THE VISIT

And one could whistle

And one could sing

And one could play on the violin

Such joy there was at my wedding

On Christmas day in the morning

It was the cruellest thing he could have sung. Of course he knew it was a song Elsbeth and I had shared in Edinburgh. He had killed her savagely for no reason. And now he was above me as I lay there, carolling it in his soft voice. The features I saw as I opened my eyes were as handsome as ever, the thick black hair swept back from his face. I had always imagined by now that face would reflect all the cruelty and insanity of his acts but it did not. In fact, as I watched, his features shone with an almost innocent merriment.

‘Doyle,’ he broke off from his singing. ‘You recall the melody, I am sure.’ With some effort, because I could not bear to lie prostrate in front of him, I forced myself up.

He reached back for something behind him and I braced myself. At this point I was still so weak he could inflict any wounds he liked on me. But, when he turned back, there was only a cup in his hand.

‘I trust you are not too tired,’ he said. ‘You have had a strenuous time.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said at last, and the words came more firmly than I expected, ‘you could tell me why.’ It was daylight I now registered, the sun was shining into the room, making his hair gleam.

He laughed. ‘Why?’ he said. He got up from the chair full of energy, the cup still in his hand, and took a few paces away and then back again. ‘Because it was necessary to bring you here in the first place. That in itself took some trouble, though hardly yours. I had a good coachman but I had to carry you inside here myself, for, as you will recall, you were not well. In fact, you are still out of sorts. You must drink. I will have some too, the morning train here is tiresomely early.’

My head was clearer now but I knew it was important he did not see this; he must think me still under the influence. It was the tiniest of things, but it gave me a hope of deceiving him. As he sat down again on a chair he must have placed by the bed, I took the cup with a shaking hand. That shaking was real enough. Then I tilted it and pretended to drink the milk deeply, making sure some dribbled from the corner of my mouth. In fact, I took little but as I returned it, his eyes were not on the cup but on me. The hand was still shaking and I managed to slop a quantity on the floor, which was not difficult for I was so weak I barely needed to act it. Still he stared at me with concentration, as if I were a difficult case in his surgery.

‘Again I ask why?’ I said with a deliberate slur. I was happy to let him think I was weaker than I was.

‘I think you must agree,’ he said, ‘it was the greatest joke in all the world. I wanted to renew our acquaintance. But I had no wish to be caught. So I befriended the Morlands. And it was a trifling matter to circulate your name to the practice.’

The mention of the Morlands sent a chill through me but the last thing I wanted was for him to see this. I lolled my head as if fighting sleep. ‘What do you want?’ I said.

He sprang up again and he laughed now. ‘You have soiled your clothes, Doyle, do you know that? You are truly a wretched man. Nobody cares for you, you have no loved ones at home waiting, nobody misses you. You could rot here for years and nobody would care.’ He turned back, put his head close to me. ‘No, not even your mother.’

My heart leapt; this was a new tone. I cursed myself, for he saw my reaction at once.

‘Oh, she is at Masongill where Dr Waller keeps her very happy. They would hardly miss you.’

This was painful. Of course I knew Cream had heard of our family ‘lodger’, Dr Waller, but I never dreamt he would know Waller had entered into an affectionate relationship with my mother, a relationship even I did not understand or like to contemplate. I turned my head away, for I could not bear to see Cream’s eyes burning with laughter.

‘Oh yes,’ he went on, ‘I know. And as I say it leaves you with nobody, Doyle. Nobody except me.’

‘I want no part of you.’ The emotion in my words was genuine, for I saw I had been right about the drug. Breaking my body was too easy for this man, he wanted to break my spirit first and utterly reduce me. I tried desperately to take my mind off his words by analysing his motive. Something about me must have goaded him so deeply. Why otherwise should he have gone to such lengths to hurt me? There was a key here if I could find it.

His expression had become serious. ‘That is a lie. You and your precious Dr Bell have tried to find me for years, you can hardly deny it, though I have to say it has occasioned me little inconvenience. Even in Edinburgh I was ahead of you both.’

‘We rid the city of you.’ It was feeble but to my amazement his mouth tightened a little.

‘I do not understand how. Of course the man thinks he is so clever with his chemistry and his clues and his endless reasoning, yet how could he possibly understand me? How could you?’ It was only a flash but it gave me something. He evidently felt he had been defeated by Bell and myself in Edinburgh, for we nearly caught him and he had to flee. This explained some of his desire to hurt me, as did the fact we had once been close friends with a shared passion for the stories of Poe. Only, as I later realised, we came at them from opposite perspectives. He actually admired their cruelties and hoped I would join him in imitating them.

