The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

by Pirie, David

  ‘Indeed I wanted to ask you about your wife’s fears,’ said Bell leaving the books at last and again I noted his respectful tone. ‘Can you tell me exactly what she was frightened of?’

  The question seemed highly disturbing to Canning, but he controlled himself after a moment. ‘You do not know?’ he replied. ‘Very well … I admit that I hate even speaking the name. It was Nicholas Carstairs.’

  Bell started. ‘You have heard of him, I see,’ Canning was almost whispering. ‘The man was hanged at Cawdon Square not far away from here.’

  ‘Did he live here?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Canning, his voice still low. ‘But it was the scene of one of his crimes. A whole family! My wife heard about it shortly after we came. A silly gossiping friend told her. Her nerves were never very strong, but from then on … Oh, how I just curse myself now for moving here at all.’ He was crying now and there, in that room, with the wind and rain outside, I felt sorry for him. I did not wonder he felt guilty about bringing her to the house for the whole place reeked of fear.

  ‘And tell me,’ demanded Bell, ‘did she say she saw Carstairs?’

  ‘No,’ said Canning, wiping his eyes and making an effort to compose himself. ‘But she felt his presence. She felt it here in the house at night. She thought he would come for her and now … it is as if it has all happened just as she feared.’ He turned back to the window but it was only an attempt to hide more crying. Bell motioned me out and we left him. It would have been too cruel to continue.

  We walked back along the corridor to the dead woman’s bedroom and I had a question I was burning to ask. ‘This man Carstairs? How did he murder his victims?’

  His reply was flat: ‘He strangled them.’

  The thought that Carstairs had strangled people in this place added a new and horrible aspect to the house and I began to wish fervently for morning. But the Doctor gave no indication of leaving. Indeed, his mood had become even more introspective as we waited alone in that grim bedroom with the wind howling outside.

  I expected the Doctor to make further investigations. But slowly it became clear to me that he had already gathered all the data available to him. For a while he sat down on the end of that awful bed and was completely still. The energy I had seen earlier had gone. In fact, I could tell he was far from happy.

  Bell stood in the same position for a long while. I took up a place by the window and there we stayed until quite suddenly he was back on his feet, moving from one place to the next as if impatient.

  Canning’s Sealed Bedroom

  Finally he stopped at the wall furthest from the door and drummed his fingers on the mantelpiece. From here he turned and paced back and forth within the room. I watched his face closely. It was clear that he was turning something over and over in his mind and the bed-chamber itself fascinated him almost as if it contained the mystery within it. A little later that night, during a lull in our vigil, I made a sketch map of the room in my notebook and, though I did not know it at the time, it contains exactly the details that Bell was examining and re-examining throughout the night in order to reach a conclusion.

  Again he moved back to the bed and I realised he was surveying the room as if from the perspective of the woman who had died in it. By now I was completely absorbed in the Doctor’s thought processes and longed to know the nature of the internal debate that raged within him. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, I opened my mouth to ask a question.

  I should have known better. He raised a fierce hand, indicating he would tolerate no disturbance, and subsided into reflection. After that the silence continued for the best part of two hours. I say ‘silence’, though in fact the night outside was so foul that all I could hear was the wind roaring around the window and chimney.

  It must have been between three and four o’clock when the Doctor’s curious trance was finally broken. There was no knock at the door. Instead, it opened slowly and silently, and a policeman entered. He evidently knew the Doctor of old for he said nothing at all, but walked over to him and respectfully handed him a piece of paper before withdrawing.

  Bell took the paper and looked at it for a while. Then at last he broke his silence and I could see the strain on his face. ‘Well, they have done the autopsy. There is not a trace of poison or anything else in her. And as you saw, no marks of any kind. They are still making tests but despite the lack of any marks, there is some evidence that her lungs were deprived of air as if …’ He broke off and turned to me. ‘Yes, as if … she had been strangled.’

