6 August 1881

The great day of our departure has finally arrived. I have graduated and am now officially a doctor, but I have no job, no money, and few prospects for gainful employment upon my return. I have vowed to worry about such matters later and, for now, focus on solving the mystery of my uncle’s untimely demise.

Beyond that, life at home has been filled with sorrow and woe. I couldn’t keep my secret and had told my mam about Uncle Declan because she should know the truth. She cried for days and grieved even more about my trip to Russia. Sometimes, I have now come to believe, the truth is not the best medicine.

Aye, time and again, she begged me to stay home, but I convinced her that this experience would be an important part of my medical training and would provide me with the seed money I most sorely needed to start my practice. Finally, she reluctantly gave me her blessing.

Meanwhile, Da is still in the asylum. He is not drinking but is no better. I try to visit him every day, but it is always uncomfortable. On most of my visits, he does not recognize me and, when he does, he speaks of sprites and faeries.

And then yesterday, we started to argue. As our disagreement grew, he had a fit and the attendants asked me to leave. I could not tell if he had epilepsy or delirium tremens. It was horrible to see the man I once worshipped now demented, frail, and sickly.

Da’s one saving grace is his art, and thankfully, he is drawing again. One day, I picked up one of his sketchbooks and marveled at his stunning images of faerie folk. If only he hadn’t been cursed with a penchant for whiskey, he might have made these fantastic images years ago. He could have become a famous and well-paid artist like his brothers, and we wouldn’t have had to live in squalor for all those years...

If only...

It is now time to stop daydreaming and to look forward.

Truth be told, I’m rather relieved to be departing Edinburgh for another adventure, but I will miss the Auld Reekie. I always do when I go away. Maybe I will even meet my future wife in the land of the tsars. Who knows?

Either way, I will now look like a proper gentleman because my new suits were completed yesterday. So, as I write this, I am decked out with a white tie, white shirt with a winged collar, silk stockings, and shiny, pointed shoes. It is all splendid beyond my wildest dreams.

Aye, I am now ready to taste life amongst the upper crust and could imagine squiring Jean the pretty lassie, to a great ball at the Edinburgh Palace. Yet, as I packed my things, I fingered my life savings, the measly sum of one shilling and six pence that remained from what Dr. Bell had given me. Oh, how it made me yearn for the day when I will be a famous surgeon with grand sums of money.

When we arrived in Liverpool, the yellow waters of the Mersey were covered with steamships and sailing vessels bound for every port in the world. Tug boats chugged back and forth while stevedores hooted, shouted, and unloaded cargo amidst a tangle of horses and wagons.

The Servia had only that morning arrived from Boston. And it was now moored to the Prince’s Dock at the foot of Bath Street. She towered majestically above other vessels. The stars and stripes of the United States and the Baltic-American line pennant fluttered at her stern. Sailors wearing smart, white, duck trousers, and blouses lined her deck. The captain, with yards of gold braid on his sleeve, and surrounded by the ship’s officers, waved goodbye to disembarking first-class passengers. With trumpets flashing in the sun, the band played a rousing version of “Rule Britannia” in deference to arriving British passengers.

Drawn by a prancing, chestnut mare, our cab pulled up amidst carriages and broughams carrying what appeared to the glittering royalty of England. Aye, this was the maiden voyage of a new steamship, pioneering a route from America to the Baltic states and Russia, and I wagered that many of its passengers would be of royal blood or important political figures or captains of industry. We waited for the passengers from America to disembark, and then, we began to make our way up the gangway.

Lionel Tatum, now completely at home as a manservant, passed Dr. Bell’s trunks and my lone Gladstone bag to the stevedores. Dr. Bell insisted that I carry his precious instrument case, the lantern slides, and the projector.

I was at his side, toiling up the gangplank, feeling shabby in my hot, heavy tweed jacket when I caught the scent of orange blossoms. Next thing I knew, an absolute confection of young womanhood with the most magnificent, curly, chestnut-colored hair I had ever seen, brushed my arm as she regally extended her hand to the ship’s captain. I was instantly smitten. Could this be the future Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle? I would readily spend my life with her and envisioned sharing romantic days and evenings together in our bedroom.