As I reflected on this, he was pointing out he could do what he wished with me. ‘I can end your life now. Perhaps it is better I should.’

The sun gleamed on the bed and I noticed the angle of light was higher so it was rising, which meant that the window I had looked out of must face east. I was trying at all costs to find some distraction. I hated to give this man the satisfaction of observing my fear.

From his pocket he had drawn a surgical blade almost seven inches long with a short handle. He placed it against my neck and there was a stab of pain as he cut the surface skin. I had no time to defend myself even if I had the strength. But the blade stopped just at the edge of my windpipe.

‘I believe I prefer another place to cut than the obvious,’ he said, pulling down the covers. And, with a sweeping movement, he stabbed both my breast and stomach and then the top of my left leg. I cried out, for here he slanted the knife a little and went deeper, opening a real wound and causing a burning pain that made me writhe. Then suddenly he seemed to tire of it and pulled the knife out. For a while he watched me twisting in agony before he wiped the knife with a white handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it will be far more fun to keep you a little while yet. After all, we have so much to talk about. Do you think I am mad?’

I was gasping for breath, but would not in any case have deigned him with a reply. I had no intention of satisfying his vanity or his need for debate. ‘I can justify everything I do,’ he went on, ‘and in a way neither you nor Bell can refute. Your country here is rotten, it is eroding before your eyes, eaten by the sea. Why, there are places literally collapsing into the water. A fine symbol of the corruption of England’s soul. But there is far more to it than that. I am the future, you are the past. I am a child of the next century. I celebrate its freedom, you are imprisoned in the ludicrous codes and restrictions and superstitions of this one. When you are dead there will be many more like me; fifty years after your death ten times more than that. And their code is mine. I will tell you what it is: Do not dream it, live it.’

‘We will fight it,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘Yes there was some reference to that in a letter Bell wrote that I once saw. “The fight against the future.” It sounds very grand. But you might as well stand on the seashore and fight the tides. Or howl at the moon.’

I was losing consciousness now and he smiled at me almost tenderly. ‘I have enjoyed our little talk, though your life has been so wretched, you are less fun than you were at university. You must sleep now. I will see you soon enough. One more talk, perhaps two, before I kill you. Not with my knife. I was intending to take a limb today but I think instead I will roast you alive in the morning for your heresies. Then I might take the dish cold to your mad father and get him to eat you. The regime in such asylums is foul; I am sure he would eat anything so he might as well eat his son.’

Thankfully I lost him here, the drug and the shock of the pain had done their work and I went into the darkness. When I awoke, my leg was still throbbing but I reached down to find it had been neatly bandaged, and my other wounds, though more superficial, were tended too. Evidently he did not want me to die from loss of blood while he was absent. After a time, I decided from the evidence of the bed and from my own senses that I had not lost very much blood. The bandage of the deeper cut in my leg had staunched the flow, while the other wounds would leave scars but were less deep.

My head felt clearer and I forced my legs out of the bed to the floor. I dreaded the wounded leg would give way. It nearly did and I had to put my hands on the chair to support myself. But after a time I was able to shuffle forward. There was still pain, but I thought I would be able to walk and, for the first time in my life, gave thanks for the expansiveness of my enemy’s imagination. There would have been little hope if he had stuck with his original plan of taking a limb.

Outside it was dark, but the night was clear and the room, which I now felt sure was a cottage, was illuminated by moonlight. My first task was to conduct a proper search, above all I must try to analyse his movements to see if there was some pattern. From what I could understand, he always came in the morning, he had spoken of the tiresome morning train. That could only mean there were few other trains, for he would do nothing tiresome if he could avoid it.

I must hope, therefore, I had until morning and I moved quickly. The food had been left out for me again. I took the precaution of emptying the milk into a coal scuttle that was full of coal, for nobody had made a fire. I hid the bread at the bottom of it.

I was already sure there was nothing of consequence near where I slept and I had come to hate those stinking sheets, but I was uncertain about what lay beyond the screen. As I passed it, the same sickening smell returned to me, making me almost retch, but I could see nothing to tell me what was causing it for this side of the room was almost bare. I pushed my hands along part of the floor and found only a carpet nail from which I assumed someone had recently pulled up a carpet and removed it.

The door again proved hopeless as I already knew, which left the window behind my bed. Surely there must be something in here to smash its panes. I returned to the coal scuttle, pleased my leg was becoming more malleable though I was still very weak. The lumps of coal in it were small but they could surely break a window. I got one in my hand and found I could lift it. At last, I thought, I could do something.

But, just as I got to my feet, there came a sudden noise, the last noise in the world I wanted to hear. The key had turned in the lock and now the door opened.