And to do that, I needed a private investigator. I was reminded of Mr. Camleman. He had been one of my patients a couple of months ago and had given me his visiting card in case I needed him. So I figured it was better to employ his judgment. That was my story, I know I am in deep mirth now but I hope you can help pull me out.”
Maya kept quiet for some time once the doctor had finished his narration. The tale was intriguing and the doctor seemed really bothered by the experience.
She picked up her bag and rummaged it for her brass rimmed magnifying glass to study the note carefully. But the lens seemed to be buried in the pile of rubbish which she carried in her bag. Maya, emptied her bag on the table, dropping a few crumpled pieces of paper, a packet of cigarettes, her hoop of skeletal keys, a few broken pens and a bundle of seven newspapers. On top of the pile lay the magnifying glass that she had been looking for. She scooped all the other stuff back inside her bag and smiled in embarrassment at the doctor who was eying her uncertainly. Maya made a mental note to clean her bag and took up the note to scrutinize it.
She held the glass close to the paper and bent her face upon it. After giving it a thorough examination she held the paper to the light from the window to observe anything suspicious, then took a deep sniff of the page. At the end of the grueling examination, she kept the note upon the table.
“This is quite interesting,” she said, “the author of this note is a right-handed person judging with the direction of the ink smear, with long fingers and short-cropped black hair, one of which is still stuck in the note. He also has a bottle of iodine on his table, the smell still lingers. He is also a rich man given the quality of the paper and the ink and pen and he works for the University of Cardim as there is a watermark of the university on the paper.”
Maya looked at the doctor’s hair.
“Did you write this doctor?” she asked.
“Y…yes,” stuttered the doctor, “you are correct. When I first received the note, I was too scared so I burnt the original one. Then I read all this news about Homi Simpson and I decided to seek professional help. So, I reproduced the note from memory.”
Maya was still dissatisfied, “But there is one more thing about the note. It has not been written in one go. The first half of the sentence ‘Don’t disturb the graves or else’ is written in one smooth flow while the next part – ‘or I’ll tell the police’ has been done slowly, there are breaks between the words and general non-uniformity. It is almost as if you were thinking what you wanted to write, not reproducing what was written on the original note.”
The doctor hesitated, “Actually you are correct again. While I remembered what the first part of the note said, I had trouble remembering exactly what the second part was about. So that took time. But anyways I do believe that I got it correct in the end, I am positive that these were the exact words of the original note.”
Maya nodded again and handed back the note.
“Your tale is quite intriguing, doctor. And I am sure really troubling for you. If you want, I can take this case and help relieve you of your problem.”
“Well,” said the doctor scrutinizing Maya, “I wanted to discuss it with Mr. Camleman first, and if he so decides he can give the case to you.”
Maya looked down at the table. Her first case was almost in her grasp and she couldn’t let it slip away.
“I can very well direct you to Mr. Camleman,” she said casually, “but now that I’ve heard your case I would advise you and that is personal advice as a friend, that you should not disclose it to Mr. Camleman. You see, you may not know him properly but he is actually very particular in matters of law and morality and I’m afraid that if you venture to him, instead of helping you he might inform the guards. Such a thing is not unheard of.”
The doctor’s face turned pale at the thought, “What do you suggest then?”
Maya tried to control her excitement, “If you have no problem, I would suggest that I take up your case in a personal capacity. Not as an employee of the Bombay Detective Agency but as an individual.”
The doctor gave some thought to it,
“That is fine by me,” he said.
Maya looked around the table for a piece of paper. She felt obliged to make a written agreement. In the piece of paper, she scribbled her name, then the name of the doctor, and put it out for his signature.
“What would be your fees, miss?”
Maya had not prepared for that question. She had seen the accounts book of the agency but had not actually gone into the details of the cases.
“100,” she said randomly.
