompany him. Have replied at once, telling him on no account to go to Rotherhithe.

  21 May. – To George’s office at Whitehall. To my surprise, am shown in. George rather sheepish and hung-over: he had written the note, he tells me, because he still wants to confront Lilah over the Kalikshutra business, but agrees it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. He gives me his word again. I mollify him by admiring his desk.

  When I return to the surgery, Llewellyn informs me that Mary Kelly has something she wishes to tell me. When I visit her, however, she appears nervous and upset, and talks only of inconsequential matters. Something on her mind, though, that is clear enough.

  Note, Miss Mary Jane Kelly to Dr John Eliot.

  Dere Doctor Elliot, it’s horrible. I wanted to tell you before but I can’t, she’ll know, or leestways that’s how I feel. She’s fading now. I haven’t heard her voice for a long time. But she was there in the beginning in my blood, and that’s what’s making me afrade because I don’t know what’s been happening to me, and what she might know or hear me say or anything. I hope you understand.

  But it is better now like I said. But sometimes I want the blood she took from me back again. I feel dizzy and can’t control what I do. When I saw the dog that was what I felt, I couldn’t control myself. Always animals. Again I am very afrade because I don’t understand. Why do I have these thorts? They are very strong and I can’t resist them, because I just know it, all my blood has been given to animals and changed, I know it, and I want it back. Sometimes when the feelings come and I think I am possessed, I can’t help it.

  But these thorts are fading too. I think I am better now sir. Thank you very much. Yours faithfully

  MARY JANE KELLY (MISS)

  Dr Eliot’s Diary.

  23 May. – A curious note from Mary Kelly. Reference to a mysterious ‘she’ – clearly the negress who had sliced her wrist. Subsequent questioning of the patient confirmed this assumption. Kelly very reluctant to talk about her assailant, though, and would only do so in the lowest of whispers, shaking all the time. Poor woman, she is clearly terrified and nothing I could say would comfort her.

  It seems there are a good number of unpleasant imaginings abroad. At the moment I find that even I am distracted by irrational fears. Reluctant to identify them too closely, so leave them unformed on the margins of my mind. I remember what happened the last time I surrendered to superstition. Must not allow it to happen again.

  The state of the blood samples is unchanged: the leucocytes remain alive.

  26 May. – Mary Kelly talks of discharging herself. I find out later that a man, one Joseph Barnett, had visited her earlier that morning, for the first time since her admission here. Claimed to be her husband; doubtless something worse. I can only assume he is running short of funds.

  Condition of the leucocytes unchanged.

  30 May. – Mary Kelly discharged. Joseph Barnett arrived to help lead her away. I felt strangely saddened at seeing her go. Unprofessional, of course, to identify with any particular patient, but she seems to embody for me all the blighted potential, the wretched waste, that is inflicted on millions of my countrymen. She, and all those like her, deserve so much more.

  Condition of the leucocytes unchanged.

  The implications grow more and more unnerving by the day.

  4 June. – George reported to have called on me while I was out. He wouldn’t leave a message, but I can guess what his business was. According to Llewellyn, he will call again tomorrow.

  1 a.m. – Around midnight, experienced the strangest prickling down the nape of my neck. Turned round. Lord Ruthven was standing behind my chair. I had not heard him enter. He bade me good evening, very coldly, and though he did not say I knew why he had come, and what his purpose was. I glanced back at the test-tubes stored on my desk, and all of a sudden shivered at the thought of Lord Ruthven’s illness, and what it might be. The very idea of his blood, flowing and alive in his veins, filled me with horror. Hard to explain such a feeling, but it was very real.

  Lord Ruthven himself exceedingly cool and restrained, but angry too – sense of some maelstrom beneath a great sheet of ice. He asked me very softly how my work was progressing; I answered him by explaining my research on his blood cells, but his anger seemed unappeased.

  ‘Why should you be surprised, Doctor?’ he asked me coldly. ‘I told you before that our blood would never clot, and as for the blood cells – well …’ He paused, and smiled for the first time that night. ‘You saw such a thing in Kalikshutra, did you not?’

  I stared at him, surprised, then asked him how he knew.

  ‘I have read all your papers,’ he replied, ‘even the most obscure.’ I should be flattered, I suppose. The article was printed only in India; Lord Ruthven must have gone to some effort to obtain it. ‘So then, Doctor,’ he pressed me, removing his coat and unbuttoning his sleeve, ‘have you started your work yet on a cure for the disease?’