  THE SEALED CHAMBER AT CANNING’S

  ‘Good God,’ I said. For I remembered the expression on her face, and now it was almost as if I could see the impression of Mrs Canning’s body still on the bed beside us and feel the agony of those last moments.

  But Bell merely crumpled the paper in his hand with evident irritation and turned away to the window, looking quite crestfallen.

  ‘Well,’ I said quietly, ‘it must be as they thought. She worked herself up into a terror, inspired by what once happened here, and her heart gave way.’

  Bell leant on the window, completely still. I was beginning to feel annoyed with him. Very well, he had got nowhere, but what was that beside the suffering that had taken place just a few feet away from where he stood? Outside, the wind was louder than ever.

  ‘And after all.’ I raised my voice. ‘We cannot bring her back. To think of that poor woman lying here in that state with the wind howling in the chimney like this. It is horrible.’

  I could hardly believe the impact my words had. The Doctor suddenly sprang round and came towards me.

  At first I thought he was angry at my interruption, but his tone was pleased and excited. ‘What? What did you say?’ But he did not wait for an answer; indeed, he did not truly seem to see me – he was effectively talking to himself: ‘Yes! Yes, of course. You have cleared up the very matter that has been bedevilling me.’ And he moved rapidly to the door.

  I was glad enough to get out of that room. ‘So you agree with me?’ I asked as we came out into the corridor.

  He looked at me and at last seemed properly to register my presence. ‘My dear fellow, I am sorry. When I have a case to work through it is important to me to have the mental space to resolve it. You have shown admirable patience and I am sure you are hungry.’

  I am not sure how hungry I really felt, but a few moments later we were raiding the servants’ large but empty kitchen where the Doctor was able to avail himself of a joint of lamb and some bread and butter that had been prepared for the master of the house that evening but had gone uneaten. I will never forget the relish with which he cut thin slices of lamb and wolfed down the bread and butter.

  I drank some water, feeling quite proud that he had come round to my way of thinking. ‘Then it is your conclusion that she died of terror because of those unfounded fears?’

  ‘Unfounded?’ he queried, looking up from his energetic meal. ‘No, they were very well founded. The woman died just exactly as she feared.’ He removed a few last crumbs with his napkin. ‘She was deliberately choked to death.’

  ‘But by whom?’ I was beginning to feel all my old incredulity.

  ‘Both the maid and her husband told us quite clearly. Did you not hear them?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I was beginning to feel real irritation. ‘They spoke of the invisible ghost of a dead man.’

  At this point the door opened and Beecher entered. He had evidently been up all night too, but he was smiling now and in his hand was a copy of the results of the autopsy. ‘Well, there you are, Bell,’ he said. ‘Her breathing was constricted but there was nothing blocking her throat or her lungs. It must have been her heart.’

  ‘No, it was not her heart,’ the Doctor replied. ‘It was as she feared, Beecher. An invisible thing entered Mrs Canning’s room and squeezed the life out of her.’

  I had had enough. ‘I cannot believe you would indulge in such unprovable claims,’ I said. ‘Claim
s which must clearly be nonsense.’

  I suppose I was vehement partly because I was tired and had been cooped up in that awful room all night. As yet, it must be remembered, I had little experience of Bell’s skills. I could see only that he was making fantastic claims and enjoying their theatrical effect. Indeed, here was more proof of what I had suspected all along. The Doctor was a charlatan; and, what was worse, the kind who believes his own twaddle.

  Beecher looked delighted with my outburst. ‘Good for you, young man. This is too much even for you, Bell. A ghost! It is childish nonsense.’

  But the Doctor did not look at all put out. He was taking great interest in the roster of work that was laid out in that kitchen for the servants. Such things were not so uncommon in the larger town houses and they set out the precise times and duties of each maid and servant during the day with particular attention to household chores. The chart in front of us was as detailed as any I had seen, evidently the house was run on very meticulous lines. ‘Yes, it is childish,’ said Bell absently as he studied it.

