by David Pirie
‘A boring assembly in general,’ he observed. ‘Mainly travellers en route to Salisbury and Bath. Some, I would say, were here for the fishing and—’ He broke off. His hand, which had been tapping the book as he searched, froze. His head darted forward a few inches after a fashion I knew so well.
He was silent for a time and his right hand made one slow beat upon the page as he sat there. At last he looked up at me, putting down his cup and handing me the book.
I knew he had been looking near the beginning of the page and it did not take long to see what he meant. There were two names that meant nothing and then another that seemed to stand alone. The two at the top were in differentiating but neat copperplate, the third quite different.
John Hargreaves and daughter, 45 Montague Road, Reigate, Surrey
Daniel Semple, C/o Westhouse & Marjoribanks, Fenchurch St, London
Dr Mere, C/o Poste Restante, Albermarle St, London
It was not that I recognised the hand exactly, for I knew quite well he could disguise his writing, but there was something in the name and in the style of those small letters — their slanted confidence -that caused my heart to beat faster.
The Doctor had his eyes fixed on me. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see we are of the same mind. And note the name is a local one. He might well have passed through Mere on his way here. Did he adopt it for that reason? Of course it may be perfectly innocent, some local medical man who has moved away and returned to visit his relatives. But like you I suspect otherwise. Now I started well back in the book, so this entry is some months ago. Let us see if the man made a further visit while you were here.’
He turned the pages quickly to scan the last two weeks and gave a cry of excitement. I looked over his shoulder and saw at once the same name was there around eleven days earlier.
Bell was studying the departure date which had been noted beside the name. ‘Yes, it seems Dr Mere quit this place on the day before you broke from the cottage. I think we can almost call that conclusive, but let us see what Hodder has to say.’
The landlord was in his office and, as so often when the stakes were rising, the Doctor’s manner was highly deceptive. In response to Hodder’s eager enquiry as to whether our search had yielded anything, he shook his head.
‘Alas no,’ said Bell, and proceeded to ask a few desultory questions about names in which I was quite sure he had absolutely no interest. All were cleared of the slightest suspicion. Having discussed these, he was on the point of leaving when he seemed to remember something. ‘Oh, I did wonder if you had a colleague of mine here a week or so back. It is nothing at all to do with the case but I would be interested to see him again.’ And now he pointed to the neat entry for Dr Mere.
I could only admire the studied casualness of this approach but what followed was an intense disappointment. Hodder frowned at the name. ‘Yes I believe there was a doctor here,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately I was not. All of that week I was away, for my sister was ill in Bristol. She is much better now, I am glad to say, but I would have missed your friend.’ Naturally Bell pointed out the earlier entry. And the landlord seemed slightly surprised, shaking his head. ‘Ah, so it was the same gentleman, but then I barely recall him,’ he said. ‘Let me see now, did he arrive on a Thursday? Ah yes, the day of the monthly market at Wilton. It is quite possible I hardly saw him. My cousin often helps here on a day as busy as that, it is more than likely he signed the gentleman in. I would barely have had time to talk, for the inn is always so full on that last Thursday of the month. I am glad you gentlemen missed it, for it is hard to keep up the level of comfort and service. But shall I mention you if your friend returns?’
The Doctor said he would be pleased and wondered if he could talk to Hodder’s cousin but even here we were to be thwarted, for he was away trading some horses and would not be back before the weekend. After that we left the landlord and walked to the inn’s outer door. ‘Could he be lying?’ I said as soon as we were out of his hearing.
‘It is possible,’ said Bell, peering through the door to make sure the police had gone before he opened it. ‘But, to be fair, this is a large inn with many customers. And he seems genuine.’
We were outside now, for Bell wanted to see the lie of the land and, as if to prove his words, the courtyard of the inn provided an extremely busy spectacle. Two coaches were about to move off and another was unloading some baggage. It was already getting dark and the carriage lanterns had been lit, casting flickering shadows on to the grey stones as the horses pawed the ground, impatient to be back on their way. This place was a crossroads of activity, which was probably why my enemy had chosen it.
