by David Pirie
He hesitated, then went on. ‘But there was another person who, well, I would just say his story did not satisfy me entirely. However, I may be wrong and, of course, we do not even know a crime was committed.’
‘And who was that?’ said the Doctor.
‘You have met him,’ said Langton, looking at Bell directly with a crooked kind of smile. ‘In fact he introduced us, so to speak. He walks everywhere hereabouts and people worry he will fall off that cliff, for the wind can sometimes take you unawares.’
‘Dr Bulweather?’ Bell was interested. ‘Was he not with a patient?’
‘No doubt you can ask him yourself, sir, it is indeed what he says,’ said Langton. ‘I repeat, since there is no crime I can hardly point a finger. There is talk too of colourful associations in his past and that he has a mistress, but it may just be wagging tongues.’ And it was clear, we would get no more from him.
Naturally we studied every interior in the rest of the house, but there was little more here to interest us. A comfortable bed in an upstairs room had evidently been used quite recently but otherwise, just as Langton said, the place seemed devoid of life.
Once we had satisfied ourselves of that, Bell’s first wish was to talk to Colin Harding, the groundsman who had found the blood and also caught sight of Jefford and others the previous day. Harding, it seemed, was in the employ of a nearby estate owned by a local landowner called Sir Walter Monk, but since today was market day there was no prospect of finding him there.
We bid goodbye to Langton who now had other duties to fulfil, but promised to give us any further help we needed and took the most direct route, a woodland path that led away to the road. From here, it was a pleasant mile’s walk back down to the village, which was bathed in a scarlet and gold sunset.
As we admired the view before us, the Doctor asked what I made of the room and the bloodstain.
‘If it is Jefford’s blood,’ I answered, ‘I can only suppose someone lifted the body and carried it out though what they did with it is open to speculation.’
‘And yet,’ ruminated Bell, ‘there are no marks. It would have taken two men to carry him and surely there would have been traces. The imprints would be deep and Langton is no fool. Also, though it is fantastic to say it, there are distinct signs he moved himself.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘How could he have moved?’
‘Oh that is not in doubt,’ said Bell. ‘Though much else is in darkness. I made out the distinct imprint of a knee and the tip of a toe. He was crawling.’
THE NATURE OF FEN MEDICINE
About two hours later, having changed our clothes, we turned into Dr Bulweather’s drive under a bright winter moon. The Doctor had told me nothing more, in fact he had said little since, and as so often his answer to my question had only provoked in me a dozen more urgent questions.
Bulweather himself greeted us at the door, his dog bounding happily behind him. ‘Ah come in, gentlemen. We dine alone but I have some company for you to meet beforehand.’ He pointed the way through his brightly lit hall as a bustling middle-aged housekeeper appeared in the doorway. ‘It is all right, Mrs Harvey, I will show Dr Bell and Dr Doyle in myself. You need not wait on them.’
She greeted us and retired as we entered a large drawing room with a huge wood fire. A dapper and well-groomed man with a fleshy upper lip turned from the fire and was introduced as Angus Hare, the other medical partner in the practice. I expressed my astonishment that so small a place could support two doctors.
‘We have our quiet times,’ said Bulweather, ‘but then we cover quite a bit of ground. We do not restrict ourselves merely to the village here.’
‘And,’ said Hare with a sardonic smile, ‘we have a captive audience. Other than the asylum back at Westleton Heath, which is a very different kind of speciality and one the people here do not trust at all, there is not a doctor for miles so although James does not like to indulge in it we can always vary our charges accordingly.’
‘No,’ said Dr Bulweather, ‘we are not always in accord on that. But then there is no law that two doctors have to organise things exactly the same way.’
‘Especially when they differ in circumstances,’ said Hare without obvious rancour. ‘Perhaps I would have greater scruples about what I charge if I were buttressed by family money. But I was left very little and must make my way however I can.’