The doctor was slightly surprised, “okay…” he said
“As an advance plus 200 once I do the job”
The doctor nodded and signed upon the paper. “I hope you succeed,” he said. Maya took the piece of paper and gazed longingly at it for a long time.
9
Charles Melcrose's House
Dr. Charles Melcrose was even richer than Maya had first anticipated. He lived in a bungalow bigger and more lavish than any Maya had been to before. The old house in Rabitsnare, half a mile from River Kali, sat on at least 3 acres of land and was surrounded by a tall stone wall from all sides. The whole area was occupied by other bungalows similar to the doctor’s but his house seemed to be the biggest of the lot. The hansom which Charles Melcrose had sent for her, dropped her at the wrought iron gate to the house. A guard in a dirty khaki uniform opened the gate for her and ushered Maya in. The stone house stood a hundred yards from the gate, a cobbled path joined the two. On either side of the path was a huge lawn very poorly maintained and overgrown with brambles and tamarind and mango trees, a few native men with trowels were scattered all over the place removing weeds. Flanking the main structure of the house, on the eastern edge was a smaller brick structure, possibly a servant room, constructed much later than the actual house as evident from the differently styled windows. The main house itself was two stories high, with bare stone walls and ivy-clad gabled roof broken by a chimney through which smoke poured insouciantly. Maya found the doctor waiting for her at the entrance to the house. He did not seem as worried as he had looked yesterday in the office. On his right stood an old native man dressed in a white shirt and dhoti and with a walking stick in his hand. He was taller than the doctor and seemed to be eyeing her suspiciously, while to the doctor’s left was a diminutive lady, who Maya suspected was the doctor’s wife. She was draped in a blue dress, her hair held regally in an ornate bun upon her head, a gold pin glinting from within her tresses. She smiled warmly as Maya made her appearance.
“Welcome Miss Mitchell,” said the doctor, also smiling, “you have done me a great favor by agreeing to take this case. I already feel slightly better just by seeing you.”
Maya was flushed with slight embarrassment. She hadn’t even started and the doctor had pinned all his hopes on her. What if she failed? What if she could find nothing about Bernard Knowles?
She smiled nonetheless.
“I will try my best.”
“Yes you will,” said the doctor, “meet my wife Cecilia and the caretaker of the house Rattan Singh.”
Maya smiled and nodded to each.
“This is Maya,” the doctor introduced her, “I hope she will help resolve this mess. Apart from you only these two know about the note.”
There was an awkward silence as Maya thought about an appropriate response but found none forthcoming. Cecilia Melcrose broke the silence.
“I am sure Miss Maya would be able to throw more light onto the affair but it would be a shame to start without tea. The morning is crisp and I have made cookies.”
She led her into the house and Charles followed while Rattan Singh stayed outside. Maya had emerged into a large hall, richly furnished with soft velvet sofas and a carved ebony table in the center. A gold embroidered Persian rug covered the floor. From the cream-colored wall, a stuffed tiger head roared fiercely from the midst of a wide assortment of porcelain plaques. The wal
l opposite the tiger head was occupied by a large sketch of a skeleton on a walking stick. Maya took her seat on the sofa and observed the absurd sketch.
“That sketch is taken from the book on human anatomy by Gargilius,” said Charles Melcrose, “Oh no, my apologies, it wasn’t Gargilius, how could I forget. This figure is by Galen, one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of his time. This sketch itself is considered a breakthrough in my field of study.”
The doctor mused proudly at the sketch.
“That is very interesting,” said Maya, “you have a very lovely house. I can hardly claim to have ever been to a more beautiful place.”
“I accept your compliment,” said the doctor, “though I must mention that I owe this house to my wife. It was her father who gifted us this house when we moved to Cardim from Calcutta.”
“Oh, so you lived in Calcutta before.”
“Yes, my father was an official in the Calcutta mint of East India Company and I was born there. I moved to Cardim three years ago to pursue research in human anatomy. You see Calcutta was a bustling town in its own right but it was nowhere near as big as Cardim and I figured I had a better chance of having a successful career here. My wife was against the idea initially, she is from Calcutta as well, but I brought her round to it.”