We had walked a few paces into the yard and now Bell paused, ruminating over the spectacle before us, tapping his silver-topped cane. ‘He may well have used other inns too. No, it is more likely we were just unlucky. But then …’ he turned to me. ‘So was he, Doyle, so was he.’
‘Unlucky?’ I said. ‘In what sense?’
‘You must recall that your humiliation and death were not his only object in this place. It is perfectly plain he was attracted by the notion of a hoard of money. Unfortunately for him, the so-called local “miser” proved to be nothing but a sad eccentric. We can have every hope Cream returned to London empty-handed.’
The Doctor’s eyes gleamed in the flicker of the lanterns. Without a coat, I was starting to feel the cold. ‘But,’ he continued as he turned back to the inn, ‘although the landlord held no interest for our man, we should not despair. He must have talked to somebody. I suggest we both make discreet enquiries. And do not forget our enemy’s instincts, Doyle.’
Of course I knew what the Doctor meant. As soon as I was back in my room I rang a bell for service and by good fortune the pretty housemaid I had seen earlier arrived at my door. She had an elfin face and long dark hair, meticulously tied back.
I requested some early supper downstairs and after that had been arranged and the lamps were lit I asked her how long she had been in service. It turned out she had been working at the inn for a full year and seemed to enjoy it well enough. Although, as she said, she was rather frightened of the horses and liked to be well indoors when they clattered across the courtyard. We laughed about that and I dismissed her and then, taking my cue from Bell earlier, I called her back as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Oh Peggy,’ I said, ‘it seems a friend of mine was here a week or so ago. I wondered if you remembered him. He is a Dr Mere.’
At once her face brightened. ‘Oh yes, sir. A real gentleman, sir. From the colonies, am I right? All the way from Canada?’
I turned quickly away to lower one of the lamps so she did not see my reaction.
‘That is the man,’ I said. ‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Oh yes, sir, he was very friendly. I had seen him here before but hardly talked to him then, it was so busy. But when he was here just the other week, we were quiet and he was good to me. Told me of his medicine and all the patients he had back in Canada as well as his estate there.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’ I asked, for, though Bell would undoubtedly wish to hear everything, I was not so very interested in Cream’s lies.
‘Why back to London, sir, I am sure,’ she replied. ‘There was little to bring him here.’
‘So why was he here?’ I ventured.
‘Oh a very wealthy patient, he said. But that was all he said.’ So one had only to substitute ‘victim’ for ‘patient’. How glad I was his avarice had been thwarted.
‘Mind you, sir,’ she added plaintively, ‘I wish I could have had one of his cordials. I am sure it would have made me feel very much better.’
I nearly exclaimed aloud. ‘Ah, he offered you one?’
‘Why yes, sir. On the last evening I was turning down the bed. It was quite late, sir, and he was packing for the morning. He said he thought I looked a bit low and got out one of his medicines. He even poured it for me. I had it in my hand, sir. But then he seemed to change his mind. He said it
was the wrong draught and tipped it back in the bottle. He claimed it would have done me no good. But you know what I think, sir? I think he did not want to waste it on a poor servant girl. And we are perhaps the class that could really do with such a thing, sir, for we work hard for our years. I had hoped he would change his mind when I served him breakfast. But I did not see him again.’
There was something so plaintive and affecting in the girl’s expression at that moment, all the more so when you reflected how near to death she must have come without knowing it. Cream loved to poison women simply for the sake of the act. Indeed, he once sent me a gruesome account of the slow poisoning of a woman of the streets in North America, which delighted in every small detail, not least the way her eyes looked at him when she knew it was the end. It seemed to me certain he would have taken this girl’s life with impunity, but finally perhaps feared discovery.
