Chapter 5
I woke quickly, simply opening my eyes to the bright midday sun.
That could not be right; it was later than that when I returned to the hospital after fighting the huge rats.
My stomach rumbled and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful hunger. A nurse chose that moment to walk past in the corridor and I called for her to come in.
I asked her what time it was and when could I be provided with something to eat.
“It’s past lunch time sir; you slept a full twenty hours. We will be serving tea at four thirty.”
My stomach rumbled again, loudly.
“I’ll send word to the kitchen sir, they can make you a nice bowl of something, they have porridge on all day.”
My face must have fallen at that because she clearly saw how happy I was to hear such news.
“As it’s you inspector I’ll ask them to make some soup, we can’t have a hero of the city going hungry now can we.”
She left quickly and I settled back to take stock. Apart from my hunger my knee ached, my calf ached, my stitches itched and I had a powerful need to locate a chamber pot. Oh and I was very thirsty.
A few minutes later I had solved two of those problems and was waiting eagerly for the solution to the third.
Ten minutes later an orderly came into the room holding one of those trays with legs that you can use while in bed, it had a soup bowl covered with a plate on top and a single spoon.
He put the tray over my legs and lifted the plate to reveal.
Luke warm beef broth.
As hungry as I was the sight of the watery mess did nothing to inspire me. I had not eaten in two days but the bowl of broth in front of me was not something I could face. I gestured to the orderly to take it away then called for him to wait as an idea came to me.
After explaining what I wanted he left, a shilling the richer and with the promise of the same when the message had been delivered.
My family were at the country house but they kept a small staff at the city house all year and that included the mistress of the kitchens Mrs Winpole. The house was a good few minutes away but I had no doubt she could make be a basket of sandwiches and the like.
The porter came back to report that the message had been delivered and the woman was sorting something out for me.
With nothing else to do I added what I could to my notes about the events of yesterday and speculated on the mysterious barrels and whatever had left the claw marks so high on the sewer wall.
I was broken out of my thoughts an hour later by the sound of Mrs Winpole’s voice in the corridor. She bustled in followed by the assistant gardener who was wheeling a wicker basket on wire wheels. It looked for all the world like a baby' pram only without the frilly bits.
She immediately set to work, lifting out warming trays with small oil lamps under them and the most wonderful smells filled the room. She chased the lad out of the room with orders to return in an hour then came face to face with the matron who was trying to come into the room.
The two women gathered their skirts, heaved their generous bosoms and leaned toward each other so that their faces were no more than a hands width apart. I could not hear what they said but at one point they both stopped and with perfect timing turned to look at me for several seconds then returned to talking.
Finally the matron nodded and left.
I have no idea what they were talking about but I have found over the years, when strong willed and matronly women decide to take charge of parts of my life, it is far easier to stand back and let them go about their business.
Mrs Winpole turned to look at me and clucked. “You’ve not been eating proper young sir. You need some meat on your bones. Your mother will be unhappy to find you starving yourself. That house of yours, no servants, you need to hire a woman to cook for you.”
“I’ll think about it Mrs Winpole but I’m hardly there.”
“Too busy by half sir, you need to look after yourself. The state of you now, your mother will not be happy to see you half starved and in hospital again.”
“My mother is in the country and will not be back for months, I will be fine by the time she gets back.” I hoped.
“Oh no sir, she sent word, back next week, bringing a young lady with her. Said to prepare her room”
My mother was interrupting her time at the country estate to return to Bristol. Out of season. Without father. With a young lady.
Dear lord no. Not again. A fine young lady, unmarried. In need of someone to show her the city, someone to escort her to a few shows. To keep her company. To take her to the best restaurants.
After that it would be you’re not getting any younger. A man your age should be married. Not healthy living alone. That house of yours needs a woman’s touch. I miss having young children in the house. Your sisters little girls are wonderful but a grandson would be such a joy.
I sighed loudly then looked down as a plate was put in front of me.
