The Mechanical Messiah (19 page)

ow pleasant to see you again,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. He stood once more at the dissecting table in the morgue of the London Hospital.

Cameron Bell smiled back at the surgeon. ‘I see you have a fresh one there,’ he said.

Sir Frederick Treves nodded.

‘Brought in from—’ Then he paused. ‘But why do not
you
tell
me,’
he suggested.

‘Indeed,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Might I see the clothing and shoes of the deceased?’

The famous surgeon gestured to a sorry-looking pile of clothing and a pair of shoes that lay upon a table not too far distant. The private detective took himself over to these, examined them closely and said— ‘In her late teens, unmarried and a virgin. Employed for the last three months as a seamstress, but prior to that was engaged as a ladies’ maid in a Great House. In Knightsbridge, I believe. Dismissed due to dishonesty, although this was not proved. Domiciled in Whitechapel. In Naylor Street, to be precise. And murdered, by means that I confess I am not yet able to tie down with precision, a mere few hundred yards from her doorstep.’

Cameron Bell took himself over to the corpse. Placed his hands upon it. ‘The murder took place at three-fifteen a.m., ‘he said.

‘Extraordinary,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘I will not ask how you came to these conclusions.’

‘Through observation,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Allied with a considerable knowledge of London and its population.
I
specialise.’

‘Well, you were certainly correct about the location where she was found and I would agree with you regarding the time of death. You would not care to take the Gold Cup by telling me the victim’s name?’

Cameron Bell shook his head. ‘If you wish to know that, I would suggest you interview the constable who found the body. I have reason to believe that it was
he
who stole her purse and not the murderer.’

‘Uncanny,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘You are a regular—’

‘Do not say it,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘Sherlock Holmes,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. And he grinned.

‘Everything I told you is plainly to be seen upon the clothing, the shoes and the body,’ explained Mr Bell. ‘But were I to point it all out to you, you would simply nod your head and say, “It’s all so simple, there is really no trick to it.” And then where would my mystique be?’

Sir Frederick Treves nodded. ‘Your mystique would be safe with me,’ he said.

‘No matter.’ Cameron Bell smiled. ‘But I do confess to puzzlement. There is a great deal of blood upon the clothing, yet I see no obvious wounds. And I do not believe she was stabbed in the back. Do you know how she was killed?’

‘Strangulation, I believe.’

Cameron Bell looked hard at the victim’s face. He lifted an eyelid, stared into the lifeless eye. ‘She was partially strangled,’ he said, ‘but that was not the cause of death. I see you were about to open the victim’s chest. You would have no objections if I were to watch as you do so?’

‘None whatsoever.’ Frederick Treves took up the
big
bone saw. Put it down, rolled up his sleeves, picked it up again.

Cameron Bell backed away.

‘Squeamish?’ asked the surgeon of the Queen.

‘Not as such,’ the detective replied. ‘Let us just say
cautious.’

‘There is nothing to fear from a corpse.’ Sir Frederick Treves held high the saw, then went to work with a will.

The sounds of cracking ribs were simply frightful and Cameron Bell had cause to cover his ears.

The surgeon whistled a Music Hall song, then ceased to whistle mid-verse.

‘There is something queer here,’ he observed.

Cameron Bell uncovered his ears. ‘You had best be careful,’ he said.

‘There is nothing to fear from a—
Waaaaaaah!’
There was a muffled explosion and Sir Frederick Treves found himself literally doused from head to waist in the contents of the corpse. ‘By the grace of God,’ cried he, flailing about in the gore.

‘I suspected something of the sort,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I did counsel caution.’

Cameron Bell waited patiently in the office of Sir Frederick Treves whilst the great surgeon took himself off to the shower room and acquired a change of clothes.

Cameron Bell did not waste his time, however. He spent it gainfully going through the surgeon’s private papers and filing drawers to acquaint himself with everything that might prove pertinent to the case, or cases. Which now might in fact number several.

Cleanly scrubbed, lightly pomaded, dressed less than comfortably in one of Joseph Merrick’s suits, Sir Frederick Treves eventually appeared. His face no longer smiling.

‘If that was some kind of prank,’ he said, ‘I will do for Mr Merrick.’

‘He is not to blame upon this occasion.’ Cameron Bell took himself over to the sideboard. ‘Should I pour us both a whisky?’ he suggested.

Sir Frederick Treves nodded grimly and sat himself down behind his desk. Cameron Bell fought once more with hilarity as he handed the surgeon a glass of whisky, whilst noting the bizarre effect the weirdly shaped suit created upon him.

‘Don’t you smirk at me,’ said Sir Frederick Treves.

‘Of course not.’ Cameron Bell raised his glass. ‘To Her Majesty the Queen,’ he said.

‘Her Majesty the Queen.’ Glasses clinked and whisky went its way.

‘Regarding Mr Merrick,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘You seem to have made a friend there, Bell.’

‘Really?’ said Cameron Bell. ‘That is pleasing to my ears, I suppose.

‘Yes, he was greatly taken by your jest of leaving him alone and penniless at the Electric Alhambra. Thought it the funniest thing ever. I never actually considered playing pranks on him myself Odd what pleases some fellows, is it not?’

The private detective nodded. ‘As long as he got back here safely,’ he said.

‘Ah, that.’ Sir Frederick Treves raised an eyebrow. ‘We do not allow Mr Merrick to prowl the streets of Whitechapel at night, as a rule,’ said he. ‘It can be dangerous, you know.’

