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

by Pirie, David

  ‘See, Doyle,’ he said with excitement. ‘Crown of thorns.’

  I stared too. ‘A tattoo?’

  ‘Quite a common one in Spain and South America, but hardly among the aristocracy.’ Now he lifted the corpse’s hands. ‘And these are the hands of a labourer. It seems our Garcia has concealed something of his true past. Tell me, Inspector Warner, you are sure you found no passport or papers?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Warner confirmed. ‘The money and papers had all gone. We believe they were in the box that was ransacked.’

  ‘And his landlord?’

  ‘The owner of that house never set eyes on him. The whole arrangement was done by letter. But the purse surely tells us Dr Doyle and Baynes were involved, does it not?’

  The Doctor had finished his examination and straightened up. ‘Yes, it does,’ he said. ‘The matter is becoming clearer.’

  I was angry enough to try to interrupt but he continued quite unruffled, ‘I would ask you to wait a day, Inspector. I believe I can be of serious help to you but I wish to go into Southampton and visit the newspaper office there. In the meantime the only condition I would ask is that you leave Dr Doyle for the moment. I can vouch he will not abscond and he has a patient to see.’

  This last remark astonished me. Bell had evidently been reading my nearly blank appointments book but I was grateful for I had feared I would have to cancel Miss Grace’s consultation. Inspector Warner looked a little doubtful but he was sufficiently in awe of Bell to let him have his wish. I shook the Doctor’s hand more warmly before we went our separate ways.

  Miss Grace appeared to have absolutely no knowledge of my predicament as she sat in my consulting room, her face dappled with sweet colour by the fading light outside as she looked at me intently. There was in truth little medical business to do until the retinoscope arrived and perhaps she saw I was a little dispirited, for she asked me if there was anything wrong.

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘But a friend of mine is in trouble of a kind. Though I hope it will turn out for the best.’

  She seemed to understand I could not say more and we left the subject. I was heartened to learn she had not seen our cyclist again, but it also transpired she was too fearful to look back so perhaps this proved nothing. And I reflected how yet again my own problems were impeding me just when I might have been of use to her. It seemed, too, that the nightmares she suffered were worse. As the interview was drawing to a close, she asked if on the next visit she might tell me about them.

  I was flattered but I had no wish to be considered a charlatan, so I took some trouble to explain to her that, though it would do no harm for me to hear them, a sleeping potion might be more effective.

  She shook her head. ‘I would like to tell you,’ she said. And there was something about the way she said it.

  After the interview I came back from showing her out to find that the Doctor had returned from his trip to Southampton while I was seeing her and was now leafing through my Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.

  ‘An interesting book,’ he said. ‘Though not one that reflects particularly well on our profession.’

  ‘Possibly that is why Cullingworth calls it his bible.’

  Bell smiled. ‘There is quite a sadness at the end, though,’ he said. ‘When the creature says goodbye and is borne away by the waves into the darkness and distance you feel for him. But enough of that.’ He put the book to one side. ‘Have you views on the case?’

  ‘My views?’ I replied bitterly. ‘My views are that the police, as always, have merely picked on the nearest candidates, myself and poor Baynes. Why do they not look into the man’s past, into his habits? What was he doing on the day he died? Who were his associates? The thing is a travesty!’

  ‘In some ways,’ said Bell, getting up cheerfully. ‘And I will tell you another, which is that for a felon you keep the most abominable kitchen in the world and I was so busy in Southampton I entirely forgot to eat lunch. If you would only produce more of your illgotten gains, we might yet dine better.’

  I was exasperated by his good humour. ‘You may call me lacking in spirit, Doctor, but an innocent man rots in prison.’

  ‘Yet is he entirely innocent? I am not even sure you are. I will debate with you no further, however, and am even prepared to buy you dinner if you promise not to mention the case until we conclude it tomorrow.’

  I was greatly cheered by this. ‘Conclude it?’ I said. ‘I will be in your debt if you do.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked as we left the house. ‘I doubt you will feel any gratitude if your next meal is at Her Majesty’s pleasure. But now let us talk of other things, including the young lady you saw this evening. I look forward with some anticipation to hearing her account of the nightmares.’

