Interviewing the Dead

by David Field

  Carlyle laughed lightly. ‘I am most proud of that deduction, more so than all the others.’

  ‘And upon what was it based, pray?’

  ‘The handkerchief that you extracted in order to mop your brow. It reeks of perfume and was clearly given to you by a woman. There might have been many explanations of how that came to pass, but a sister at home is the more likely for a chaste gentleman of the cloth.’

  Matthew looked at the handkerchief. It was indeed Caroline’s. He must have picked it up by mistake. ‘Why did you not think it belonged to my mother?’

  ‘The nature of the perfume. It is “Essence of Lavender”, I believe, much favoured by younger ladies, of which my daughter is one and at times one can scarce breathe in our front drawing room when her friends come calling. I took a gamble, but your facial expression did not dissuade me and if your sister is prepared to lend you a handkerchief you must be at least on speaking terms and it was easy to suggest that this denoted a “closeness”. So you see — nothing more than simple observation and intelligent deduction.’

  ‘You would have been hanged as a witch in less enlightened times,’ Matthew laughed, ‘but did you not tell me that you acquired this dubious talent as part of your medical studies?’

  ‘I did indeed, from one of my professors, as it transpired. His name was Joseph Bell and he was employed to teach us anatomy, which he did in a most excellent fashion. But he also taught us to keep our eyes open when anatomising the deceased. Long before one takes the scalpel to an unfortunate cadaver on the slab, one can learn a great deal about the departed just by looking carefully and noting clues as to their former lifestyle that might give some prior indication as to how they died. He called it “interviewing the dead”. Unfortunately it has become a habit with me, even with the living — unfortunate in the sense that I tend to spend more time perusing their clothing and other attributes than I do in being agreeable company. My daughter finds this socially embarrassing, although I live in hopes that I may eventually pass on the habit to her, since it might well serve to preserve her from one day making a poor match in marriage.’

  Matthew chuckled. ‘I pity any unfortunate young man who pays court to your daughter — it would be twice as painful as the normal experience of being introduced to the man whose daughter’s hand one is seeking in matrimony. Anyway, I judge that I have spent enough time here and must go about my other duties.’

  ‘Do those duties take you to the London Hospital, by any chance?’ Carlyle asked.

  ‘They do sometimes, when some poor soul is about to depart this life — why do you ask?’

  ‘Because that is where I am based. I teach students the mysteries of the human body and in particular how to “anatomise” them, which in your language means cutting them open in order to ascertain the causes of their deaths. I do so in a small suite of rooms that I have been allocated in the basement of the London, so should you ever have occasion to visit it, feel free to call in at my place of work and I will introduce you to the mysterious world of the dead. There you will discover that once dead, they remain dead.’

  ‘I never claimed otherwise,’ Matthew objected as he began to rise from his seat.

  ‘No, but you do claim that at the moment of death something called the “soul” leaves the body, do you not?’ Carlyle challenged him.

  ‘Such is my belief,’ Matthew conceded.

  Carlyle nodded knowingly. ‘Well, let me advise you professionally, as one who has lost count of the number of bodies he has opened up, and as one who has minutely dissected every single organ that may be found therein, that I have yet to encounter a single soul.’

  ‘I would of course argue that this is because by the time you get them they are long dead and the soul has already departed. But I do not, in any case, propose that the soul is a physical part of the body. It is ethereal — incorporeal if you prefer — and it cannot be measured, weighed or dissected.’

  ‘And can religious mania leave the body in the same way, would you argue?’

  ‘Your meaning?’ Matthew asked as he sat down again.

  Carlyle looked behind him, then lowered his voice as he continued. ‘Not all of those who have allegedly encountered the wraith of a long-dead plague victim has died of shock. Perhaps it is because such encounters are becoming commonplace, or perhaps this one was more robust of constitution, but a man called Edward Button was admitted to the Lunacy Ward of the London Hospital in the early hours of yesterday morning.’