  ‘Even you admit it,’ said Beecher.

  Bell had found what he wanted and looked up. ‘You misunderstand me, Beecher. I mean it is childishly simple. And if this chart is strictly observed, as I am sure it must be, then we can see it all for ourselves now.’

  The door opened and Mary, the Irish maid we had talked to hours earlier, appeared, dressed for her duties for the day. She was a bit taken aback to see us in the servants’ kitchen, but Bell rose to the occasion:

  ‘Ah, Mary, I am sorry. We have helped ourselves. And now we believe you may be able to help us.’

  ‘I will help you in any way I can, sir,’ said the girl with astonishment.

  ‘Well, fortunately’ — Bell was now very much master of the occasion — ‘we need not interrupt your duties while you do so. For if I am not mistaken, one of your first tasks is in your master’s study. Is that right? We will follow you.’

  So our little party trooped up the stairs behind the surprised maid to the study where we had talked to Canning earlier. The room was fairly dark, its gaslights turned down, but Canning, who was still dressed and had clearly not slept, heard us and came along the corridor to see what we were doing.

  ‘Ah, Mr Canning,’ said Bell. ‘I have come to the conclusion that your belief in a lethal but unseen presence in this house is entirely justified. But in order to prove it to these sceptics here, I need the assistance of your maid.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed the man, his eyes still red from crying, ‘Mary, give the Doctor any assistance he requires. I am eager to hear it.’

  And now came one of those bizarre moments which the Doctor always seemed to relish. For all of us – myself, Beecher, Canning and the uniformed policeman, who had brought the autopsy report – sat down in that still-darkened study and watched, somewhat stupefied, as Bell gave orders to the maid.

  ‘I want you, Mary,’ he began, ‘merely to proceed with your duties in this room.’

  ‘My duties, sir. Why, of course!’ said Mary.

  ‘Just do as you would do when you come down here so early in the morning.’

  Not surprisingly, Mary seemed rather flustered. ‘What I do, sir? Well, I would enter the room and do the fire.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Bell sounded rather absent-minded, a trait I was beginning to see was entirely deceptive. ‘Now, just to be clear, this fire adjoins the one next door in your mistress’s bedroom, is that correct?’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘So would you be so kind as to show us what you did here yesterday morning, some hours before your mistress was found dead.’

  ‘What I did, sir? Why, I got down and …’

  ‘In the dark?’ asked Bell.

  ‘Why, no, sir,’ replied the girl. ‘I always turn up the gas.’

  Bell indicated she should do so. She moved to the gas lamps and turned up the flame. The room grew brighter around us. ‘Excellent,’ Bell said. ‘And then?’

  ‘Why, sir, I go to the fire and open the flue.’

  The Doctor seemed particularly interested in this operation and, seeing this, the girl got down on her knees and pulled at the metal rod. Bell was behind her, watching like a hawk. ‘A wee bit stiff, is it not?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Yes, yes, it is,’ she said, struggling. ‘I do not know why that should be, but it has been stiff for a few days. There! It is open.’

  ‘Very good, Mary.’ The Doctor straightened up. ‘That is all I require of you, thank you.’

  ‘I can go?’ she asked, rather surprised.

  ‘By all means recommence your other duties in the kitchen, though I think you will find it an unusual day.’

  She bobbed to us rather sweetly and went out, while Bell turned to his audience who were none the wiser for this display and becoming slightly restless. I did notice, however, that Canning himself was staring at the bookcase, just as Bell had done much earlier that night.

  ‘Ah, Canning,’ said Bell in a very friendly tone. ‘Yes, I must ask another favour of you. I wonder if I might borrow this. It was lying behind the books.’ He held up a narrow length of pink rubber tubing about three or four feet long. It was an innocent enough object on its own, but even then there seemed something very unpleasant about it.

