Within a quarter of an hour I was shivering on an examination bench, stripped to my underwear, feeling weak, sad and awfully sorry for myself.
I fought back tears as Doctor Halfpenny liberally applied a strong smelling concoction to the wound that aggravated all of the nerve endings in the raw flesh of the leg-wound.
“I'm sorry, but it has to be done. This will clean it out and speed up the healing. That's a nasty gash you've got there. Keep this dressed for the next few days, changing the bandages over each day until the scab fully forms,” he instructed. “Apply this unguent and cover it with fresh plaster each morning.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I said.
“And if you can safely track down the dog that did this to you, shave off some of its hair and add it to your brew. That will help.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Only this is the strangest dog bite I ever did see. Normally it's ragged, there is bruising about the bite, saliva, all of that. This is fresh and clean, almost surgical,” he said, looking closer. “What kind of dog did you say it was, again?”
The Professor, evidently waiting just outside the door, hurried in. “Hello, Doctor Halfpenny, good to see you, just, ah, how do you do? Just checking in on my assistant and how he might be doing, eh?”
“Hello, Professor. If you don't mind, I do like to keep my consultations private.”
“Of course, of course, but he doesn't mind, I'm sure, do you laddie?”
To be perfectly honest, the familiarity that came from our professional relationship had not quite extended to having him see me in my underwear. Even so, I did my best to appear nonchalant and gave a shrug and a nod.
Doctor Halfpenny looked between us, muttered something to himself, scribbled a note in his notepad and continued the examination.
“Well, if you will, Professor, please do not interrupt. I'm sure a man of your qualifications understands the necessity of uninterrupted concentration.”
“Of course, Doctor, I am an advocate and evangelist,” the Professor replied.
“Quite,” he turned back to me. “Now, have you been hurt anywhere else?”
“My back. I think it is bruised, it is so sore,” I said.
“Your back? Laddie, just how big was this dog?”
“I, um, I don't know. Does it matter?”
“Normally dog bites are accompanied with injuries to hands and arms, not one's back.”
Suddenly aware of the Professor's glare, I said, “Er, maybe it wasn't a dog.”
“Not a dog?”
“It was dark, I couldn't see very well.”
“It's the middle of the day.”
“Yes, but, um, I was in a cellar.”
“A cellar?”
The Professor interrupted, “Oh, you know these young, adventurous chaps, poking around in places they don't belong, getting into mischief in all sorts of ways. Who knows what he got up to?”
“I need to know the nature of the injury, the provenance and context, otherwise I may make a misdiagnosis.”
“I'm sure that won't be the case.”
“Professor, please,” Doctor Halfpenny chided. “If I am to properly examine the patient, I need him to answer in his own words. Now, young man, can you please describe how you obtained this injury?”
“Well, er, yes. I was in the cellar and, um, I was attacked by a dog,” I said. “At least, it must have been a dog, but it was dark.”
He took off his glasses and looked me in the eye.
“Is that the truth? Is that what happened?”
“Yes,” I said, holding my gaze as steady as I could manage, “That's what happened.”
Doctor Halfpenny turned to the Professor, “If I could please ask you to wait outside. Miss Gallagher will help you to some tea.”
“Oh, no thank you, I've only -” he began, but a daggered stare from the Doctor changed his tone. “You know, maybe I will have a cup of tea. I could do with a rest.”
Forced to honour the perfectly reasonable request of the highly esteemed doctor, the Professor nodded politely, took up his bag and went back outside. Doctor Halfpenny waited until he heard the chirruping of Miss Gallagher before he turned back to me.
“Now, son, I know a dog bite when I see one, and this is not from a dog. And this contusion on your back looks more like you've been hit with a club.”
He checked it over again. “That or someone who has a fist the size of a melon.”
I looked away. He turned my head back and looked me in the eye.
“Just what exactly happened?”
“Like I said –” I began.
“Tut tut! Look, the Professor isn't in the room. In fact, anything you say in this room I am honour bound to keep as a secret until I die. That is part of my profession, and it isn't something I treat lightly. Do you understand?”
I nodded, unsure of where he was going with it.
“I am a practitioner of medicine, a doctor, and I am under oath to serve those who need me. This includes immediate injuries, like you have sustained, and, to an extent, future injuries.”
“Future injuries?”