  ‘I had no idea that such a facility existed,’ Matthew admitted

  Carlyle nodded. ‘It is not something that the Hospital Trustees wish to advertise abroad, but believe me it exists and is depressingly well patronised. In many cases these tortured people have committed terrible crimes and are being assessed by our resident Mentalist ahead of their committal to Newgate. In other cases, if they are not assessed as being a danger, either to themselves or to others, they are either released or sent to Bethlem Hospital, across the river in Southwark.’

  ‘I have been there,’ Matthew told him with a shudder. ‘Religious mania may be diagnosed as a disease by those “Mentalists” of whom you speak, but for those in its grip it is real enough and they seem to take some comfort from the presence of a Man of God such as myself. It is one of the most challenging aspects of ministry that any clergyman can engage in and one of the most depressing, so no orthodox minister will take it on. It is therefore left to the likes of me — a Wesleyan following the proud tradition of our founder, whose ministry was conducted almost exclusively among the poor and downtrodden.’

  ‘So you have experience of religious mania?’ Carlyle asked eagerly.

  ‘Did I not just say so?’

  ‘Yes, quite — forgive me. But I have a reason for asking. This Edward Button of whom I spoke apparently encountered — or believed that he encountered — one of those plague spectres as he was wending his way home after a somewhat debauched evening in an alehouse just off Jamaica Street, in Stepney. He ran screaming into the arms of a police officer, gibbered out his tale and begged to be allowed the safety of a police cell. Two hours later he was still cowering in a corner of his cell, pleading with those attending him to keep “it” away from the bars that separated him from the corridor. The decision was made to transfer him to the Lunacy Ward, mainly because he was causing some disorder among the other prisoners. But the interesting thing is that come the daylight he appeared to restored to a normal state of mind and although he could clearly recall what he had seen and became distressed again when asked to do so, he was no longer convinced that a creature from Hell was coming for him.’

  ‘The mania had worn off, you mean?’

  ‘Precisely. It was almost as if he had ingested some poison, or unwisely partaken of some drug, which is why I was called in to see him, given my current research into toxins that can induce conditions such as hysteria.’

  ‘And you believe that it might merely have been religious mania?’

  ‘Quite so. But how induced, might one conclude?’

  ‘You’re the medical specialist, not me,’ Matthew reminded him.

  Carlyle shrugged. ‘But you are also an intelligent man, as I deduce, with perhaps an eye for detail, or at least some inkling of my methods. From what I have told you, what might you deduce?’

  ‘I haven’t the remotest clue,’ Matthew admitted with irritation, ‘and I really must go about my duties. I am due at a meeting at the East End Mission.’

  ‘Indulge me for a moment longer,’ Carlyle requested, ‘and concentrate on what I told you regarding why the man Button was taken from the police cell.’

  ‘Because he was disturbing the other prisoners.’

  ‘But in what way was he doing so?’

  ‘By claiming that some evil entity was menacing him from the corridor.’

  ‘Precisely. But the police officer was able to proceed down that corridor without seeing anything for himself!’

  ‘So the wraith was purely in the mind of t
he poor unfortunate who was suffering the delusion,’ Matthew concluded. ‘I thought we had agreed upon that.’

  ‘In point of fact we had not,’ Carlyle corrected him. ‘But I am gratified that you appear to agree with me that it was a delusion and furthermore one that was personal to its victim. Ergo, the creature did not actually exist in physical form, where others might also see it.’

  ‘Which tends to confirm your theory regarding the presence of toxins in his system. Or perhaps too much strong liquor — even I have heard of “delirium tremens”.’

  ‘Heard of it, perhaps, but you clearly have not made a medical study of it. It is associated with withdrawal from alcohol, not its excessive consumption. Anyway, I must not keep you from your valuable work. But do not forget the invitation to visit me in my lair.’

  3

  Edward Button was not the only survivor of the encounters with supernatural forces during the course of the next few weeks. As the encounters increased, more victims remained alive to tell the tale than those for whom the shock proved fatal. Matthew found himself scanning the daily newspapers in a manner uncharacteristic of him and in his idle moments began applying Carlyle’s method of dispassionate analysis of those bare facts that he read, shorn of all their melodramatic hyperbole.

