The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes (18 page)

‘Our wisest course is to find someone who knew Henry Jekyll when he was attending classes here,’ said Holmes as we made our way down a well-trammelled path through a maze of students hurrying to and fro, carrying armloads of books. ‘Failing that, we shall have to rely upon the University records. How about it, Watson? Does anyone come to mind who answers that description?’

‘There is old Professor Armbruster,’ I responded after a moment’s concentration. ‘He was far from young when I left; the popular jest was that they built the University round him. My latest Medical Directory lists him still among the living, but at his age that is a status which is subject to change at any moment.’

‘That is easy enough to confirm.’ Holmes placed a hand upon the arm of a callow student who was in the act of striding round us. The student, his arms loaded down with several ponderous volumes, stopped and glared at him in irritation.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Holmes, ‘but where may we find Professor Armbruster?’

‘Old ‘brucie?’ The young man’s tone was a mixture of fondness and irreverence. ‘Try the medical library. Where else would he be? He practically lives there.’ He inclined his head towards a huge, grey building some fifty paces to our left, its tall windows framed with branches of ivy now withered to reveal the lichen-spotted stone beneath.

‘Thank you. I trust that we have not made you late for your examination in anatomy.’

‘I’ve some time yet.’ He walked away a few steps, stopped suddenly, and turned an expression of comical bewilderment upon the detective. By that time, however, Holmes was already halfway down the path which led to the medical library. I shrugged and turned to follow, leaving the young man standing there in absolute mystification.

‘Would you care to explain how you knew that he was going to an examination in anatomy?’ I asked my companion as I feel into step beside him.

‘When one overhears a student muttering such terms as “ectoderm,” “neural tube,” “notochord,” and “mesenchyme” beneath his breath in quick succession as he hurries past, his destination is hardly a mystery. Quiet now, Watson, for University libraries are sacrosanct.’

We passed through an enormous pair of double doors and down a shallow corridor into a vast repository whose walls were solid with books from the dark oaken floor to the sills of the lofty windows near the ceiling. Through these, pale sunlight filtered downwards to illuminate the dusty spines of countless volumes and the hunched forms of students seated round broad library tables, lost in study. The sheer scale of the chamber, however, dwarfed them into insignificance and created a curious atmosphere of desertion. At the far end an emaciated old man was perched atop a tall step-ladder, bent over a volume spread open upon his bony knees. His head, which appeared too large and heavy for his withered old neck to support, was crowned with snatches of fierce white hair sticking out all over in stiff bristles. Thick-lensed pince-nez framed in plain gold straddled his beak of a nose. He was wearing a seedy old frock-coat which, once black, had long since faded to an uneven grey. I am prepared to swear that it was the very same one which he had worn throughout my tenure as a student. As a matter of fact, he appeared not to have changed at all since those halcyon days, aside from his shoulders, which seemed even more rounded by study than I remembered them. I was overcome with nostalgia at the sight of this rock who had refused to surrender its position before the torrent of modern history which gurgled round it.

‘Professor Armbruster?’ Holmes addressed as we approached, our footsteps echoing among the rafters twenty feet above our heads.

‘Go away! Can’t you see that I’m busy?’ He spoke without removing his eyes from his book. His voice was a cross between a raven’s croak and the squeal of a rusted hinge.

‘As indeed are we,’ responded the detective. ‘We should like a word with you. It will take but a few minutes and will cost you nothing.’

‘It will cost me a few minutes, and I have few enough as it is. Go away!’

‘Professor —’ said I.

‘Can you not hear? Are you deaf as well as stupid?’ He glanced down at us for the first time. His eyes of faded grey flashed behind the bottle-glass lenses of his spectacles.

‘I am John Watson,’ I continued. ‘I studied surgery under you for four years. Do you not remember me?’

He adjusted his pince-nez and peered at me. After a moment: ‘Are you the young man who ran my overcoat up the flagpole in ‘73?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Too bad. That laddie showed promise of becoming a fine surgeon. Which one were you?’

‘I was in your class from ‘70 to ‘74. I worked in the laboratory nights to earn money for my education.’