“I remember you mentioned earlier,” asked Maya, “that you do not actively practice medicine. Can you elaborate on your work, what is it exactly that your work entails.”
Mrs. Melcrose returned with a tray of tea and biscuits and set it on the ebony table.
“I hope you don’t mind milk and sugar in your tea,” she said keeping the tray on the table, “this is a sort of tradition in this house and I’m afraid the guests just have to bear with it.”
“Well, Mrs. Melcrose I don’t mind milk in my tea at all. And sugar frankly I cannot have enough of it.”
Mrs. Melcrose was delighted to hear that. She handed Maya a cup and settled beside her husband.
Maya took a swig of the tea. It was sweet and strong.
“So, Mr. Melcrose I was just asking you more about your work.”
“Ah yes,” Charles Melcrose had also picked up a cup of tea and was running his hand over the surface as if to warm his fingers, “I came to Cardim in 1874, no I think it was December of 1873. I initially had the intention of establishing a traditional medical practice but was instead drawn to the subject of human anatomy. There is a huge gap in the knowledge in that field, I mean even now practicing physicians harbor all sorts of ridiculous ideas about the human body, their knowledge is almost archaic. I wanted to change that and for that, I needed to study humans. So, even as I set up a normal medical practice I also continued my research. Two years ago I took up a position at the University of Cardim where I teach aspiring doctors Human Anatomy. I still practice medicine but very occasionally and only for a select few. I actually happened to take up the case of Amina Sinclair, the Mayor’s wife who was suffering from a particularly nasty case of stomach ulcers and all the established methods of treatment had failed. I tried a different method and succeeded, which sort of made me famous overnight and since then I receive more requests to treat patients than I can possibly entertain. I prefer to research and teach students. My lectures at the university are quite popular and that brings me to the point I was making to you yesterday. I have painstakingly built a reputation in this city and I cannot afford to have it destroyed by a mistake I did not even make.”
The doctor jumped up suddenly as he made his last point. He had absently dropped the cup of tea upon his trousers.
“I am sorry,” he said soaking tea on a rag that his wife had passed on to him. He walked over to the kitchen to clean himself and returned a few minutes later, still clad in the same trouser which now had a large patch of wetness on his thigh.
“I am sorry for this,” he said, “I have a habit of being clumsy and this note has made me even worse.”
“I understand that,” said Maya finishing the tea and keeping the cup upon the table. “Thank you for the lovely tea Mrs. Melcrose,” she added to the doctor’s wife.
Cecilia Melcrose kept the empty teacups on a tray and left the room.
“Thank you for the history doctor. I now want to ask a couple of questions,” she said looking at the doctor who nodded wordlessly.
“Great, so let us start. First things first. Can you narrate the sequence of events again in detail? How you came to be in the possession of the note?”
The doctor looked slightly confused at Maya, “but I told you this yesterday,” he said.
“I want all the details you can remember. When did the note come, what were you doing, what did you see outside the door, what did you do immediately afterward. Everything.”
The doctor nodded.
“Let me start from the beginning. I have an office in the basement of this house where I work on dissecting bodies and researching. I have a habit of working late into the night when I am absorbed in work. Yesterday was one such night. I had dissected the body of a man who had died of heart failure. I had extracted his left eyeball and had found something peculiar in the consistency of the eye fluid, so, had been investigating the organ deep into the night in my basement office. At around 4 in the morning, I decided to halt work and get some hours of rest before my class at the university. However, as I closed my work, cleaned the table and the instruments, there was a knock on the door. When I looked in the direction, I found a piece of paper on the floor. It was the same note which I showed to you yesterday. As you can understand, as soon as I read the note I became very nervous. I opened the door and peered outside but there was no one. I went ahead and burnt the note and then went to my room to rest, however, I could not sleep. I woke up in the morning and found the news about Homi Simpson which troubled me even further, so I copied the note in another paper and came to you.”