  Bell moved deftly over to the fireplace. Again he returned to that space of panelling beside it and ran his hand over it as he had before. But his next movement told me why. For he proceeded to insert one end of the tube through a small hole in the panelling, while he attached the other to a gas spigot he had opened above the lamp. Now, he lowered the flame of the gas lamps, causing the whole room to darken and turned to us with a smile of pride.

  ‘There, gentlemen, is your invisible agent, moving into the bedroom next door through this tube. Quite capable of asphyxiating the occupant of an adjoining room with absolutely no ventilation.’

  We could see at once he was right. For now the flame was turned down in the study, it left far more pressure of gas for the spigot and tube. In fact, I could hear a gentle hiss as the gas was pumped lethally into the next-door room, where we had spent most of that fearful night.

  Beecher was aghast, as were we all. ‘But why’, he asked, ‘did they not smell gas when they got in?’

  ‘That’, said Bell, ‘was exactly what I could not fathom. I kept returning to it all night. The window was sealed shut. The thing seemed quite impossible. Until young Doyle came to my rescue. You see, the gas would disperse within an hour or two if the room were ventilated and the pressure were down. And you, Doyle, mentioned the wind howling in the chimney.’

  ‘What of it?’ I said.

  ‘There was the means of ventilation! And Canning’s alibi remained intact. It was the maid, as you have just seen, who acted as his accomplice.’ The word took me aback but he anticipated the objection. ‘Oh, quite innocently as she demonstrated for us,’ he said. ‘She entered and turned up the gas to light the room, lowering the pressure on the system. Little gas was now escaping into the room next door. Next she went to the fire and found the flue stiff. Why? Because if you look …’ He bent down and pulled at the lever, thrusting his arm into the aperture. ‘It had been connected by a wire to the flue in the fireplace of the adjoining bedroom. Opening this one, she opens that one as well.’

  Now, of course, we all saw the full extraordinary ingenuity of this scheme and our eyes turned with Bell to Canning. He still sat in his armchair, as if engrossed in the account, but he was unnaturally still.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bell, addressing him directly. ‘You realised it would be hours before her body was discovered. That left plenty of time for the gas to escape and for you to remove the tube, which was not very noticeable in any event. There was no time to dispose of it, but concealment in your library must have seemed safe enough. I must admit I combed the house before I found it here.’

  Bell’s eyes locked with Canning’s. The man got up. I do not know whether he was contemplating flight but it would have been useles
s in any event. The uniformed policeman was right at his elbow. ‘Congratulations,’ he said to Bell after a moment’s pause. ‘A fine piece of work. But I rather wish you had been in the room with her.’

  After Canning had been taken out, Beecher went to the gas spigot and examined the hole and tube in great detail. He affected an air of nonchalance, but I could see it was only to conceal a fair degree of amazement.

  ‘Very well, Bell,’ he pronounced at last. ‘I have to acknowledge your success. But how in heaven’s name could the man know for sure his scheme would work?’

  ‘Because,’ said Bell, ‘like any good scientist, he had tested it all to his satisfaction while she was away. One of the first things I noticed here was the new gas fittings. And the lady’s cat, you will recall, was missing.’

  It was almost dawn before the Doctor and I returned to his workroom. Without hesitation, he led me straight to his locked door. ‘After tonight,’ he told me, ‘I think I can justify your admission here.’ And he turned the key.

  As soon as it was open I saw my folly. For it did not lead to a room at all but to a staircase. Finally the dimensions of my puzzling map made sense.

  He climbed the stairs ahead of me and soon we arrived at another locked door at the top. There were, it seemed, even more warrens to his labyrinth than I had suspected and I felt sure that somewhere near here was another way out. Now at last I understood the secret behind the Doctor’s sudden appearances and his ability to come and go without being seen.

  He unlocked this last door and we entered a large room, which looked at first like a comfortable study. A fire was burning in the grate, so evidently someone cleaned and serviced these quarters, though to this day I do not know who. The shelves all around me contained a strange assortment of objects, besides photographs and pamphlets and books.