‘If you were that serious about it, you should have known better than to run my overcoat up the flagpole. It cost me a small fortune to repair the lining.’

I reiterated my innocence.

‘Professor,’ Holmes broke in, ‘I should like to question you about Henry Jekyll, a former student.’

At the mention of the name the old man’s eyes glittered in recognition. ‘Jekyll! A brilliant young man!’ he closed the book which he had been reading. ‘What is it that you wish to know?’

Holmes glanced about at the students in the room, some of whom had looked up from their studies at the sound of voices and appeared to be listening out of sheer boredom. He lowered his voice. ‘Is there some place where we may converse in private?’

‘Oh, very well, if you insist upon disturbing me.’ The professor shoved the book back into its place upon the shelf with a disgusted gesture and descended the ladder. I stepped forward to help him down the last few steps, but he slapped aside my hands. ‘I’m not an invalid, blast it! And stay away from that overcoat! I haven’t forgot what you did with it the last time.’ Before I could hand it to him, he snatched up the shabby black garment which had been draped over the bottom step and thrust his bony arms into the threadbare sleeves.

Half-loping, half-scuttling in the manner of an excited crab, the old man led us out of the building and across a snow-covered courtyard into the neighbouring structure. There we followed him up a narrow, creaking staircase to the first floor and pattered down an ancient corridor, stopping at last before a door which was panelled in handsome old walnut. At this point I expected him to produce a key but was dumb-founded when instead he kicked twice at the bottom right hand corner of the barricade and then smacked the panel before him with the flat of his hand. The door sprang open as if by magic.

There was a pause whilst he struck a match and ignited a gas fixture just inside the door, and then he stepped aside for us to enter.

After four years’ residence with Sherlock Holmes, whose aversion to casting away anything which might prove the least bit useful to him had led to the inevitable result, I had thought that no-one lived amidst worse clutter than we, but Professor Armbruster’s study (for such I immediately judged it to be) was far and away the victor in that dubious contest. As might have been expected, every available bit of wall space in the tiny room was devoted to the storage of books, some upright, others jammed in horizontally, the whole packed so tightly that removing one would not have been possible without bringing about a veritable avalanche. But this haphazard system did not confine itself to the shelves. Documents of every description — some bound, some rolled, still others piled atop one another and beginning to curl at the edges — lay about the floor and covered every stick of furniture in the room, including a battered old roll-top desk behind which stood an ancient, high-backed chair whose seat was rounded over with a number of exquisitely rendered pen-and-ink drawings of the human body in various stages of dissection. The odour of must pervaded everything, and it was impossible to take a step in any direction within the room without hearing the crackle of parchment beneath one’s foot.

It was the work of a few seconds for the professor to clear off a pair of straight wooden chairs for Holmes and me, as well as his own seat at the desk, and as he filled a squat clay pipe with tobacco from a jar which he kept in the deep bottom drawer he frowned and said: ‘Let’s begin with who you are and why you want to know about Henry Jekyll’s career at this University.’

‘My name is Sherlock Holmes,’ said my companion, who had taken the seat beside mine and was following Professor Armbruster’s example with his own charred briar and pouch. ‘I have been engaged as a consulting detective to aid Scotland Yard’s investigation into the violent death last year of Sir Danvers Carew in London.’

Two matches flared simultaneously. The professor puffed energetically until his tobacco caught fire, then shook out the match and deposited it, still glowing, atop the papers on his desk. I winced, wondering if he was always that careless with fire.

‘And who,’ said he, ‘was Sir Danvers Carew?’

Holmes stared until his own flaming vesta burnt down to his fingers. He extinguished it hastily and ignited another. This one performed its duty; he disposed of it somewhat more carefully than was the wont of our host, and drew on his pipe.

‘You do not follow the newspapers?’

‘Another London murder can hardly be expected to raise eyebrows in my circle,’ responded the other. I noticed that his Scottish burr, previously faint, had sharpened, as if to emphasise his lack of interest in things English. ‘There are so many of them.’