  ‘Disease, my Lord?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘the same disease you described in your paper.’ He stared at me in sudden disbelief. ‘What?’ he exclaimed. ‘All this time and you haven’t even recognised it in the samples of our blood? Why do you think I approached you at all?’

  ‘But die disease described in my paper does not exist outside Kalikshutra,’ I replied.

  Lord Ruthven raised an eyebrow. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘If you have read my paper on the blood type I studied there,’ I told him, ‘then you will know that the leucocytes survived for only forty-eight hours. Yours have been active for over two weeks now.’

  ‘Then it is clear, is it not, that my condition must be all the more advanced?’

  ‘My Lord,’ I told him, trying to make him understand, ‘your cells are of a quite different order from any I have ever seen before. Yes, I admit there is a certain resemblance to those I studied in the Himalayas. But it is the differences which are more significant. Yours are not degenerative. Yours do not affect your appearance and mental health, which if anything appear to have been enhanced. Your cells, in short, show not the slightest sign of dying at all’

  Lord Ruthven looked up at me, his grey eyes hard as jewels.

  ‘Do you not see,’ I insisted, ‘the implications of what I am saying?’

  He sneered faintly. ‘I understand them quite well enough.’

  ‘Why, my Lord…’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘But in the name of God…’

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘But you can’t understand – I mean … we could be talking of virtual immortality.’

  Lord Ruthven did not reply to this. But as I opened my mouth to repeat what I had said, I felt my tongue suddenly dry and stick to my throat. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but the horror seemed to submerge me again. Then Lord Ruthven smiled; he extended his naked arm. The terror ebbed away from me.

  ‘I have paid you,’ he told me, ‘to undertake a programme of research. You will require a fresh sample of my blood. Take it.’

  I did so. The sample is in the cold room now. Tomorrow I must intensify my analysis. I shall give Lord Ruthven any results I obtain as soon as I can, for I accept that through my delays I have indeed wronged him. But why my reluctance? Why – I must admit to the word – my dread? The behaviour of his blood cells is admittedly extraordinary; but there is surely a rational explanation for their state. What more exciting task in all medicine could there be than to identify it? Who knows what mysteries might then be solved?

  I shall work on the sanguigens tomorrow afternoon.

  Telegram, Dr John Eliot to Prof
essor Huree Jyoti Navalkar.

  5June.

  Come as soon as you can. Remarkable developments. Need your advice urgently. Have no one else to whom I can turn.

  JACK.

  Dr Eliot’s Diary.

  5 June. – Let me remind myself aloud of my methods. It is important that I do so, for I am afraid that otherwise I may plunge into wild and illogical conclusions. I must clear my head of all imaginings, all the fervid emotions to which I have of late been prey, and approach the data with the cold disinterest of the scientist This is a singular affair, that is true enough – and yet it has always been the singular, in my experience, which has proved most fruitful when examined with care. Let me banish all thoughts of the fantastical, then; let me lay down the facts, and the bare facts alone. Deduction is nothing if it fails to be exact.

  Very well. This morning, in the early hours, I began my analysis of Lord Ruthven’s blood, and specifically my attempt to identify his sanguigen. I took a smear and placed the slide beneath my microscope. As before, I observed how the red cells were dead and the white cells still alive. I then took a sample of my own blood and added it to the slide. Results immediate. Phagocytosis of the type identified by Netchnikoff: my own blood cells, both red and white, attacked by the white cells in Lord Ruthven’s blood, absorbed, and broken down. Sample then seemed to pulse, almost as though some charge were being generated; even with the naked eye, I could see the smear shimmer and expand on the slide. Agglutination of a kind, then; but better described, perhaps, as annexation, for my own cells have been utterly overwhelmed and destroyed.

  I repeated the process with the weeks-old samples of leucocytes, both Lord Ruthven’s and Haidée’s: results the same. I then took samples of blood from Llewellyn and two of the nursing aides, whose blood types I had previously identified as being mutually distinctive; but with all three sanguigens, the cells were attacked and absorbed just as mine had been, and once the process was finished it was as though they had never been. The red cells in Lord Ruthven’s blood, however, which previously had been quite dead, were now reanimated – a result so extraordinary, and so contrary to medical science, indeed all science, that I can still scarcely credit it. The proof, however, is incontrovertible: I have persisted with my experiments, drawing blood from all the volunteers I could persuade to help me, and the results have continued the same as before. Conclusion? It would seem that Lord Ruthven’s condition is of a kind never before even suspected by medical science; his blood type, certainly, is something quite strange to me. But beyond that, I cannot – I will not – yet deduce.