  I stopped dead, more than a little irritated not just by Bell’s eavesdropping but also by his typical assumption that anything I did, no matter how private, was accessible to him. ‘I know you favour unorthodox methods, Doctor, but that surely does not include breaking the Hippocratic oath. You cannot spy on a confidential interview. It is not only unethical, it is treating me like a child.’

  ‘Doyle,’ he said pacifically, ‘doctors often exchange case notes. What is the difference? But if that topic is barred, so be it. We will discuss Frankenstein or Cullingworth, or any other subject you please. I am not surprised your nerves are on edge. But I am quite sure some of the excellent local oysters will mellow them.’

  ‘THE WORKSHOP OF FILTHY CREATION’

  I am slightly ashamed to say he was right. I felt in a better frame of mind as we returned to the house and, before he retired to his inn, I almost managed to forget my predicament as we pored over the strange message that had been found in Garcia’s pocket.

  ‘It is certainly a cipher,’ said the Doctor, ‘and a fixed one too. I imagine each number donates the same letter but it is more difficult than it looks. I would wager that “8” is the critical letter within it; follow that letter through, Doyle, and see what you think.’ He was bending forward, scrutinising the paper with enormous interest. ‘Yes, I might even go further and hazard that”8” stands for …’ He frowned. ‘But the eleventh line is very odd indeed … very odd and unlike anything else.’

  His hand had come to rest on the numbers ‘1 8 1 8’. ‘You see,’ said Bell, ‘from the frequency I would suggest the number “1” denotes a relatively uncommon letter, it occurs only five times in the whole document, “8” in contrast, is about the commonest here, it is on every single full line suggesting to me it must be “E”. But what possible combination of letters could cause “E” to be repeated like that with what is certainly a consonant before it?’

  ‘It could be “M” and “E” as part of different words. “Same men”, for example,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes, very good,’ said the Doctor and I could sense the old excitement in him. ‘Except note that it is bracketed on both sides by “19”. The full section is “19 1 8 1 8 19”. Now “19” is a relatively uncommon number too, a consonant certainly, and the fact it recurs here must rule out your suggestion. Let us suppose “19” is “F”, which is the fourteenth commonest letter in the language and”1” is “G”, which is the fifteenth commonest. In both cases these are reasonable hypotheses for their frequency in the text, but by no means certain, and I cite them merely to show you the difficulty. You have “FGEGEF” or swopping them round “GFEFEG”, both impossible, and at once you see the difficulties with this confounded “19 1 8 1 8 19”. Try other consonants and the same problem recurs. How on earth can an uncommon consonant denoted by “19” follow what must be another consonant and then an “E” and repeat the same combination backwards? “LREREL”! “TVEVET”! “JREREJ”! No the thing is impossible! There must be something wrong with that line.’

  He tossed the paper angrily to one side and stared fixedly at the desk in front of him. Suddenly his face lit up. ‘Good heavens!’ he said, ‘I think you have given it to me, Doyle.’

  ‘I?
How?’

  ‘By what we talked about. But now I must think further.’ And he left me.

  Next morning Bell had arranged to meet Inspector Warner at the Garcia house. There was a policeman at the door, who nodded to us as Bell led me inside.

  Inspector Warner was in the hall and beside him was a haggard, unshaven figure I barely recognised, but Baynes stepped forward with desperate eagerness to shake hands. He seemed enormously pleased to see me but his expression told me all was not well and I soon heard why.

  ‘There is enough evidence for me to start formal proceedings today, at least as far as Mr Baynes is concerned,’ Warner told the Doctor, who to my disgust merely nodded.

  We entered the dining room, which was back to normal, the food and plates removed. Bell looked round it with interest. ‘And I see the room has been returned to a more acceptable state. Good, for I am now proposing to put some order into this maelstrom. Mr Baynes, would you be so kind as to go to the postbox and bring me all the letters that have been delivered here over the past three days.’

  Baynes was rather surprised but he went out, escorted by a policeman. After a moment he came back with a telegram. ‘A cable for you, Dr Bell. That is all.’