‘For whom, I wonder?’ mused Cameron Bell.

‘And what do you mean by
that?’

Cameron Bell did shruggings of the shoulders. Took Sir Frederick’s now empty glass from him. Took himself to the sideboard and refreshed both glasses. ‘Rumours persist,’ he said.

‘And I know of them.’ Sir Frederick Treves made the face of fierceness. ‘That Joseph was implicated in the Ripper killings of eighteen eighty-eight.’

‘Not publicly,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘And the Ripper murders were before my time as a detective. It is of course interesting to note that all the murders occurred within walking distance of the London Hospital, yet no staff or patients at the hospital were ever questioned. How would you account for that?’

Sir Frederick Treves offered Cameron Bell a most unexpected wink. It was a
certain
wink. Allied to a
certain
handshake. Cameron Bell, as a Brother Under the Arch, knew well the meanings of both wink and handshake.

‘Not
Mr Merrick, then,’ said he.

‘We all make mistakes in our youth,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘But some of us atone for them with good works once we are older.’

‘Let us speak of other matters,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘“The regrettable affair of the exploding corpse”, as it might be chronicled in the memoirs of Mr Holmes.’

‘Odd,’ said Mr Frederick Treves. ‘Post—mortem gases generally form in the stomach as the digestive juices begin to eat into the body. As to why the lungs would erupt in such a fashion I have absolutely no idea.’

‘I will put a proposition to you,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘You may tell me whether you believe it to be sound.’ He handed the surgeon his refilled glass. Clinked his own against it. ‘Your victim, I believe, died through inhaling a noxious gas of some sort. The gas was introduced through the victim’s mouth. The throat was closed through partial strangulation. The gas within ate into the windpipe, sealing it shut. As it ate into the lungs they expanded, but were locked against the ribcage until you cut through it.’

‘This is a theory I would have liked to have heard before I did the actual cutting.’

‘I regret that up until the explosion it
was only
a theory. I would suggest you test the lung tissue, it might yield up interesting results.’

Sir Frederick Treves supped further whisky. ‘You have not yet told me why you came here,’ he said. ‘I assume you did not visit on a purely social basis.’

‘What luck have you had with the hurty-finger?’ asked the detective.

‘It is a finger
of something.
But at present I can tell you no more than that.’

‘I have
something else
that I think might interest you. Cameron Bell took this something from his trouser pocket and handed it to the surgeon.

Sir Frederick Treves held it up to the light. ‘A crystal?’ he said. ‘From some chandelier?’

Cameron Bell shook his head. ‘Run it about your whisky glass,’ said he.

‘Like
this,
do you mean?’

The detective nodded. There was a high-pitched grating sound. The top of the glass fell down to the desk, cleaved neatly away from the bottom.

‘A diamond?’
said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘And surely the biggest I have ever seen. What of this, my friend? Have you added Grand Larceny to your achievements? Is this part of the Crown jewels?’

‘No such gem has been reported stolen. But peer a little closer, if you will.’

Sir Frederick Treves squinted at the glittering gem. ‘Well, I will be damned!’ was what he said.

‘Intriguing, is it not?’ Cameron Bell leaned over the desk and peered hard into the gemstone. ‘There would appear to be something going on in there. Movement of some kind. As if something lives within.’

‘A foetus?’ the surgeon suggested. ‘Is this some kind of an egg?’

Cameron Bell shrugged hopelessly. ‘I am unqualified to say. Show me a gentleman’s bow tie and I will tell you which public school he attended. Show me a sock and I’ll tell you his religion. But once again I am out of my depth. This is something unworldly. Something not of this Earth.’

‘I am a man of Earthly medicine,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘I will put this unusual object beneath the microscope. But I am at a loss to know what else can be done.’

‘Amongst the patients here,’ said Cameron Bell, finishing his second glass of whisky, ‘might there be any who have travelled in space?’

‘Ah, good point. You think they might recognise the mysterious item?’

‘It is a possibility.’

Sir Frederick Treves leaned back in his chair and tugged upon a velvet bell pull whose upper end vanished through a hole in the ceiling.

Presently there came a knock upon the door.

‘Come,’ called Sir Frederick Treves.

A young nurse entered, her head bowed low in modesty.

‘Nurse When,’ said Sir Frederick Treves, addressing the young and most attractive nurse, ‘do we at present have any patients here who have travelled in space?’

Nurse When raised a pretty face and made a thoughtful expression. ‘Not at present, she said. ‘We do have an outpatient, though. A retired military gentleman. He comes in regularly to renew his prescription for Mercury Vapour, to relieve his back pain. I believe he was in—’

‘The Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers,’ said Sir Frederick Treves. ‘I recall him now. Colonel somebody-or-other.’

‘Colonel Katterfelto,’ said Cameron Bell. Who had recognised the name of the sprightly bill-bottomer whilst rooting through the filing cabinet of Sir Frederick Treves. ‘I have other lines of investigation to pursue for now, but I’ll speak with this fellow soon enough.’

ZZ MANUFACTURING LTD ran the sign above the door. A sign that was weather-worn and going all to seed.

‘Just needs a little lick of paint,’ said the managing agent of the property. He was a sharply dressed young gentleman with an educated accent who carried himself with a confident air that the colonel did not warm to.

The managing agent took out a ring of keys and applied one to the padlock securing the door. Rotten wood crumbled and padlock, hasp and all went tumbling to the rubbish-strewn yard that lay before this property.