The Night Calls (29 page)
Authors: David Pirie
Finally I could bear it no longer and got up and went to my bag and took a small dose of an opiate. But I fear it only served to give me a series of terrifying dreams. In many of them, Cream’s head – severed from his body – towered grotesquely above me, boasting of monstrous crimes. And I believe there was a horrible nightmare before dawn in which he menaced Sally and her children, but fortunately I awoke and could not remember it.
The morning brought a little relief from these night phantoms, but I was still flushed and tired and the storm continued unabated outside. I decided to avoid breakfast and left a note for the Morlands saying I had made an early start. Fortunately the day that followed was quiet, perhaps because our patients were deterred by the weather, and most of my time was spent on calls in the neighbourhood. But I know I was not entirely myself and was quite sure that Baird and some of the other doctors saw it. Around five o’clock I told Dr Baird I feared I was going down with a cold and he seemed a little relieved, advising me not to come in the next morning, which was in any case a Saturday when duties were generally light. That would afford me two days to try to weather it.
As I entered her sitting room, Sally Morland looked up from her embroidery and her smile turned to concern. ‘You look tired, Arthur and I am sure you have had nothing all day.’
‘That is not true,’ I said, ‘but in fact I came to tell you I have a dining engagement with an old friend.’
‘It is just as well, for there will be little good company here,’ she said gloomily. ‘Martin should be home shortly but will have to go out again at eight, for he is making a further application to the League tonight. I just pray they will agree.’
‘The League of Hope and Sorrow?’ I asked, remembering the card in Harriet Lowther’s room.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Hope and Sorrow. And I know they mean well, but sometimes I wonder if there is not more of the latter than the former.’
‘Where do they meet?’ I asked, aware that Bell would like to know.
‘Oh, in different places, I believe. They must keep the meetings private for their business is highly confidential and they help people from all walks of life. Martin said tonight it is in some church hall, although not for once across the river. But why do you ask?’
I told her I thought I had read about them, and we changed the subject for it turned out Sally and her children had one piece of good news at least. Their Uncle Tim had written to say he might pay a surprise visit within the next month and I found myself wondering if this splendid uncle – though it seemed he was a friend rather than a relative—would not be able to help the Morlands with their pecuniary difficulties.
When I reached the hotel, Dr Bell was seated in exactly the same armchair beside the fire in the public room where I had first encountered him, but his greeting was very different. Then he had sprung up to shake my hand, now he merely scrutinised me intently as I walked towards him and waved me into a chair.
‘You have had another bad night, I perceive?’ he said.
There was no point in denying it; his eye was far too acute for that. ‘I admit you are right,’ I said, sitting down. The fire was bright but the cheerful room of armchairs was almost entirely empty apart from a family gathering up their things to leave.
His eye was still fixed on me. ‘He wants to stir your imagination and I fear he is succeeding all too well. You took something last night?’
I was a little irritated by this interrogation, for my health was hardly a major issue considering all we faced. ‘Is it important?’
‘An opiate?’
‘A small quantity only,’ I said.
‘Of laudanum, I assume. I recall your experiments with gelsemium. And you really think it is worth putting that kind of burden on your system at this time?’ He was leaning towards me, his eyes still on mine.
The room was now empty and I raised my voice. ‘Doctor, I do not seriously think …’
But he interrupted me, speaking quickly, a finger raised. ‘Do you not see how he would rejoice if it took hold. And even in minor drafts it may affect your judgement, Doyle! No doubt you do dream of him under its influence. And it may also explain your sense of his presence.’
I could hardly disguise my anger at this. Perhaps I felt vulnerable about my occasional use of the drug, but surely he must see my consumption was in no way comparable to the kind of excessive use we had witnessed in others. ‘I can reassure you without qualification.’ I said tersely. ‘Yes I have taken laudanum from time to time. It is not something I generally prescribe, but I find it can be effective. So please disregard that possibility. I may be wrong but I still implore you to believe me when I say that I sense him.’
‘Well,’ he said, after looking at me, ‘it is not my place to legislate on such things for you now.’ And then he fell to examining Cream’s letter again. After a time, he told me he was even more firmly inclined to the view that it was part of a game being played from a distance. ‘And one we should be extremely cautious about playing. For he means only to distract and discompose us, so I promise you there will be no genuine clues. Of course I am using all the means at my disposal, including the redoubtable Inspector Miller, to pursue Jenny Galton but in the meantime I urge you not to return to Wych Street.’
I could assure him of that for it was certainly not my intention, and the mention of Miller returned us to the case of Harriet Lowther. The Doctor asked if, as requested, I had sounded out the Morlands about the League of Hope and Sorrow? I started to tell him what I knew but, as soon as I mentioned Martin Morland’s meeting that night, he jumped to his feet. ‘Then why are we sitting here? The more we can learn of it, the greater the chance of discovering if the card has any importance to the case.’
‘But they will never admit us,’ I said without moving, for not only did I think it was an irrelevance but, after all that had happened the day before, I had little appetite to leave this safe haven for the rain and wind of the streets.
‘Of course not,’ said Bell, turning to seize his coat, ‘which is why we must follow him.’
The plan was concocted in a hansom that Bell had instructed to drop us close by my lodgings. ‘I suggest,’ he said, leaning forward eagerly, obviously glad to be doing something, ‘that we follow Morland separately rather than together. If he sees you, you can make up some explanation, but with any luck he will not see me.’
In truth I could not at all understand why he thought this mission important, especially at so critical a time in my own affairs. I was still smarting, too, from his words about my mental reliability in the hotel.