  The most obvious fact was the association with public houses. All those who had suffered an unwanted confrontation with one of these horrors had either been in a public house at the time, or had been on their way home from one. Matthew made a mental note of this fact, since he could include it in one of his homilies on the evils of liquor, a fundamental platform for the ‘Methodist’ movement that had been born out of John Wesley’s original ministry. He also noted that all the public houses in question — which were now all but empty of patrons, even on the traditionally busy nights of Friday and Saturday — were within a fairly narrow radius of the alleged original plague pit in Aldgate. Not one of them was located outside the pestilential clutter of Whitechapel, Shadwell, Stepney and of course Aldgate itself. This might tend to detract from Matthew’s intended campaign.

  He scanned through the ‘Letters to the Editor’ in the current paper. The overall theme of these letters, largely written by middle-class moralists from districts to the north of the ‘accursed triangle’, as one writer labelled it, was that those who had received visitations were ‘sinners of the vilest description’. Given that the only commentators moved to record their opinions in writing — and indeed the only ones capable of writing — were solidly middle-class, the theories that found their way into the popular press rapidly acquired a ‘class’ flavour. It had now become a process of vilifying the working-class for their sins of alcohol consumption, idleness, over-breeding and thieving.

  Matthew’s basic love of all those to whom he ministered caused him to curse mildly under his breath at this grotesquely condescending, hopelessly generalised and ill-informed vitriol against a class of people that he knew well and who he was sorely tempted to defend in a letter of his own. However, he could also see a way to lead people back onto the paths of righteousness. If it was popularly believed that only the wicked would receive an unwanted visit from a denizen of the underworld, then it added force to his exhortations to those to whom he ministered to mend their wicked ways, foreswear the ‘Demon Drink’ and worship God.

  Two weeks later, while the grisly encounters were still filling the front pages of newspapers, Matthew was afforded an opportunity to put his policy to the test. He received a short written message from the superintendent of the East End Mission that one of their regular visitors — Violet Cummins — was hospitalised as the result of an accidental fall into a trench along Shadwell High Street that had been dug in order to lay gas mains into a new warehouse complex on the north bank of the Thames. She’d asked to speak to Matthew personally and she was in the women’s surgical ward of the London Hospital.

  The frail little woman propped up in the bed, with an ominous bulge under the blankets where a cage had been constructed over her broken leg, looked anything but the reformed hardened drinker that Matthew had often spent solitary hours with in one of the all-purpose ‘consultation’ rooms made available at the Mission. He knew that her previous life had been tragic, with a husband killed in a terrible fire in St Catherine’s Dock, one son killed as he tried to rescue him and the other hanged for killing a man during the course of robbing him of two pounds. Her only other relative was a daughter with a family of her own, now married to a boat builder somewhere on the banks of the Medway, who’d cut her mother off from all communication after Violet’s first arrest for soliciting and the discovery of her addiction to gin that the prostitution was financing.

  Matthew had begun to nurture a hope that Violet had finally heard the call of God through his long conversations with her when no-one else would give her the time of day and he was depressed, not so much that she had ended up in hospital, but by the tale she had to tell of how she’d finished up falling into a trench.

  ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ she mumbled, forgetting yet again that Matthew was not a Catholic priest, ‘but I’m ashamed ter ’ave ter tell yer as ’ow I musta bin drunk at the time.’

  ‘I appreciate that you’ve had a hard road to walk these past few years,’ Matthew replied, ‘and I had hoped that you’d foresworn those things that led you into trouble in the past, but —’

  ‘But I ’ave, honest I ’ave. Leastways, till last night, anyroad. I’ve given up the tottin’, honest I ’ave, an’ most o’ the time I don’t touch the Devil’s Brew. But last night Maisie Trueman come up ter me room — she lives below me in the lodgin’ ’ouse, yer see — an’ she pleads wi’ me to come wi’ ’er ter the “Anchor”, down in Wappin’ Way, ter meet this woman what owed ’er money. We does the business, an’ then Maisie insists that we ’ave a little refreshment. I knew better than ter go back on the gin, so I just had a couple o’ glasses o’ special bitter. I coulda sworn I were cold stone sober when I left ter go ’ome on me own.’