‘No matter. I will begin by stating that Jekyll is not implicated directly but that he is deeply involved. Whatever you can tell us about his background may assist us in bringing a murderer to justice.’

‘You mean that if you are able to find him, if he does not elude capture, and if the courts convict him,’ said our host acidly. ‘I know your English system of justice very well, you see. Well, ask away, and I shall decide whether your questions deserve answers.’

‘What sort of student was Jekyll?’

‘The brightest whom ever I have taught. Everything about him indicated a brilliant future in scientific research.’

‘Not medicine?’

He shook his head. ‘He would have made a mediocre physician at best. No diagnostic skills whatsoever. But in the laboratory he was a genius.’

‘In what capacity?’

‘In every capacity, but in chemistry particularly. In one session he had the elemental table down by heart; in two he was making compositions which I should not have attempted myself without first consulting the testbook. In two years he never made a mistake.’

‘Can you tell me anything about his other subjects?’

‘We conversed frequently in this very chamber. Civil law consumed nearly as much of his time as did science. He was interested also in literature, and philosophy fascinated him. He never tired of discussing Goethe and Schopenhauer. The insatiety of desire and the existence side-by-side of good and evil in human nature were favourite topics; you might even term them obsessions. But then students are rarely distinguished for their moderation.’

‘They are obsessions which appear never to have left him,’ commented Holmes. ‘Have you read “The War Between the Members”?’

‘I stumbled across it some time ago. I found it interesting if a trifle obvious.’

‘You and Watson seem to be kindred souls upon that subject at least. It is not difficult to see that he is your disciple. What of Jekyll’s social life during his time here?’

The professor scowled, pulling at his pipe. ‘That, sir, hardly falls within my province. What a student does when he is not in class is nobody’s affair but his own.’

‘Come, come, Professor. Universities are hotbeds of gossip. You must have heard something.’

‘I do not think that I care for the turn this conversation is taking.’ He placed his hands upon the arms of his chair. Holmes leant forward and closed his fingers round the old man’s arm.

‘I am not a journalist,’ said he. ‘My questions are not always harmless. But your prize student is in the grasp of a creature most vile, and since his life after leaving Edinburgh appears to have been above reproach, it is my considered belief that whatever indiscretion he may have committed which delivered him into this fiend’s clutches took place during his stay here. His best friend will do nothing to assist him. You are the only man living who can help me extricate him from the vortex into which he has fallen. Without your co-operation Jekyll is doomed.’

The speech had its effect upon the aged academician, who relaxed somewhat and studied his pipe for some moments in silence. Holmes released his grip but remained leaning forward, his spare profile a mask of tense anticipation.

‘You will tell no-one?’ asked the professor finally.

‘No-one,’ echoed the detective. I nodded agreement.

There was another long pause whilst the smoke from the two pipes swirled about, filling the windowless room with a choking haze and causing my eyes to smart. I found myself longing for the comparatively fresh atmosphere of London at its foggiest.

‘It was early in ‘55,’ commenced Professor Armbruster in a voice scarcely above a whisper. ‘The night before final examinations, Jekyll and a number of his friends went into Edinburgh to relieve some of the pressure brought about by days and nights of study. Whilst visiting a public-house, Jekyll became separated from his cronies; when after an hour he did not return, the others assumed that he had returned to his rooms to rest up for the examinations, and after a time they followed what they thought was his lead. Jekyll roomed alone, and so there was no-one to miss him that night.

‘Classes were in session the next morning when he appeared, drunk as a lord, in the entrance-hall of the house in which he kept his rooms. This would not have been shocking in itself, but he was being supported by a common woman of the streets. She gave no explanation, and when Jekyll’s head had cleared he retained no memory of the night before; the mystery of the missing hours, therefore, descended into the realm of vicious gossip. And what a lot of gossip there was! Everyone, including myself, was certain that he would be asked to leave the University.

‘Fortunately for Jekyll, the dean was an understanding man, and though it was quite out of the question that the young man be allowed to take his examinations, he was offered the opportunity to stay on for an extra year and take them the next time they were offered. He accepted, there were no further incidents, and when he finally graduated he did so at the head of his class.