by David Pirie
In the hall, Dr Bell explained to Ellie we were investigating certain matters with regard to the mystery of Mr Jefford’s disappearance and wished to know if she had seen anything while she was out on the night he disappeared.
The girl looked quite frightened and blushed but would only shake her head.
‘And can you not say where you were, Ellie?’ said Bell with as much kindness as possible.
Ellie merely stammered. ‘I would rather not say, sir. I was just out walking.’
Bell did not press her and we left. Outside, the weather seemed to be following the same pattern as before. The mist on the marshes had dispersed and clouds were looming over the horizon.
‘We must talk again with Harding and this time rather more forcefully,’ said Bell grimly. ‘I would also like a word with Dr Bulweather. That crossroads could have taken our friend up to the pool and to Jefford’s house but there are other directions too.’
The rain had started again and we were already a little damp by the time we came close to the inn. But the Doctor had no intention of lingering there. After we had collected the necessary clothing, he insisted on going back up to Jefford’s house and the pool in order to talk to Harding and re-examine the ground. ‘Whatever was seen up there last night, it must have left traces,’ he said, ‘and so must Charlotte Jefford.’
We made our way quickly along the road and turned down the woodland track. The rain was still light and the wind whipped up the trees in a manner that reminded me unpleasantly of the previous evening. Not long before we reached the house, our attention was distracted by the sight of figures in the woods. They were a good way off, but well clad for the weather, and there seemed to be some excitement, for voices were calling, so the Doctor decided we should investigate further.
Coming nearer, I had a sense of emergency. There was shouting and someone was sent racing off in the general direction of the village. As we approached, we recognised Langton.
‘Thank heaven you have come,’ he said. ‘I will need all the help I can.’
‘But why?’ said Bell and then stopped, for the company had parted and we saw what was below them. Colin Harding lay there in the grey light and drizzle. His corpse faced the sky in the centre of the clearing and his arms were outstretched, his eyes open, his mouth wide.
There was not a mark upon him that I could see but he looked like a man who had lain down and invited the devil into his flesh, an invitation that, in the last moments of his life, had been accepted to agonising effect.
THE UNFATHOMABLE DEATH
The Doctor was at the side of the corpse at once.
‘He was only discovered an hour ago,’ said Langton. ‘I have just sent a word for Dr Bulweather to come. Dr Hare is away till tomorrow.’
Bell did not reply, he was too intent on examining the body, which, as I have indicated, betrayed no obvious marks other than mud. He stared long and hard at the face, putting his head right next to it, then he looked at the hands and the position.
Getting up, he turned to Langton, his tone urgent. ‘I think we must get him down to the village at once, he has been dead for several hours and it is imperative an autopsy is performed without delay. But first, may I ask if you could clear all of these people right away from the site, we must examine it and I am already concerned vital evidence may have been lost.’
‘Very well, Doctor.’ Though Langton looked slightly doubtful. ‘I know from Bulweather you have great experience of these things but, of course, Harding may have simply had some kind of seizure.’
The Doctor made no reply, he was already studying the ground immediately around the body as Langton told the other men they should go back to their work but stand by to carry the corpse down. The village constable, a tall and dependable man he introduced to us as John Wallace, would meanwhile obtain the necessary stretcher for this task.
I followed Bell as he picked his way across the site, using his silver-topped cane to move vegetation. But even I could see the task was almost hopeless. The ground had been damp, it had rained intermittently if lightly over the past hour and all that now remained were tracts of mud, marked out by the boots of the other men. Bell moved around these in despair and then walked to the perimeter of the clearing. This area was slightly less trampled but even here there were muddy trails.
After a time Dr Bulweather appeared, looking extremely concerned. And, once he had stared at the corpse, Bell walked a little way off with him and the two men were engaged in urgent if inaudible consultation. I could see Bulweather nodding in agreement and Bell asking question after question at some length. Occasionally Bulweather shook his head but mostly he seemed to agree. Bell looked so pleased by his agreement that I found myself wondering what on earth they could be discussing. At last the dialogue concluded and Bell went over to where Langton was standing with the stretcher.