Roast beef, rare and sliced very thin. Mrs Winpole’s secret gravy. Potatoes boiled in salt and sage then sprinkled with chopped mint. A good dash of the strong horseradish that I so enjoy. A platter heaped with perfectly cooked greens and a bottle of wine.
I ate everything.
My hunger was not satisfied, it was stretched out in a comfortable chair under the Mediterranean sun with crystal clear water lapping at the golden beach, chilled Champaign, an excellent book in hand and utterly at peace with the world.
I sat back with a contented sigh. “Mrs Winpole that was magnificent. Thank you”
She beamed. “Don’t want you starving on hospital food sir; I’ll have a word with the matron for tomorrow.”
She cleaned up the empty plates and left with my thanks following her.
I dozed for an hour or so after the magnificent meal then woke suddenly, startled and looking around me for whatever had woken me. There was nothing. But I was sure, something had woken me. Unless there was a rat under the bed.
The huge rats. They would be down in the morgue with Professor Carlyle. I wondered what he had found. I was rested and well fed, time to get back to work. I slid out of the bed and tried to stand then fell back as my knee failed me and my calf twitched and spasmed with pain.
I must have groaned in pain as a nurse appeared immediately to see what was wrong.
“What are you doing Inspector, get back in bed at once or I’ll be forced to call Doctor Harper.”
~
The orderly pushing the wheelchair got me down to the lowest level quickly and quietly. It had been so much easier to persuade the doctor to provide me with a wheel chair this time.
He opened the double door to the morgue and pushed me in.
I was immediately struck by the cold, the room was freezing. There were at least six ice chests in here now and I was glad I had bought my coat again.
Professor Carlyle was leaning over one of the examination tables talking to a man bundled in a heavy woollen coat who was standing next to him. There was a camera beside them on a tall tripod, the box angled down toward whatever was on the table.
The man looked a little green around the gills but was paying close attention to the professor.
“There, that’s it; now take a picture of that. As close as you can. Good man. Oh hello Arthur”
The man adjusted something on the tripod and tilted the box camera then raised a flash and took a picture.
“Arthur, come over here and look. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.”
I carefully stood up and limped closer, my knee was making it hard to walk and I regretted not stopping to take some of the strange powder before coming down here. In fact I resolved to take a little when I returned to my room. Just half a spoonful to take the edge of the pain. Or perhaps a bit more, I would see how I felt.
I stopped next to the examination table and looked down at the corpse of one of the rats, neatly dissected. Its skin cut away and spread to either side, its organs being neatly removed one by one and photographed.
“Fascinating. These rats. An Enigma. They should not be this size, very strange. So many Questions.”
He picked up a metal probe and pointed at something greyish still within the rats body.
“Do you see that, very odd. Far too small. All of these rats should not be alive. Very odd.”
“They seemed very alive when they were trying to kill me professor.”
He waved his free hand at me. “Yes, yes. But they should not have been.”
He gestured me to the bench that ran along the wall, there were more than twenty photographs spread along the top, separated in three groups.
He pointed to the first group. “See here, the heart, too large, the lungs crushed and small. This one was having trouble breathing. I doubt very much it would have survived growing up with a condition like this.”
He pointed to the second group of photographs. “Now this one, the biggest. Heart, lungs, all about the size you would expect for a creature this size but the intestines were far too small. It was literally starving to death. It would eat till it was full but that was not enough to sustain it. It would have starved in a month, maybe less. The creature could not have grown up this way.”
He pointed to the third one. “This one was even worse, over sized lungs, small heart and other organs. Back legs smaller than they should have been, front legs too big.”
He paused to draw breath.
“These creatures, all of them. They did not grow naturally to this size. It’s almost as if they were adult rats and them something forced a significant growth spurt on them. But it was random, some organs or body parts grew faster or slower than the others.”
He turned to look at the dissected rat on the table.
“Something very strange happened here. There are cases of gigantism in animals of course, but in so many at once. No this must have had an external trigger. Some environmental condition. A chemical in the sewer. My paper on this is going to have those Cambridge fools cursing into their warm beers.”