“Did you not ask the guard at the gate if he saw someone enter the house?” Maya wanted to make notes about the case but hadn’t brought any stationary along and it felt slightly unprofessional to borrow it from the doctor.
“I could not ask the guard directly,” said the doctor, “as I did not want him to know about the matter. Instead, I asked him in passing if he had seen anyone enter the compound wall or lurk suspiciously near the house. He was certain that there was no one suspicious near the house the previous night. How much truth there is to his statement, I cannot tell for I have often found him enjoying slumber during the night.”
Maya nodded, already churning the facts in her mind. “Was there anyone else apart from you three in the house last night?”
“No! I mean if you discount the guard at the gate. There are half a dozen other people who work here– four gardeners, a sweeper, and a laundry boy. But all of them leave by dusk.”
“And this Rattan Singh, how long has he been with you?”
“He has been in this house even longer than us. He was a caretaker of this house before we shifted here. And just so you know, I wouldn’t think of pointing a finger at Rattan Singh, he has been a loyal servant, I have never had anything but compliments for him.”
“I understand,” said Maya, “but in these matters, it is better to be thorough. Did Rattan Singh know about your dealings with Mr. Knowles?”
“Yes, he did. It was often he who received the cadavers from him and paid him.”
“All right. Is there anyone else who might know about your dealing with Bernard Knowles?”
“Not that I can think off. Though I am sure that Bernard himself might’ve entrusted a few with this information.”
Maya decided to ask for a paper and pen. The facts were becoming too much to be kept in her mind and it would be embarrassing if she had to ask these same questions again. The doctor scrounged around in a desk in the room to hand her a pad of paper and a fountain pen.
“So, Mr. Melcrose,” said Maya when she was ready, “this case essentially has two parts. We first need to find out if Mr. Bernard Knowles was a body snatc
her and that the bodies that he supplied were stolen from graveyards. The second part is to find out who sent you the note?”
“Actually no,” said the doctor, “I am keen only for the first part. I only want to know if the bodies that I used for dissection were stolen from graves. If I have that information I can plan for any eventuality. Many of my friends are lawyers and I hope to use their experience to make a legal bunker around me. We can deal with the sender of the notes later”
Maya was slightly disappointed at having had her work cut short, but she did not let it show.
“Let’s focus on Mr. Bernard then.”
Maya bit the end of the pen, thinking about possible questions.
“What do you know about him? When did you find him, where and how did you meet him, and how long has he been supplying bodies to you?”
The doctor looked at the tiger head gathering his thoughts, “In my initial years,” he said, “I used to get bodies for research from the morgue near Cochin gate, but the supply was neither good nor consistent. The quality of the cadavers was not what you would call premium. A friend of mine, also a doctor, then told me that the Morgue in Sophia was the biggest in Cardim and that I had more chance of getting good quality specimens from there. So I went to the Sophia Morgue one day, it is a big facility a quarter-mile east of the Cathedral. As I was just entering the compound of the building, I found a man coming out with a bundle of papers in his hand. This man looked like an employee of the facility. So I asked him if he could direct me to the place where I can apply to get cadavers. He said he would be most willing to help me as he worked for the same department as a licensed supplier. He introduced himself as Bernard Knowles and took me inside the building in a visitor’s chamber where he left me to wait for five minutes at the end of which he emerged with a set of papers. They were essentially application forms to set up a supply of cadavers. I had to attach my physician’s license, a letter to state my need of cadavers and pay a sum of 12 Cowries in advance and a further 20 Cowries for the receipt of each body, He in turn gave me a copy of his supplier’s license. The man took my address and we completed the remaining formalities at my home the next day. A few days later he brought me the first body.”
The Anatomist (Maya Mystery Book 2) Page 5