‘Inspector Langton,’ Bell said, ‘an autopsy will be critical for us as will the speed with which it is concluded. Your doctor here has only limited experience, I understand, but he will vouch for my considerable expertise as a surgeon and pathologist. I therefore suggest that I undertake it myself with his assistance. Otherwise there could be delays which would be folly in the circumstances.’
Langton looked a little astonished. ‘Undertake it where, Dr Bell? In the inn?’
But the Doctor had no interest in jests at this point. ‘Bulweather has an outhouse he has used for occasional surgery,’ he answered. ‘It should be sufficient, and we are lucky in that he seems to have a good set of surgical tools inherited from his uncle who was a surgeon, as well as some chemistry equipment. He has itemised these and I believe it will be enough. We may perhaps lack all that might be desirable but I am satisfied.’
‘I would have to contact my superiors before—’ Langton began.
‘Absolutely,’ Bell said, interrupting him. ‘And if they can get a pathologist here before tomorrow I will be happy to offer my assistance. But I suggest they telegraph to Inspector Miller of Scotland Yard who will, I believe, testify as to my fitness for the matter in hand.’
Langton was happy with this and now arrangements were made for the body to be removed. They decided to carry it back down to the town by the most direct route rather than make a detour to the road.
Upon hearing this, Bell pointed across one particularly noticeable muddy line where the men had already tramped. ‘May I ask, Inspector,’ he said urgently, ‘if those carrying the body use this as their mark for entering and leaving the clearing and do not depart from it? My suspicion is that any evidence here has been obliterated already but it is always possible something may be found and I do not wish to see any further devastation.’
‘Are you so clear, then, this is not a natural death?’ said Langton.
‘I make no assumptions about anything,’ said Bell, ‘but I believe it is a duty to leave the site of any death untouched until we are more precise about its circumstances. I am afraid that has not been followed here, something we must all certainly regret.’
I do not know if Langton took this to heart but he was certainly punctilious in carrying out the Doctor’s instructions. Within a few minutes, the pallbearers approached the body along the exact line Bell had indicated. They needed several of them, for the body was big and it was quite a struggle to lift. The rain was heavier now, adding to the melancholy spectacle as they finally bore it aloft and then began to march away down the hill towards the town.
After a further brief conference with Bell, Bulweather came over to me. ‘I am sorry, Dr Doyle, not to have greeted you before but Dr Bell hardly allowed me time to breathe and I cannot complain of it, for this is a terrible business. We are lucky to have you both here. My only regret for your sake is you have seen our little community in such bad circumstances. I will bid you farewell, through I know you will be at my house shortly for we all have a long working day ahead. At the very least I can endeavour to see that Mrs Harvey keeps us well fortified during our labours.’ And he walked off after
the others.
The rain was now pouring down and I am quite sure it put paid to any last hopes the Doctor may have had of extracting evidence from that clearing. Even so, he persisted, inspecting the muddy tracks and the vegetation around it for what seemed like hours. Much of his time was spent pacing lightly around the perimeter of the place, scanning the ground. I thought it wise to keep my distance for I had no wish to add to the disturbance, though after a damp hour, during which I was sure he had seen nothing, I was half-minded to turn back to the village, given that I was no use to anyone here. The Doctor was paying particular attention to a stick he had picked up, balancing it in his hand as if it were a string of pearls rather than a stray piece of wood that bore no markings of any kind.
I could hardly help reflecting that whatever else had killed Colin Harding, if indeed he had been unlawfully killed, it was certainly not a stick. But soon he discarded it and came over to me, indicating he was ready to leave.