I took the opportunity to glance around the room and noticed the five unusual kegs stacked at the far end of the room.
Professor Carlyle noticed the direction of my gaze.
“Aluminium.”
I had heard of it, the new light metal that had been coming into common use over the last year or three, but I thought it was very expensive. I must have spoken aloud because the professor answered my question.
“Well yes it was but it’s coming into more common use. Still those five kegs represent a considerable value. Given that they seem to be pure metal and the size. I would guess about twenty five guineas.”
My family was comfortable when it came to wealth but even so, twenty five guineas for what looked like small beer kegs seemed rather expensive.
“Indeed, very excessive. You could cast them from iron or even steel for a tiny fraction of the price and the weight would not be so much more if they were full. Speaking of which, I managed to get some samples from inside them.”
He rummaged in the paperwork that was scattered on the bench and picked up a letter.
“I sent it to a friend who is a better chemist than I am, he was stumped. A complex compound including several identifiable chemicals that should not mix together along with at least one that does not seem to appear on the periodic table. Of course I did ask him to rush; he should get some results that make sense in a few days.”
“Any idea where they would have come from, are there many places making aluminium?” I asked.
“No idea, it’s still not that common and I have never come across anything as big as these kegs. The writing may help but I had trouble trying to read it. I took an etching but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Every time I try to read it my sight burs and I get a headache. If it’s important I have some old friends at Oxford who are very good with Oriental languages, they should be able to read it.”
“That would certainly help professor. Oh can I send Sergeant Peck down to have a good look. I want him to ask around and he will need to describe them.”
The professor chuckled.
“Arthur my boy, we live in modern times. No descriptions or sketch artists, I’ll let him have a photograph of one”
After we discussed a few of the more gruesome details of the autopsy I called the orderly to wheel me back to my room. My knee was agony and my calf was a tight knot of pain.
I had him send a message to the station for Sergeant Peck to check in with me when he arrived for duty then sent him away.
I had just enough left in my hip flask to mix in a full spoonful of the powder and I was soon feeling happy and without pain.
I woke quickly, simply opening my eyes to the bright midday sun.
That could not be right; it was later than that when I returned to the hospital after fighting the huge rats.
My stomach rumbled and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful hunger. A nurse chose that moment to walk past in the corridor and I called for her to come in.
I asked her what time it was and when could I be provided with something to eat.
“It’s past lunch time sir; you slept a full twenty hours. We will be serving tea at four thirty.”
My stomach rumbled again, loudly.
“I’ll send word to the kitchen sir, they can make you a nice bowl of something, they have porridge on all day.”
My face must have fallen at that because she clearly saw how happy I was to hear such news.
“As it’s you inspector I’ll ask them to make some soup, we can’t have a hero of the city going hungry now can we.”
She left quickly and I settled back to take stock. Apart from my hunger my knee ached, my calf ached, my stitches itched and I had a powerful need to locate a chamber pot. Oh and I was very thirsty.
A few minutes later I had solved two of those problems and was waiting eagerly for the solution to the third.
Ten minutes later an orderly came into the room holding one of those trays with legs that you can use while in bed, it had a soup bowl covered with a plate on top and a single spoon.
He put the tray over my legs and lifted the plate to reveal.
Luke warm beef broth.
As hungry as I was the sight of the watery mess did nothing to inspire me. I had not eaten in two days but the bowl of broth in front of me was not something I could face. I gestured to the orderly to take it away then called for him to wait as an idea came to me.
After explaining what I wanted he left, a shilling the richer and with the promise of the same when the message had been delivered.
My family were at the country house but they kept a small staff at the city house all year and that included the mistress of the kitchens Mrs Winpole. The house was a good few minutes away but I had no doubt she could make be a basket of sandwiches and the like.
The porter came back to report that the message had been delivered and the woman was sorting something out for me.
With nothing else to do I added what I could to my notes about the events of yesterday and speculated on the mysterious barrels and whatever had left the claw marks so high on the sewer wall.