“Those you may continue to sustain, should intervention not be forthcoming.”
I shook my head, “I am afraid –”
“Of telling the truth?”
“No, that I don't understand.”
He strummed his chin, then said, “Very well, let me be blunt. Did the Professor do this to you?”
“What? No!”
“You do not need to lie for him. If he did this to you, you can tell me. In confidence.”
“No!” I assured him. “No, certainly not! The Professor is good to me. He employed me when no one else would.”
“That doesn't mean that he has the right to mistreat you.”
I held up my hands, “Oh. It's not like that, Doctor, not at all!”
“Then what is it like, hmm? I'm a smart man, and I know when I'm being lied to.”
“I'm not lying,” I said, conscious that my face was turning a shade of scarlet. “Well, I guess I am, perhaps, in a way, but, you see, it's complicated.”
“I can assure you that the truth is less complicated than any lie you can spin. It's also a lot safer. Without knowing what I'm dealing with, I might miss something crucial, and you'll end up being even more sick. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Now, let's start from the top, shall we? The truth, if you will.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I sighed.
I explained the Professor's line of investigation, my role as his assistant, and the story of Jolimont house up to the point where I was attacked.
Surprisingly, he did not blow through his moustache or interject with sarcastic remarks. Rather, he sat very still and listened carefully to everything I had to say, jotting down notes and prompting me for clarification every so often. When I had finished, he put his glasses away and nodded to himself.
“Doctor? It's the truth, Doctor.”
“Truth? Truth is merely fact observed from a perspective.”
“You don't believe me, do you?”
“Hmm. I believe that you believe what you're saying. Considering that your story I so amazing, I doubt that you could think up such a tale...”
Suddenly, there was a shout from without. Doctor Halfpenny, surprisingly nimble for his age, was out the door in a trice. Bewildered and panicked, I scrounged for my clothes, listening to the elevated voices as I wrestled with my shirt.
I am sure that it will be demonstrated one day that the difficulty of dressing oneself is proportional to the haste with which one is being attired. My sleeve garter slipped and flew across the room, letting the cuff drop down over my hand, making it impossible to fix the buttons.
I could hear the voices getting louder. I left off fiddling with the buttons on my shirt and grabbed for my pants. It was at that precise moment, when I was bent over, attempting to insert my leg into the pant, that the door burst open and two leering men tumbled in.
“He's in here! He's in here! Quick, take a shot!”
A searing, blinding flash completely disoriented me. The next thing I knew, I was toppling sideways into the Doctor's cabinet. With a thud and a crash I crowned myself as another flash preserved my blindness.
There was I, pants still not on, shirt not fully buttoned, debating whether to rub my sore eyes, rub my pounding head or put my clothes on.
I heard Doctor Halfpenny yelling, “You shall respect the sanctity of a doctor's office! Out with you! All of you!”
“The public's got a right to know,” came a nasal reply, and another blinding flash. “'Specially if there's funny business going on!”
“Out, I say! The constabulary will hear of this! The examination room is off limits. Now get out!”
A voice said, “No worries, guv, we're leavin'. Got what we came for, eh, Sam?”
“I'll say,” came a sneer in reply. “Front page stuff, this. Thanks, champ!”
I flopped about on the floor, forcing my bandaged leg through the pants, before stumbling up to my feet.
“My dear boy, are you alright?” asked Doctor Halfpenny.
I held my head and groaned, “I've got a whopper of a headache. What was that?”
The Professor, coming in and looking over his shoulder, answered for the Doctor, “Not what, who.”
Doctor Halfpenny stamped his foot. “Do you mind? This is my surgery, I am with a patient and you are to wait outside!”
“Never mind that. He's all bandaged up, aren't you Laddie? Time to go, time to go. Thank you, Doctor, for all your services, I apologise for the inconvenience – gracious, Laddie, do your buttons up, you're a mess – please forward your bill to my address,” the Professor said, bustling me out the door. “The best to you and your wife, might I add, thank you and good bye!”
The next little while was a blur. When I next came to my senses, I was slumped in a seat in the laboratory. It was dark. I was alone. My head thumped with the rhythm of my heart.
In front of me was a cup of tea, cold but stiff. I successively sipped and groaned, trying to piece together just what had happened.