I tried to appear uninterested and gave her an innocent, sidelong glance. Was it my imagination, or did she favour me with a smile and a whimsical toss of her head?

I lost her in the crowd when immaculately clad waiters bowed and offered glasses of champagne to us first-class passengers. I chugged my glass of the bubbly, and a smartly-clad steward led us up a paneled staircase to our stateroom on the upper deck, just aft of the landing and the library.

Dr. Bell handed him a gold guinea while ‘Mr. Tatum’ unpacked our bags before discretely withdrawing to his own less sumptuous cabin on a lower deck.

At Dr. Bell’s suggestion, I chewed ginger root to guard against the mal de mer I had suffered during our passage to America. We were on deck while tugs pushed the Servia away from her dock. The band struck up “Heart of Oak” and then the “Navy Hymn.” We spent the splendid afternoon watching the flats and low hills of Liverpool Harbor slip by until the ship passed Anglesey Island and headed through the Irish Sea to the St. George’s Channel and Cape Cornwall.

As the sun set, we were back in our quarters. I was struggling with the studs and tie of my new outfit when Dr. Bell appeared from the dressing room, resplendent in a dress blue kilt with black and green stripes, a velvet Barathea jacket with silver buttons, and a tartan waistcoat. He had a dirk and silver, mounted, sealskin sporran with the crest of Clan Bell, a hand holding a dagger. Mr. Tatum straightened the Professor’s black tie and adjusted the silk flashes on his plaid stockings then helped me with the studs and made a trifling adjustment to my tie. “Doyle, you are now a doctor and graduate of Edinburgh, the greatest medical school in the world. Hold your head high and bow to no man, whether he be an English lord, German baron or Russian count,” said Dr. Bell.

All heads turned in our direction when we marched, side by side, into the splendid paneled dining room, bright with the new Edison incandescent electric lights glowing from a great chandelier. A small orchestra played dinner music while a crowd of perhaps two hundred smartly-clad passengers milled about sipping chilled wine.

The lovely lass who had brushed my arm on the gangplank was across the room, clinging to a devilishly handsome man with a long scar on his cheek. He appeared to be in his late twenties and wore red trousers with a silver-buttoned, dark blue tunic. She was stunning in a long, flounced, light green dress with a plunging neckline. Her hair was piled high on her head with soft ringlets framing her angelic face.

Before I could push through the crowd to reach her side and introduce myself, the ship’s captain struck a bell and announced dinner. We found our places at a long table covered with white damask, set with bone porcelain plates and highly polished silverware. My gaze was still fastened on the captain’s table, where the lovely creature was engaged in animated conversation with her dinner companion. The cad’s leer was riveted on the glorious pink flesh of her upper bosom. Damn him for ogling my future wife!

Dr. Bell, seated at the head of the table, engaged in a discussion with a Russian count on the surgical aspects of the recent assassination attempt on James Garfield, the American president. I was next to a stout American who guzzled glass after glass of wine. After smacking his lips, he nudged my elbow. “What’s your game, fella?” He asked.

“Oh, a bit of rugby and I’ve been known to box.”

“Nah, sorry ’bout that. What I meant was - what’ya do for a living? In other words, how do you make enough filthy lucre to pay to travel first-class?”

It was a rude question, typical of an American. I was a bit short with him, hoping he would leave me alone. “I am a physician.”

“Oh, I see, doc.” He applied himself to the wine for a minute or so, then spoke with slurred speech. “My name is Adam Gritz. Electric boats are my game. By God, the world will take notice when we teach those Russkies not to kill our president.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everybody knows the Russians killed Garfield.”

“Sorry, but the papers here in Scotland claimed an American citizen of French descent named Charles Guiteau killed him,” I said.

“Ah yes, that was the papers said. In truth, his real name was Gitorski and he was part of an intricate Russkie plot. All those damn Russians want our gold in Alaska.”