  ‘So how did you finish up falling into a trench?’ Matthew asked.

  Violet turned pale at the memory. ‘Well, it were like this. I’d just gone past the shippin’ yard when I got the funny feeling that someone were followin’ me. I looked behind me, but couldn’t see nowt, so I kept on walkin’. Then there were this ’orrible kinda growlin’ noise, an’ I looked round again, an’ there it were!’

  ‘What was there, Violet?’ Matthew asked gently.

  The fear in Violet’s eyes as she looked back up at him from where she lay, said everything. ‘It were like what folk’ve bin sayin’ lately, all about dead people comin’ up outta their graves ter grab folks. It were big an’ white, an’ fluttery, an’ like I said, it were growlin’ like some sorta beast. I screamed an’ started runnin’, but I shoulda bin lookin’ where I were runnin’, instead o’ back at that that thing, ’cos I fell inter this big ’ole in the ground and I couldn’t move. Me leg were givin’ me gip, an’ the thing were grinnin’ at me from the top o’ the ’ole. I can’t remember nowt more till I come ter me senses again in ’ere an’ they told me they’d ’ad ter fix me broken leg.’

  ‘But since you’ve woken up, you haven’t seen any more of that — that “thing” that you described?’ Matthew asked in the hope of quelling any remaining fear.

  She shook her head. ‘But I did see it, didn’ I? Is it right what they’re all sayin, about them what sees it is goin’ ter ’Ell?’

  ‘No, Violet, it’s not right. In fact, what you saw didn’t actually exist — it was the result of some poison or other that some madman is slipping to unsuspecting people like you. A poison that brings on delusions.’

  Violet thought hard for a moment, then gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Maybe it were Rob Pilgrim, the landlord o’ the Anchor, what’s found a new way o’ waterin’ the beer in there.’

  Matthew took her hand. ‘At least you’ve kept your sense of humour, Violet. Let’s just say a little prayer together, shall we, to ask God to give you the stre
ngth to follow down the road to eternal glory that you’ve been steadfastly following since the day I met you?’

  ‘That must be goin’ on three years now.’ Violet closed her eyes in anticipation of prayer. ‘You’re a really good bloke, Father West, an’ may God bless yer.’

  Matthew left the ward with a warm glow and was anticipating a nice strong cup of tea at home, with his feet up ahead of a wholesome supper, when his eye caught a sign on the staircase that he was descending. It pointed down to the basement and realising that he had something important to share with Dr Carlyle he turned down another flight of stairs when he reached the ground floor. Halfway down a rather gloomy corridor that smelt funny he saw a door marked ‘Mortuary — Doctor James Carlyle’ and knocked politely.

  No-one answered, so he knocked again. This time when there was no answer he thumped heavily, rattling the glass panel set into the very top of the solid wooden door. The door flew open and the flushed face of a somewhat annoyed young woman confronted him.

  ‘There’s no need to break it down,’ she admonished him sternly. ‘I was just washing my hands before answering it.’

  Matthew looked back at her, nonplussed and a little taken aback by her manner. She was only in her mid-twenties and very attractive in her own way. Tall and willowy in shape, she had bright red, tightly tongued, curls in the latest fashion peeking out from under some sort of green cap that matched the green smock she was wearing over what looked like a pair of rubber boots. Her face was liberally adorned with freckles and the eyes that were looking him up and down with apparent disapproval were a clear green, like his favourite peppermint cordial.

  ‘Well,’ she demanded, ‘apart from breaking the door down, what do you want?’

  ‘I was looking for Dr Carlyle,’ Matthew mumbled, unable to break her stare. ‘I’m sorry, I must have been mistaken.’

  ‘What leads you to that conclusion?’ the woman demanded. ‘Because you found a woman in here? I work for Dr Carlyle — and before you ask, no — I’m not his cleaner.’