With an effort I brought my empty cup to the sink and washed it out, wondering just what to do next. I was in the process of packing up my satchel when I heard the key in the door.
The Professor came in, his eyes darting about. “Ah, you're up. Good. Good. Um. How are you?”
“Huh?”
“It's a straightforward question. How are you feeling?”
“Sorry, Professor. If anything, I'm sore and disoriented,” I confessed. “I cannot remember much between seeing Doctor Halfpenny and, well, now.”
I felt awfully dizzy, and sick, so I sat back down. The Professor was looking at me strangely.
“You don't look very well.”
Oddly, a sense of intense melancholy swept over me. My mind grew dark. Tears welled in my eyes.
“I'm not! My leg is so sore. I cannot sit properly because of my back. My head is pounding and I – I feel worthless, Professor!”
I have no doubt that whatever foul beast had caused me my injuries was responsible for the sadness that came upon me that night. The emotion was unnatural, not coming from within me, but from somewhere without.
I burst into tears. “I am so sorry, Professor.”
“Don't be, Laddie, don't be,” he said. “Calm down now, that's better. You are not responsible for what happened. There are forces at play here.”
“Forces? What do you mean?”
“Insidious, evil forces.”
“Insidious? Evil?” I asked, a chill running down my spine.
“A stain on the fabric of humanity! A malignant, maleficent curse!”
“A curse?”
“They are corrupt –”
I was startled, “They? Professor, how many are there?”
The Professor shrugged, “Oh, I don't know. At least twenty in the local area. Only, like the rats that they are, they never hold still long enough to count them.”
“So you've dealt with these things before? Are they that entrenched? What – what can we do about them?” I gasped.
“Nothing, I suppose. Their corruption is a result of the desires of the populace. And, in a way, they are a necessary evil...”
“A necessary evil? Professor, how could you possibly say that something so sinister could be, in any way, necessary?”
He twirled his finger in the air, “Their purpose, their original purpose that is, is noble indeed.”
I blinked. I had that sudden and, unfortunately, common feeling that the Professor and I were on two different subjects.
“Um, Professor?”
“Don't say um.”
“To what are you referring?”
“The journalists, of course! Keep up, Laddie! They were to weed out the sinners, exalt the benevolent, bring news of progress and keep the world informed,” he said. “Now they let their greed for publicity drive them toward stories of shock and scandal. Ha! It's only money-lust, now. Between a story on a new kind of piston design and the naughty antics the local elites get up to, guess which one will hit the front page?”
He plopped into a chair.
“It seems that, after our theatrics, Missus Butterfield lent her tongue to Chester Perry, one of those gossip-mungers.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. You can be sure that your picture will be in the paper first thing tomorrow morning. While I don't count us as social elites, nor our business anything but professional, they seemed quite enthused with their scoop,” he said, checking his watch. “It is probably going to print right now.”
If I felt sick before, I felt positively nauseous now.
He continued, “I don't need to say it, but I shall: we do not need this kind of publicity. Paranormology will gain approval in scientific circles first, through scientific means, with its merits weighed and tested by our peers. Unfortunately, this will be harder with Chester tailing us.”
I sat up with an effort, “Tailing us? He's not here, is he?”
“He followed me back. I know he did. Like you, I've got keen ears. He can smell a story, and, like a hound on the scent, he'll chase it up until the next one comes along. I've locked downstairs, so he can't get in, but that's not to say he isn't opposed to scaling the walls to listen in at the windows.”
I hobbled to the glass and looked out into the darkened street below. The laboratory was a decent height off the ground, at least twelve feet to the lowest window.
I opened up the window and leaned out, scanning the shadows. Rattles and hums of the evening flow of traffic echoed about. I imagined I saw movement here and there, but, in the state I was in, I could not say for sure.
“You'd best head home, Laddie. Rest up. Heal.”
I closed the window, securing the latch tightly. “Yes, Professor. Oh! What if he is out there and chases me?”
“He already has what he wants from you. However, if you are accosted on the way home, say nothing, tell them nothing, give them nothing. Better yet, let me pay for a cab. Better safe than sorry with these agents of Hades.”
“What about you, Professor?”
“Don't worry about me, thank you, I'll be fine. I've dealt with their type before. You just rest. Take tomorrow off. And the next day.”
“Yes, Professor.”