I did not challenge the American and assumed his conspiracy theory was the drunken meandering of a deluded fool.

I love a sumptuous meal, especially while traveling, and I was famished. For the next two hours, I consumed oysters, consommé, salmon with mousseline sauce, creamed peas with roast sirloin, curried chicken, a gargantuan portion of squab with cress, guinea fowl baked in a delicious dressing, a black currant sorbet, buttered new potatoes, a double lamb chop, fresh asparagus, pâté de foie gras, and at last, peaches in jelly with a chocolate éclair.

The waiters served Turkish coffee in tiny china cups while sailors cleared an area in the center of the room beneath the glittering chandelier. Captain Veery struck a bell to get everyone’s attention. “Ladies and gentlemen, the ship’s company will now offer real seafaring entertainment. I present, for your pleasure, Billy and the Horn Pipers,” said the captain.

The seven sailors wore identical, tight-fitting, white, duck trousers, singlets and black, hard-soled brogues. They launched into a merry tune with a tin whistle, a fiddle, and a squeeze box.

Suddenly, a young, sandy-haired lad with bright white teeth danced to the front of the stage. With arms tight to his chest and with legs kicking and stomping, he danced a hornpipe while singing “Blow the man down,” “Maid of Amsterdam,” and “Paddy lay you back.”

The music became slower and solemn while Billy, in the very image of a captain, scowled, shaded his eyes, peered through an imaginary telescope, and then began to chant.

“Captain Bligh, that silly man

Was master in command.

He was growling day and night

An answer for his complaints.”

Billy turned toward the three chanters.

“I flogged the men, flogged the men,” he sang, with his arms flailing.

“He flogged his men, OH,

Captain Bligh, he flogged his men, OH,” the chanters answered.

As sweat soaked the muscular frame under his singlet, Billy gracefully bowed to the audience and the program came to an end. There were cheers and much stamping of feet. Ladies crowded about the performers, and more than one opened her purse and dropped golden guineas into the hands of the sailors.

Later, after an hour or so in the smoking room with a fine cigar and more than one brandy, I wobbled, unsteadily, out on deck and leaned against the railing for a breath of salt air. I couldn’t have been there for more than a few seconds, when, much to my surprise, I sniffed orange blossoms and was immediately enveloped in a dark cloak and pushed against the deckhouse.

At first I struggled to get free, but she pressed her lips over my mouth. I felt her soft flesh and was filled with pleasure until she forced the cold muzzle of a pistol into my ribs. “If you cry out, I’ll put a bullet in your spleen,” she whispered.

More than thinking about any threat, I was caught up in the pleasant sensation of soft lips on my skin and even softer breasts pushing against my chest. So, I grunted and kissed her again. She responded with passion, and after a moment, she whispered breathily with her lips delicately brushing my ear. “Look carefully. Who is on the deck?”

For the first time, I became aware of two men at the railing perhaps thirty or forty feet down the deck. Their heads were together as if in earnest conversation, but in the mist and dark, they were barely visible.

“I can hardly make them out.” I replied. She adjusted her hips, so we were pressed together, full length, toe to nose. The pistol was probably a fake, and the sensation was quite delicious.

“Damn you! Pay close attention,” she chided.

I squinted and whispered. “It could be Gritz, an American engineer. The other may be your dinner companion.”

Her lips, with her mouth slightly opened, returned to mine, and the hand with the pistol went around my neck. We snuggled like lovers for another moment, until she pushed me off balance and silently ran aft, away from the men at the railing.

I was totally mystified, slightly dizzy, and more than a bit aroused from the whole affair. I remained frozen in place, savoring the lingering scent of orange blossoms. Who was this woman? What was she after? Why wouldn’t she stay with me? Why did she have a gun?

I remained by the rail for a few more minutes, eagerly hoping for her to return, but she never did. I reluctantly went to my berth just aft on the same deck, my head still swimming with her citrus scent and the lovely soft sensation of her voluptuous body pressing against me.