Peggy said she had told me everything she knew and then asked slightly unexpectedly if I would be here the next night for she would try to recall more. But I told her I could not be sure for I had no idea of our plans.
Half an hour later, I was in Bell’s small chamber which was full of shadows, for the lamps were turned down very low as he sometimes preferred when he was thinking. My report interested him greatly. Indeed, he insisted on my recounting every word she said, even those that seemed trivial.
‘I agree with you, Doyle,’ he said quietly at the end. ‘It is sobering to think how near, how very near, the girl was to death. But there also lies our opportunity. For as you see, he is still a creature of instinct. Even in this place, where it could only impede his whole strategy and cause real risk to his person, he could not resist dallying with his sport.’
‘But he stopped himself.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Bell. ‘She was not one of his usual kind. Such a death would be investigated. No doubt he might have got away but he would have had to leave at once and it would hardly have helped his plans. He saw this and changed his mind. Yet …’
I waited. I could see he was frowning, otherwise he sat perfectly motionless. It seemed something troubled him.
Finally he broke the silence. ‘She says she did not see him again, but this took place late on the last night. He was packing. Had he already decided then not to go back to you? If so, he could easily have done the deed, and left.’
‘Perhaps he did not make the decision to leave for London till the next morning? He heard then the police were going to investigate Lucas Weltham’s cottage and decided to return to London at once with every hope I would be arrested for murder,’ I said.
‘And yet he would only be likely to hear such gossip at breakfast in the inn parlour, but, as she herself told you, he was not there. It seems he left before.’ With this, Bell got up from his seat and took two paces, bent in thought. Then he turned. ‘Well no matter, we should have an early nigh,t for we have come far. I will arrange to have my supper here and see you in the morning.’
I was a little surprised by this but I merely assumed the Doctor wished to have some time for reflection. I ate a plain but welcome dinner of cold roast pork and bread and cheese downstairs and then I retired to my room.
Before I went to bed I looked out of my window. The strong winter moon sent a watery light over the whole graveyard, an effect enhanced by the ground mist. The starkness of the spectacle gave me a sudden pang. No doubt some of these stones marked the bodies of men and women who had been sorely missed by their loved ones and I thought of the visits they would have made here, just as I had visited Elsbeth’s grave in Edinburgh three days before. There was about the whole place such an air of melancholy that I quickly turned away, rearranging the curtains.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF MOONLIGHT
Unfortunately the curtains were thin and some moonlight still shone into the room as I lay there. I was tired but sleep did not come. I was trying not to dwell on the feeling of sadness the sight of the little graveyard had suddenly aroused in me and the terrible sense that all my life since Elsbeth’s death — my work as a doctor, my investigations with Bell — had been utterly pointless. How I wished now I had been given a room at the centre and front of the inn, like Bell’s, which looked out on the street.
To make matters worse, the weather was turning and a wind got up, rattling the window. Soon there was rain too. After a time I slept fitfully, but then came awake, sure that I had heard something in the room. But all I could make out was the rain on the window and eventually fell asleep again.
Now I began to dream. It was a vivid dream that the inn was surrounded entirely by water. Slowly the little graveyard was utterly submerged, the graves lost in the rising pool. And at last the floods entered the ground floor. But, what was worse, something was coming up out of the water, a strange shapeless thing. It had emerged from the depths and was crawling along the corridor, slithering its way forward towards my door.
It came closer and closer until it was directly outside and I could hear it pushing its loathsome form against the wood.
I awoke with a start yet I could still hear the sound. There was a great rustling outside my room and something was pushing at my door.
The door swung open. There was just enough light to make out a crouched shape. Then it rose up.
And I recognised the figure, it was Peggy, the servant girl. Her eyes looked frightened and she wore a nightdress. ‘Please, sir,’ she said. ‘Oh please, I have had a dream.’ I was still a little amazed but I was about to offer some reassuring words, for I supposed her room was near by and she had opened the closest door.