I was broken out of my thoughts an hour later by the sound of Mrs Winpole’s voice in the corridor. She bustled in followed by the assistant gardener who was wheeling a wicker basket on wire wheels. It looked for all the world like a baby' pram only without the frilly bits.
She immediately set to work, lifting out warming trays with small oil lamps under them and the most wonderful smells filled the room. She chased the lad out of the room with orders to return in an hour then came face to face with the matron who was trying to come into the room.
The two women gathered their skirts, heaved their generous bosoms and leaned toward each other so that their faces were no more than a hands width apart. I could not hear what they said but at one point they both stopped and with perfect timing turned to look at me for several seconds then returned to talking.
Finally the matron nodded and left.
I have no idea what they were talking about but I have found over the years, when strong willed and matronly women decide to take charge of parts of my life, it is far easier to stand back and let them go about their business.
Mrs Winpole turned to look at me and clucked. “You’ve not been eating proper young sir. You need some meat on your bones. Your mother will be unhappy to find you starving yourself. That house of yours, no servants, you need to hire a woman to cook for you.”
“I’ll think about it Mrs Winpole but I’m hardly there.”
“Too busy by half sir, you need to look after yourself. The state of you now, your mother will not be happy to see you half starved and in hospital again.”
“My mother is in the country and will not be back for months, I will be fine by the time she gets back.” I hoped.
“Oh no sir, she sent word, back next week, bringing a young lady with her. Said to prepare her room”
My mother was interrupting her time at the country estate to return to Bristol. Out of season. Without father. With a young lady.
Dear lord no. Not again. A fine young lady, unmarried. In need of someone to show her the city, someone to escort her to a few shows. To keep her company. To take her to the best restaurants.
After that it would be you’re not getting any younger. A man your age should be married. Not healthy living alone. That house of yours needs a woman’s touch. I miss having young children in the house. Your sisters little girls are wonderful but a grandson would be such a joy.
I sighed loudly then looked down as a plate was put in front of me.
Roast beef, rare and sliced very thin. Mrs Winpole’s secret gravy. Potatoes boiled in salt and sage then sprinkled with chopped mint. A good dash of the strong horseradish that I so enjoy. A platter heaped with perfectly cooked greens and a bottle of wine.
I ate everything.
My hunger was not satisfied, it was stretched out in a comfortable chair under the Mediterranean sun with crystal clear water lapping at the golden beach, chilled Champaign, an excellent book in hand and utterly at peace with the world.
I sat back with a contented sigh. “Mrs Winpole that was magnificent. Thank you”
She beamed. “Don’t want you starving on hospital food sir; I’ll have a word with the matron for tomorrow.”
She cleaned up the empty plates and left with my thanks following her.
I dozed for an hour or so after the magnificent meal then woke suddenly, startled and looking around me for whatever had woken me. There was nothing. But I was sure, something had woken me. Unless there was a rat under the bed.
The huge rats. They would be down in the morgue with Professor Carlyle. I wondered what he had found. I was rested and well fed, time to get back to work. I slid out of the bed and tried to stand then fell back as my knee failed me and my calf twitched and spasmed with pain.
I must have groaned in pain as a nurse appeared immediately to see what was wrong.
“What are you doing Inspector, get back in bed at once or I’ll be forced to call Doctor Harper.”
~
The orderly pushing the wheelchair got me down to the lowest level quickly and quietly. It had been so much easier to persuade the doctor to provide me with a wheel chair this time.
He opened the double door to the morgue and pushed me in.
I was immediately struck by the cold, the room was freezing. There were at least six ice chests in here now and I was glad I had bought my coat again.
Professor Carlyle was leaning over one of the examination tables talking to a man bundled in a heavy woollen coat who was standing next to him. There was a camera beside them on a tall tripod, the box angled down toward whatever was on the table.
The man looked a little green around the gills but was paying close attention to the professor.
“There, that’s it; now take a picture of that. As close as you can. Good man. Oh hello Arthur”
The man adjusted something on the tripod and tilted the box camera then raised a flash and took a picture.
“Arthur, come over here and look. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.”