By the time we reached town and turned into Bulweather’s house, the body had already been placed in a tiled outhouse which had once been a dairy. It lay on a slab where the milk had originally been left to cool, and where more recently Bulweather had conducted minor surgery. Since the day was so overcast, lamps had been brought in and they cast a flickering glow over the body.
After looking round, Bell fell to examining Bulweather’s tools, which were I thought remarkably comprehensive in the circumstances, including a variety of knives, saws and even rib shears. It seemed his uncle, who had occasionally undertaken post-mortem work, prided himself on this equipment.
Langton had, however, expressly forbidden any work to commence until he had authorisation and there was no telling when that might be. The Doctor visibly fretted at the delay and insisted on making a preliminary examination. I stood beside him for this informal procedure, at which Bulweather’s presence was not required, and could see that the only marks on Harding were a few light and fairly harmless bruises on the arms. We also found a bruise beneath the hair on the head, which was recent and Bell paid considerable attention to it.
‘Is it enough?’ I asked, for I knew that was what he was debating.
‘I cannot see it,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, it might be enough to cause concussion and in some rare and unlucky cases death might follow. But if this is what killed him and it was a deliberate blow, then “manslaughter” is a better term than “murder”. No cold-blooded murderer would risk leaving the outcome uncertain in such a way.’
After that, he examined the rest of the body meticulously, but there was nothing else that I could see. Most of his time was spent on the mouth, where he found a little frothy sputum inside the upper lip.
Once finished, we went through to Bulweather who confirmed there was as yet no reply to Langton’s telegrams and we might yet wait many hours. The Doctor hardly concealed his irritation, pointing out there could not be much more than thee or four hours left of daylight. Bulweather reassured him more lamps could be brought if needed and so, for the moment, we retired to the inn.
In retrospect it would have been far better if Bell had proceeded to other business while we waited. But he did not wish to risk losing any time and was, in any case, distracted by the task ahead. Following a late and fretful lunch, I ascertained that Charlotte Jefford was now more or less recovered and was reading in her room but nobody had had the heart to tell her of the death that had occurred. I asked the Doctor if I should take it upon myself to do so and he answered rather curtly she might as well hear it from me as from a maid or some other gossip.
Miss Jefford was sitting comfortably enough in an armchair beside the fire that had been made up in her room and greeted me kindly. Her fair hair was loose and curled prettily around her face but her eyes were still troubled.
I had decided to make as little of the matter as possible and I merely told her in passing there had been some bad news involving Sir Walter Monk’s groundsman. Miss Jefford seemed determined not to give way to undue alarm and, once she understood he was dead, merely asked if we had any idea of the circumstances. I replied it could well be a heart attack or some such condition and we would know more shortly. She seemed satisfied and I left her, pleased that neither of us had referred to the events of the previous evening. Perhaps, though, I was guilty of a slight deceit, for she may well have supposed from my words that Harding had died in his bed. I certainly had no intention of alluding to the fact he had been found close enough to where she saw the apparition, or to our mutual knowledge that the ghost was supposed to be a harbinger of death. Indeed, given the ripple of alarm Harding’s death had already caused in the inn, I thanked God we had kept Charlotte Jefford’s experience secret.
As Bell had feared, it was already evening before Langton came to us with the news that the post-mortem could proceed. True to his word, Bulweather had installed more lamps in the outhouse but, though he has positioned them as best as he could, the illumination they gave was somewhat ghastly. Flickering shadows were everywhere and, as the Doctor and Bulweather stood before the corpse, they cast huge and blackly grotesque outlines on the tiled walls. But the Doctor showed no sign of being distracted and began his work as if he had been in the Edinburgh mortuary, leaving me to make a record of all he did.
After a further examination of the body’s exterior, with particular concentration on the mouth, nose and ears, he took the leading knife and made a deep Y-shaped incision, extending from the arms to the bottom of the sternum and then down to the lower abdomen. As the structures of the neck and chest cavity were exposed to view, Bell examined them in situ, before he took the shears and began cutting through the rib cage.