‘Now, Dr Bell,’ said Bulweather, evidently not wishing to pursue this subject, ‘I want to hear all about your work in Edinburgh. We are set in our ways here and no doubt you have much to tell us.’
The conversation moved on to Scottish medicine and the doctors plied Bell with questions. Hare was clever, I could see that, but he seemed altogether less interested in Bell’s techniques than in his scale of charges. It was a relief when the door opened and Mrs Harvey showed in another guest and neighbour, a woman in early middle-age with very sweet fine features and dark exquisitely coiffured hair who was introduced as Mrs Leonora Marner.
It turned out she was the widow Langton had mentioned who had once been quite a successful performer in musical theatre in London, specifically the earliest productions of Richard D’Oyly Carte at the Royalty. But I found her manner utterly removed from anything I might have expected, indeed if Bell and I had been playing our games of deduction I would have put her down as the beloved wife of the local vicar. She spoke very quietly, and thought long and hard before she answered even the most ordinary of questions. But there was an enjoyment about her, a humour in her eyes, which was highly sympathetic and perhaps accounted for some of her former success. The others were courteous but it was left to me to talk with her and, since I decided she was of a somewhat nervous disposition, I did not enter into the Jefford matter but merely said Bell and I had been in London and were visiting the village in connection with some medical business. She told me she had been here for two years and had come to enjoy the isolation.
‘I was worried,’ she said, ‘I would miss the bustle of London but I do not. After my husband died I found all I wanted was nature, the ability to play — for I have my piano — and a little comfort. So it has been a blessing, though I still miss him.’ This was stated with simple conviction and I learnt in due course her husband was a senior officer who had died of a fever while serving his country overseas.
Later, when we were joined in general conversation with the others, she described something of Edinburgh, which she had visited as a child, and Angus Hare indulged at length in his own memories of the city, which held, I am afraid, little interest to me as they were mainly rhapsodies about the fine carriages his relatives owned and the splendour of his long-lost ancestral home. And then the guests departed to their own houses for their own meals and we sat down to dine with Bulweather.
‘You must excuse me for showing you off,’ said he, as his housekeeper served us plates of what proved to be the most wonderful soup of local fish in his long dining room. ‘I knew Angus would welcome the chance to meet you and I felt Mrs Marner would benefit from a break in her solitude. She seems to me to live too lonely a life.’
‘Yes,’ said Bell, taking up the subject. ‘She spends most of her time playing music on her piano, sometimes as much as four hours a day. She also reads a great deal and walks out most afternoons around two o’clock. Her young maid from London has served her well over the years but, though she is skilled and attentive, the girl is given to fits of absent-mindedness which concern her employer.’
Dr Bulweather’s bushy eyebrows positively soared in astonishment. ‘You have the better of me, sir. Did you meet with her earlier today?’
His question was a good one. I knew Bell had not overheard my conversation with Mrs Marner and later he had scarcely exchanged one sentence with the woman as Hare droned on about Edinburgh.
‘Oh no,’ said Bell as he took a last mouthful of soup. ‘As Doyle will testify, I never set eyes on her before.’
Bulweather himself smiled now. ‘Ah, so you are adopting your famous metho
d. But how?’
‘If you would think,’ said Bell, ‘I am sure you will deduce it. I have had occasion to study pianist’s hands before in a case in Edinburgh and there was another celebrated affair in Bournemouth when a pianist strangled his wife. Mrs Marner’s hands told me at once here was a pianist who practises regularly. As you would imagine, the skin becomes hardened exactly to the degree in which practice is applied. The reading? Well she carries glasses for reading and studied your books with interest, while she must by definition read a great deal of music, though I suspect much else. Fortunately she walked the short distance here, allowing me to see her outdoor shoes, which were of great interest. Their condition tells me she walks very regularly and they had been rained on recently, so she was out at two for it was the only rain we saw today and indicates her constitutional is taken after lunch. As to her maid, did you not notice the exquisite French plait in Mrs Marner’s hair at the back? Such a thing could only have been done by young hands and would certainly be impossible to do oneself. Yet it is sophisticated and speaks to me of London. It also suggests an intimacy over some period though, from the state of the shoes which were only partly wiped, the girl is also given to fits of absent-mindedness, or I would have seen no traces of wet at all.’