‘But Doctor, this is surely a fool’s errand?’ I said, turning to him to give my words greater emphasis. ‘I cannot see what you hope to achieve. The League is evidently some philanthropic society which administers loans to the needy. Sally Morland indicated that they have many clients from all walks of life. Perhaps Harriet Lowther herself hoped to secure a loan. But why is that of any importance to you?’
‘Possibly it is not,’ he said holding his cane and looking straight ahead as he was wont to do when he was thinking. The flare from the gas lamps we passed in the rain illuminated odd corners of his face and he rocked slightly with the motion of the cab. ‘But how could I know that until I have discovered more? I have learned from long experience, Doyle, that need and debt often have a bearing on a crime. And in a case as odd as Miss Lowther’s I am more than happy to follow any divergent path which presents itself.’ Then he did turn to me, and I sensed the frustration he always felt when he was short of material. ‘We are not, you will agree, exactly presented with a surfeit of clues in her case.’ By this time we were already close by the lodgings and Bell leaned forward to tell our driver to stop.
Within a few minutes we were huddled in a doorway round the corner from Esher Street. It was still raining and I was struggling to think what to say if Sally Morland walked past and saw us. However, there was not long to wait for Morland came out at twenty minutes to the hour, dressed in a heavy overcoat against the weather, and turned away towards the Vauxhall Bridge Road.
We had agreed to scout him separately, and so, after a judicious interval, I moved off to follow. In the unlikely event that he stopped and saw me, I would have to pretend to be on some errand. But soon he was walking so rapidly there seemed little chance of this and I smartened my pace to keep up with him, reflecting that the Doctor would probably have to rely on me for his bearings. Indeed when I glanced back to where Bell had been, there was no sign of him at all.
Spurred on by the fact that he seemed to have left the field entirely to me, and might even have some other plan afoot, I hurried after Morland’s figure. The rain and wind was an aid to me now, for I attracted little notice in these dark streets, and the man ahead of me was clearly in no mood to look round.
He turned into Chapter Street, and I hung back as he crossed over but came closer to him again as he weaved through an endless series of residential roads. Soon we found ourselves close to the river by Fire Wood Wharf, where the water was choppy and an old trading boat rocked angrily back and forth on its moorings. Here I stopped and pretended to stare at it till he was almost out of sight, then followed on. He passed Pimlico Pier and trudged on down Grosvenor Road until at last he came to a great old stone church just within sight of Grosvenor Bridge.
Here, then, was the place of the meeting. The door of the church hall was, I saw, opened to Martin by a dark-suited man with a beard, who closed it again firmly as I passed by on the other side, taking care he did not see me.
I saw no way I could obtain admission, and I cursed Bell for sending me on this fool’s errand, which I noted the Doctor himself seemed to have abandoned. But I could hardly give up now, and my only hope was to try to find some way in through the church itself.
I circled round to the back of it, where there was nobody to be seen, and stared up through the rain at the tower and a huge stained-glass bow window. Finally I arrived at a large oak door and, after yet again ascertaining that nobody was on the street, I turned the handle, only to establish that it was locked fast. This was poor luck, but I guessed that the League had made sure of it. Perhaps the meeting was destined to go unobserved, but, whatever my feelings about this mission, I did not much care for the idea of abject failure.
I walked on round the side of the building which took me behind a clump of bushes that marked the small graveyard. There was little light here, but in the furthest corner I saw an outline of something in the stone. Coming closer, I made out it was an old vestry door, evidently little used. Here was my last opportunity and I tried the handle, but it too was locked. I was about to turn away, but, after some reflection, I gave it one more try, applying more pressure. Now I felt some movement. I pushed again. This time it definitely yielded a few inches. Unlike the other, this was not locked at all, it was merely sealed by disuse.
Before me all was dark and I had to push the door further in order to squeeze myself through. There was noise as it scraped the stone floor, but I doubted anybody would hear, for I must be some way from the hall.
I groped my way into a dusty room and pushed the door shut behind me, glad at least to be out of the weather. I could still see nothing, but I felt mouldy piles of paper and boxes and it seemed certain I was in some semi-abandoned storeroom. Feeling my way round the wall, I made a complete circle and yet found no door of any kind. Could it be that there was no exit from this place into the church? It seemed unlikely. There had to be a door, so I raised the level of my arms and tried again. This time I was rewarded with the touch of something metal jutting out from the stone, a handle and beside it a latch. The reason the door was so high, and I had missed it, was because it led up from a couple of stone steps that I had mistaken for an alcove. I climbed these carefully and then negotiated the latch, and the door opened without much noise.
I was looking out at the body of the church, which was shadowy and empty. But there was light from somewhere and I could hear voices. I stepped out of the doorway and moved slowly and stealthily in the direction of the sound. The church was large and well kept, its pews gleaming in a flickering light whose source I still could not properly see.
At last I came to a side aisle and, beyond it, was a wooden partition wall with a curtained door, separating the hall from the church. This was better luck than I could have anticipated. I heard the voices quite distinctly now and, peering through the curtain, I found I was at the back of a hall where the meeting was in full progress.
The place was lit by large lamps, set in the walls, and I soon saw that the building was in fact less like a hall than a side-wing of the church, which is what it must once have been. There was another stained-glass window and rows of seats, mostly empty, although Martin Morland sat nervously at the front of them.
Facing him on a dais sat five men and one woman in front of a long table, which contained an enormous ledger, various papers and a great box which obviously held money.
These must be the dignitaries of the League, and as soon as I saw them my heart went out to Martin. I had no idea what the elders of a philanthropic society should look like but, as I studied the pinched faces ranged along that dais, with their stony expressions and cold eyes, I felt I had never before in my life seen such a collective absence of humanity. It was easy enough now to understand Morland’s attraction to the opium den if he knew he had to come before these people to plead for charity. Even their clothes were so sombre that they could have been mistaken for a party of undertakers.
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