  ‘For you, sir?’ asked Warner. ‘That is remarkable!’ Outside in the hall the bell rang and the policeman returned alone to answer it.

  ‘On the contrary, Inspector,’ said Bell. ‘My cable is the least remarkable thing about it.’

  ‘But I do not follow,’ protested Warner. ‘There is nothing else.’

  ‘Which is exactly what is remarkable!’ Bell explained. ‘A busy and wealthy man of cosmopolitan affairs. He lives here and yet nobody corresponds with him? It is like everything else in this odd business. So let me come right to the point. In a case with such fantastic aspects, often the obvious suspect is the right one. Doyle and Baynes are both certainly at the heart of the matter. Indeed, I would say Doyle motivated it even more than the young locum.’

  I could hardly believe my ears. ‘Good, sir, shall I charge them both?’ enquired Warner.

  ‘Certainly,’ Bell agreed.

  I had had enough. ‘Doctor!’ I said, moving forward to remonstrate with him.

  Bell raised a hand. ‘But first, Inspector,’ he suggested, ‘I would just ask you to observe one small formality and meet with me a waiter from Southampton.’

  ‘I do not follow, sir.’

  ‘Bear with me, then,’ said Bell. ‘And afterwards you may proceed as you wish.’ Outside there were voices and steps were coming towards the room. ‘Ah, may I present …’ Bell continued as the door opened, ‘Señor Garcia.’

  Garcia entered the room. We all stared at him. It was indubitable. Rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. The man I had met at the surgery and the man we had seen bludgeoned to death in the grave outside stood there in front of us in his expensive suit and smiled, showing his teeth and pulling his ear lobe nervously with one hand just as I remembered him.

  ‘Quite fit, is he not?’ Bell remarked. ‘For a man who has been dead a week.’

  Baynes could not restrain himself now. He rushed forward towards the man in an ecstacy of relief. ‘Thank heaven, oh, thank heaven. You are a wonder, Dr Bell. Señor, you tell these men, I won the money at cards, did I not? I came here to dine with you.’

  Garcia smiled and nodded, then gave a deep bow. ‘Señor,’ he said in an accent so heavy it was hard to make out the words. ‘Señor. I understand our small matter is at an end.’

  ‘You are quite right,’ said Bell who was clearly enjoying himself. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Hernando Gomez.’

  ‘And you are … ?’ Bell asked.

  ‘I am a waiter, sir, at the Majestic Café in Southampton.’

  ‘Admirable.’ Bell was smiling, but everyone else was still at sea.

  ‘So this is not Garcia?’ demanded Warner.

  ‘Oh,’ Bell replied. ‘It is the man who took that role. There is no Garcia.’

  ‘But the body … ?’ said Warner.

  ‘A Latino seaman who suffered a gruesome accident in Southampton docks some days ago. In truth, he was not so very like our friend here, but it hardly mattered. The container that fell on his head made facial recognition out of the question and, once he was buried in the garden wearing Garcia’s clothes, nobody knew him well enough to observe the bodily distinction between the two men.’

  ‘But the servants?’

  ‘Merely hired for the evening.’

  ‘So it was a fraud,’ said Warner. ‘But you said Doyle was responsible.’

  ‘No,’ Bell contradicted. ‘I said he motivated it. And so he did, though quite inadvertently.’

  A voice outside in the hall shouted ‘Hello’. It was a voice I recognised and, now that I was beginning to see the truth, I was hardly surprised to hear it.

  ‘And if I am not very much mistaken,’ said Bell, ‘here is our perpetrator and the mysterious man who rented this house. I invited him to come.’

  The door opened and Cullingworth stood there. He took in Garcia and everyone else with a little surprise. But the effect on him was typically outrageous. He merely smiled as if he had been very lavishly complimented and gave a little bow. ‘Ah, well, so be it. You are on to me, I see.’

  Warner stepped forward. The policeman was desperate for someone to hold to account and Cullingworth seemed the best candidate so he addressed him. ‘Sir.’ He gestured to the waiter who was still grinning fatuously. ‘Was this man here your patient?’