I have seen many autopsies but this must certainly have been one of the strangest. Outside the rain was blowing hard against the building’s roof and I vividly recall the hawk-like shadow of the Doctor’s features on the tiles as his face bore down on the organs of the corpse. But there was only limited time for such romance, for I was also busily recording each procedure in the book I had been given for the purpose. To this end the Doctor offered an intermittent commentary of what he was doing while he did it, interjected with occasional grunts as he utilised his tools.
There were times too when I sensed a slight quickening of interest as when he found a small amount of foam in the trachea. After the thoracic cavity was opened, he was silent for a moment and then asked me to note the paleness and the distention of the lungs.
A few moments later, I noticed Bulweather catch the Doctor’s eye and there was bafflement and alarm on the country doctor’s face. Then they continued as before.
The work itself took many hours, for Bell was always thorough in such things and it was not so far away from dawn before he called a halt to the proceedings and returned the organs, some of which had been dissected, with tissue removed, to the body. Finally, he sewed up the incisions and the corpse of Colin Harding was almost whole again.
Meanwhile, I had cleaned down the surface and the floor with the buckets of water my host had provided and at last we repaired to the drawing room. The housekeeper was not to be seen but she had left beer and various cold meats and bread and cheese, which we ate hungrily. The Doctor was obviously famished after his exertions, but I was aware Bulweather was uneasy, evidently anxious to talk of Bell’s conclusions yet reluctant to raise the matter himself. Outside the weather had eased a little, with no rain now although the wind still howled.
Finally Bell drank a glass of the beer Mrs Harvey had left and sat down, staring into the fire.
‘It is impossible,’ Bulweather muttered now, staring at him, unable to leave what concerned him any longer.
‘It is, however, certain,’ said Bell.
‘It is miles from that spot to anywhere it could have happened.’ Bulweather flopped back in his chair, exhausted. ‘Look at the weight of the man. Five men had trouble getting him down here on a police stretcher. They will all remember the witch’s words.’
‘Yes, that was my calculation from the map
,’ Bell said. ‘You are sure there is none?’
‘Some damp earth maybe. Otherwise nothing. And there was no earth in him.’
I had been so busily recording impressions and data that my medical brain was all but switched off and I was only now starting to grasp the implications when we were interrupted by Langton, who showed himself in without ceremony, anxious only to hear the results of the night’s work. Outside there were streaks of light in a dull sky while the wind had dropped further as dawn approached.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Langton, ‘what is your story? Was it a seizure?’
‘It was not,’ said Bell, who still sat in the chair, his eyes fixed on the fire. ‘There was water in his swollen lungs, foam in the trachea, sputum in the mouth. The symptoms are unmistakable. The man suffered death by drowning.’
THE CHAMBER OF DOLLS
Langton stared at Bell with utter incredulity. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘There is no mistake? Perhaps it was the rain, for he was there for some hours.’
‘No rain could possibly produce the effects we have observed,’ said Bell, still not moving. ‘Let me repeat: the man died by drowning, he was immersed in water.’
Langton turned to our host who had got to his feet and was by the table. ‘I am afraid it is true,’ said Bulweather.
‘Well, you are saying he drowned.’ Langton paced towards the window. ‘Even though I cannot fathom it, at least it may have been an accident not a murder as we might have feared.’
And now Bell did raise his eyes from the fire, his face very solemn. ‘An accident?’ he said. ‘Usually accidents have causes. I am afraid that term is utterly irrelevant when at present we can deduce no way in which it could have occurred at all.’
The conversation continued as all of us tried to imagine how such a thing could happen. Was he sure there was no water near? But Bulweather who was, among other things, a keen local historian, produced a hydrographic map which proved the point. Even as the crow flies it was a mile and a half from the spot where the body lay through thick trees and over rough ground to the witch’s pool, which was the nearest standing water or river.