Bulweather looked very impressed. ‘And yet,’ I intervened, ‘there is surely a flaw in some of your logic. You deduced she was out in the rain but it might have been some urgent errand that compelled her. Why do you say it was the time of her regular walk?’
‘I did not exclude that,’ said Bell. ‘It was certainly conceivable. But for any errand of the more mundane kind she would undoubtedly use her maid rather than get wet. And a social engagement hardly fits with what we have already heard of her solitary habits. Even if she did go out on a visit, she would surely have used an umbrella. No, she was caught in the rain and on balance, therefore, I feel it is safe to assume she takes her constitutional after lunch.’
‘And you are right,’ said Bulweather, ‘right in every particular. It is a remarkable thing. Her maid is called Ellie and I think has always been with her since London. A shy girl who is sometimes a little too furtive for my liking.’
With this we addressed ourselves to some superb roast mutton. As we ate, Bulweather talked of Dunwich and his affection for the place. ‘It has its own ways, and as unique a history as any place in this island. But there is an interesting enough collection of people here. In the winter it is wild, but I think all of us share a great love of its beauty and its legends.’
‘And, tell me,’ asked Bell as we finished our meal, ‘are the legends taken seriously?’
‘Yes,’ said Bulweather. ‘When I came here many years ago I was surprised how seriously. They are part of the fabric of the place and you cannot help respecting them. I have no idea if Mary Goddard was hunted in the way the story relates, but there is no doubt she existed and was once quite a powerful figure in these parts. Then the witch fever came, just as it did in so many other places along the coastline, and the people around here still talk guardedly of it and of witchcraft. We have mentioned Mrs Marner’s maid, Ellie Barnes. That girl, for example, believes it, for she told me she would never dabble herself but is frightened of others who do.’
Bulweather now offered to show us his medical rooms and Bell gladly assented, though I was myself wondering why he was delaying any discussion of the Jefford case. ‘Tell me,’ said Bell as we got up, ‘is that Mrs Bulweather?’ The picture he was referring to showed a pretty fair-haired woman seated in the very room where we had been entertained before dinner.
Bulweather nodded. ‘I lost her six years ago, just before Easter. Septicaemia. That used to hang in the room where it was painted but I placed it here, knowing I would see her and think of her at every meal where she used to sit opposite me. Though it is hardly necessary, for I think of her most of the time in any case.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It is nine for me and November. Peritonitis.’
Neither man continued the conversation but you could see it changed things a little for them. Bell looked at the country practitioner with a certain affinity as he led us to his consulting room.
It was an impressive place. His instruments were up-to-date, and his collection of medical books was extensive, including, I noted, a large number of works on nervous disorders. Bell showed his approval at once and Bulweather seemed pleased. ‘When I came here from the city,’ he told us, ‘I expected it to be quiet and peaceful with diseases of an unspectacular kind. I could hardly have been more wrong. I begin to think, gentlemen, we should set up a new branch of our studies and call it Fen Medicine. For at first, before I came here, I was in the Fens. And though this is a little distance I found it much the same. There are many different kinds of ailments, some that I never saw in town. You may be amazed to hear it but the deprivation I have found is in some places far worse than anything you will see in the East End.’
Bell listened with interest. ‘Then the isolation has its own peculiar effects.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Bulweather. ‘And in places there is terrible sanitation, and ground poisons. Diphtheria is one thing I have come to dread, especially in the children. Now look here. This is unique and of my own devising.’ And he pulled out a curious glass contraption and wiped off a little dust. ‘If you suck on this pipette at one end you can remove the thick grey membrane that forms on the back of the throat or else—’
‘Or else they choke,’ cried Bell, seizing it with great excitement. ‘I have done much the same, but you must be careful — swallow it yourself and your chances of infection are very high, as I can tell you from bitter experience.’