  ‘Not really, sir.’ Cullingworth looked back at Warner without a flicker of anxiety. ‘He was a dupe patient. Do you know the term?’

  I did, though I had never heard of such a thing in England. And now at last the whole matter was becoming obvious to me and I cursed myself for not seeing through it.

  ‘The “dupe patient”,’ Dr Bell was saying, ‘is a notorious practice originating in America where doctors, wishing to impress the locals, will sometimes arrange fake visits from supposedly rich and impressive patients. They see it, however misguidedly, as an investment in their own status.’

  So this was all Garcia had been! Little wonder his English was so bad He was there merely to impress us and the idea did not surprise me, given what I knew about Cullingworth. Here was just another of his mad attempts to advance himself alongside his bullet-proof armour and his metal ship protector.

  ‘And after Cullingworth quarrelled with Doyle here,’ said Bell, ‘he saw a further way of using this so-called patient for an elaborate revenge.’

  We were in a rough circle now, all of us staring at Cullingworth, who seemed to take these remarks as flattery. But Warner had heard quite enough and broke out of it striding forward to Cullingworth. ‘So you admit responsibility for this, sir?’ he charged.

  ‘Yes, I am honoured to accept the credit,’ Cullingworth conceded with a broad smile.

  Warner was almost struck dumb by his insolence. ‘You may also accept a sentence,’ he said, his lips hardly moving, indeed everything about him was dangerously still. I thought he was about to take Cullingworth by the throat.

  ‘I rather doubt that.’ Cullingworth was still entirely nonchalant. ‘It is true Dr Doyle and I fell out. He questioned my honour and always made inflated claims about his skills. I said I would involve him in my new drama and prove he was hopeless as a detective. It was a kind of … wager …’

  I could hardly believe my ears. ‘That is a complete lie,’ I cried. ‘There was no wager. He was angry with me partly because I questioned the ethics of his practice.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Cullingworth coolly. ‘He failed as my assistant as well.’

  But Inspector Warner had begun to regain some composure. ‘I think you are a little optimistic, Dr Cullingworth, in assuming you have committed no crime. I cannot arrest you for arranging a hoax, but there is a small matter of the body. I assume you have stolen it from a Southampton mortuary. That is a very serious offence.’

  ‘Indeed it is, sir,
’ replied Cullingworth, ‘but not one I have committed.’ And he took some papers from his pocket. ‘The seaman’s sister was quite happy to hand the body over to my custody in the interests of a dramatic scientific experiment. She was paid well. And I think we can all agree it was dramatic. Why, you see what I have done? I have brought the dead to life. It is an experiment worthy of Frankenstein himself. I could put this on the stage tomorrow and be turning people away by the thousand!’

  Inspector Warner was studying the custody papers in irritation and amazement. ‘So there is nothing here at all, then? The blood, the strongbox?’

  ‘They were mere props,’ said Bell. ‘Like the body itself, buried so obviously. What first alerted me was the fact that hardly anyone seemed to know Garcia. My examination of the house alone suggested the man was a cipher. And it was also curious that he never appeared at Cullingworth’s before two, suggesting he was in fact coming from further away. As I suspected, the body did not entirely square with what little we did know of the man. We seemed to face an illusion and the agony column of the Southampton press proved to be the means of recruitment. It also had details of the dockside accident. I had almost all, then, and Doyle here gave me the key to the cipher, which explained the rest.’

  I told him I could not see how, but Inspector Warner interrupted: ‘So was a crime committed here or not?’ he demanded of Bell.

  ‘As things stand, it is doubtful,’ acknowledged the Doctor, who seemed now to be wearying of the whole affair. ‘That is why I was tempted to allow you to commence formal proceedings. At just that point, Cullingworth here would surely face legal action.’

  ‘No, no, gentlemen,’ protested Cullingworth, still every inch the smiling impresario. ‘This was merely a drama inspired by Mary Godwin’s extraordinary novel Frankenstein. As in that wonderful tale, I created something with a life of its own. But I had plans to come forward today to prevent any injustice.’