I carefully stood up and limped closer, my knee was making it hard to walk and I regretted not stopping to take some of the strange powder before coming down here. In fact I resolved to take a little when I returned to my room. Just half a spoonful to take the edge of the pain. Or perhaps a bit more, I would see how I felt.
I stopped next to the examination table and looked down at the corpse of one of the rats, neatly dissected. Its skin cut away and spread to either side, its organs being neatly removed one by one and photographed.
“Fascinating. These rats. An Enigma. They should not be this size, very strange. So many Questions.”
He picked up a metal probe and pointed at something greyish still within the rats body.
“Do you see that, very odd. Far too small. All of these rats should not be alive. Very odd.”
“They seemed very alive when they were trying to kill me professor.”
He waved his free hand at me. “Yes, yes. But they should not have been.”
He gestured me to the bench that ran along the wall, there were more than twenty photographs spread along the top, separated in three groups.
He pointed to the first group. “See here, the heart, too large, the lungs crushed and small. This one was having trouble breathing. I doubt very much it would have survived growing up with a condition like this.”
He pointed to the second group of photographs. “Now this one, the biggest. Heart, lungs, all about the size you would expect for a creature this size but the intestines were far too small. It was literally starving to death. It would eat till it was full but that was not enough to sustain it. It would have starved in a month, maybe less. The creature could not have grown up this way.”
He pointed to the third one. “This one was even worse, over sized lungs, small heart and other organs. Back legs smaller than they should have been, front legs too big.”
He paused to draw breath.
“These creatures, all of them. They did not grow naturally to this size. It’s almost as if they were adult rats and them something forced a significant growth spurt on them. But it was random, some organs or body parts grew faster or slower than the others.”
He turned to look at the dissected rat on the table.
“Something very strange happened here. There are cases of gigantism in animals of course, but in so many at once. No this must have had an external trigger. Some environmental condition. A chemical in the sewer. My paper on this is going to have those Cambridge fools cursing into their warm beers.”
I took the opportunity to glance around the room and noticed the five unusual kegs stacked at the far end of the room.
Professor Carlyle noticed the direction of my gaze.
“Aluminium.”
I had heard of it, the new light metal that had been coming into common use over the last year or three, but I thought it was very expensive. I must have spoken aloud because the professor answered my question.
“Well yes it was but it’s coming into more common use. Still those five kegs represent a considerable value. Given that they seem to be pure metal and the size. I would guess about twenty five guineas.”
My family was comfortable when it came to wealth but even so, twenty five guineas for what looked like small beer kegs seemed rather expensive.
“Indeed, very excessive. You could cast them from iron or even steel for a tiny fraction of the price and the weight would not be so much more if they were full. Speaking of which, I managed to get some samples from inside them.”
He rummaged in the paperwork that was scattered on the bench and picked up a letter.
“I sent it to a friend who is a better chemist than I am, he was stumped. A complex compound including several identifiable chemicals that should not mix together along with at least one that does not seem to appear on the periodic table. Of course I did ask him to rush; he should get some results that make sense in a few days.”
“Any idea where they would have come from, are there many places making aluminium?” I asked.
“No idea, it’s still not that common and I have never come across anything as big as these kegs. The writing may help but I had trouble trying to read it. I took an etching but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Every time I try to read it my sight burs and I get a headache. If it’s important I have some old friends at Oxford who are very good with Oriental languages, they should be able to read it.”
“That would certainly help professor. Oh can I send Sergeant Peck down to have a good look. I want him to ask around and he will need to describe them.”
The professor chuckled.
“Arthur my boy, we live in modern times. No descriptions or sketch artists, I’ll let him have a photograph of one”
After we discussed a few of the more gruesome details of the autopsy I called the orderly to wheel me back to my room. My knee was agony and my calf was a tight knot of pain.
I had him send a message to the station for Sergeant Peck to check in with me when he arrived for duty then sent him away.
I had just enough left in my hip flask to mix in a full spoonful of the powder and I was soon feeling happy and without pain.