‘Fortunately I have managed to avoid that,’ said Bulweather, ‘but I have had narrow escapes.’
‘Well. I was not so lucky but it was more than twenty years ago,’ said Bell. ‘And I recovered. But I am astounded to learn of such things here.’
The conversation continued in this vein and I could tell Bell was impressed and I suppose this triggered his own doubts. For, as we left the surgery, he raised the Jefford matter at last.
‘So you take this Jefford business seriously from all you were saying?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ said Bulweather as we flopped into chairs in his large room, declining the offer of brandy. He poured himself a large measure and studied it ruminatively. ‘I hope it is nothing, I hope it is Harding’s pig, but I fear it may be what it seems.’
‘Did you know Jefford?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Slightly,’ said our host. ‘Some time ago I had occasion to discourse with him in the inn where you stay. He struck me as vain and rash but not as a man likely to bother with a prank of this sort, which is why I take it seriously.’
‘You have not seen him since?’
‘I have not.’
‘You have been to The Glebe, his house?’
‘Never.’
‘Did you witness anything on the night of the first?’ said Bell quietly.
Bulweather hesitated. ‘I was out but I saw nothing.’
‘And where were you?’ said Bell.
‘Ah yes,’ said our host. ‘It was a patient, a child at Westleton. He had an inflammation of the kind I have described. I had not seen one for a while.’
‘Ah, the pipette,’ said Bell.
‘Yes I used it to no ill effect. I was there for more than an hour. Then I returned. He is well now.’
‘And who brought the message to you?’ Bell asked.
‘The child’s father. He came here around eight.’ Bulweather replied, taking a drink of his brandy. ‘My housekeeper was away seeing her sister that night so I answered the door myself.’
‘I see, but perhaps the father saw something on the road. If you give me the name, would you allow me to question him?’
It was a tactful way of verifying the alibi. ‘Well to be truthful,’ said Bulweather, not raising his eyes, ‘the people are a little close. They asked me not to say what had happened. The condition is passed a
nd, as a doctor, I must obey their wish for confidentiality, so I cannot help you.’
There was silence, punctuated only by a crackle from the log fire. ‘But I assure you,’ he went on, ‘the father saw nothing unusual. So he cannot be of any help.’
‘That is indeed a pity,’ said Bell, who now fell to talking about other things including our host’s retriever, which we were informed was very rare in these parts so he was greatly proud of it. It seemed Bulweather would be showing it off to some friends in Ipswich the following day and would not be back till early the next morning but he hoped to see us soon.
Later, trudging back under that moon, with the salt of the sea in my nostrils, I felt a little forlorn. We could have done with an ally in this strange town and I would have wished to like and admire our host. But it was obvious to me now, whatever the truth of the matter, Bulweather could not be trusted. Despite many attractive traits, his odd refusal to be forthcoming was highly suspicious. Perhaps, even his pretence of grief was some calculated act. Regrettably, just as Langton had told us, Dr Bulweather was not all he seemed.
THE PALE MONK
There was no need for the Doctor and I to discuss our doubts about Bulweather, for we both knew they were shared, but next morning I felt despondent as I stared from my window over the marshes. It was a fine cold day and a lonely black-backed gull was flapping his way seawards. Perhaps Cream had been here, the evidence suggested as much, but what was there to prove he was present now? He could easily be in London or on the high seas or anywhere, possibly all the richer for Jefford’s money and laughing heartily at the thought of us.
I said as much to the Doctor in the inn’s small dining room as we ate our breakfast. Bell had insisted we eat well, for he did not wish to concern himself with food for the rest of the day. There were rashers of thick bacon before me, besides two poached eggs, potato pancakes and local mushrooms. But I was hardly hungry.
‘After all,’ I said, ‘we have no proof. He could be anywhere.’