‘Someone came to me tonight, sir, in a dream. She said her name was Elsbeth,’ she went on, coming closer to me. ‘She was a lovely thing and she said you once loved her, sir.’ She trembled with agitation.
I was stunned, still half asleep. She was near me now, her hair swept down to her shoulders, making her look more beautiful.
‘I have never had a dream like it, sir. And it made me feel I must do what she wished. As I say, she spoke of how you once loved her as she loves you. And that you are tired now. And she asked something of me, sir. Because she cannot be with you, she asks that I take her place, she wanted me to show you her love.’
And she bent down and kissed me sweetly on the lips. Her skin was warm, her lips soft, and I responded. Could this be true? My mind was still fogged with sleep or perhaps I would have resisted more but as she put her arms around me I held her close, in spite of all my questions.
Why, after all, should I not believe what I was hearing? This girl knew nothing of Elsbeth. Could she not be a vessel for all the love I had lost?
But even as I kissed her and felt her hands clasp me tightly, I sensed something was wrong and became aware that elsewhere in the room there was movement. By the window a figure was drawing itself up to its full height.
The girl saw it too and screamed. But, as it stepped forward, some shafts of moonlight picked out familiar features. The Doctor stood there, his voice soft. ‘It is only a trick, Doyle, a foul despicable trick.’
At once the girl let go of me and turned and no doubt she would have run but Bell grabbed her by the arm.
‘You must tell the truth,’ he said. ‘We will not hurt you but you must tell us everything.’
The girl offered some token resistance but then her face crumpled and she started to cry. At once the Doctor released his grip and offered her a handkerchief, allowing her to sit down in a chair as he lit a candle. I was still trying to understand though slowly, as sleep left me, some light began to dawn.
‘Now if you would just tell me all,’ said Bell to her, ‘we will forget about this intrusion. But you must leave nothing out. It is Dr Mere I wish to hear of.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, overcoming her sobs.
‘Everything,’ emphasised the Doctor.
She nodded. ‘Well, what I told the gentleman of him before, sir, was the truth but it was not all. Dr Mere did offer me a cordial and he took it back. He was a marvellous man, sir, a re
al gentleman. He gave me some money to make up for it.’
‘Go on,’ said the Doctor grimly, standing over her.
‘He says to me, “Peggy, you are a good friend,” and I was a good friend to him, sir, I had enjoyed his company and he said he had not been able to finish his business here, sir. That he was interrupted and he must go. For he had heard two gentlemen talking in the yard, sir, about some action to be taken, and he said it was no longer safe for him. But he promised he would write to me and might ask for favours for the money he had given me.’
‘Have you his letter?’ said Bell.
She hesitated, but one look at the intensity of his expression convinced her. ‘Yes, sir. He told me to destroy it, but I wanted a memory of him.’
Bell sighed. ‘I must have it, Peggy.’
She nodded. ‘Has he done wrong, sir? I cannot believe it.’
‘I will tell you after you have fetched it. But I warn you, if you do not return within a very short time I will awaken Mr Hodder and tell him everything. You do not want to lose your place?’
She shuddered, shook her head.
‘Then bring it,’ ordered Bell, ‘and I promise you he will hear nothing about any of this, indeed we will say how well you have served us here.’
This seemed to encourage her and she left. Bell looked over to me. ‘I am sorry to have trespassed on your sleep earlier, Doyle. You woke up and nearly saw me when I took up my position in the corner there. But fortunately it was dark enough. The truth is, the more I considered it, the more sceptical I became of the girl’s story. For one thing Cream appeared too much of a gentleman. For another it made no sense for him to resist his usual temptation unless he had some other use for her in mind. There was also that odd detail you yourself noticed when she asked — in the midst of your questions — if you were staying a second night. On reflection it made sense only if she wished to discover whether she could delay some undertaking involving you. Your answer told her she must act tonight making it worth while for me to watch and see if my suspicions were borne out.’
