Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

He stumbled as he fell down onto the trackside, twisting his ankle. It buckled under him, and both his carpetbag and camera flew from his grasp, and disappeared into the darkness. He continued to tumble head over heels down the slippery embankment, bushes tearing at his clothes. His fall was broken by his landing on something soft in the damp gully at the bottom of the slope. It was his own bag, which had burst open to disgorge his clothes into the gully. A dress shirt drifted away from him on the rising water in the muddy channel. He sat up, wiped the rain out of his eyes, and watched the lights of the train gliding away from him. He was now committed to his course of action.

Potter picked himself up out of the muddy ditch, and realised what a mad thing he had done. But he still reckoned it could be no less than Le Prince had done six months before. If the police had not been able to find any trace of him getting off at the stations down the line between Dijon and Paris, it stood to reason that this must have been the only possible place that Le Prince could have alighted. The elegant Parisian had said the train always stopped here. While it had stood waiting in the dark for the passage of another train on the down line, Le Prince must have, for whatever reason, jumped down from the carriage with his bag and moving-picture camera. Had he been fleeing from someone, and what had been his pursuer’s motive?

Potter turned up the collar of his muddied overcoat, hefted his bag, and clambered out of the gully. He found himself on a rutted, country road, and stood at the roadside, debating which way to follow it. Where would Le Prince have gone? While he stood considering this dilemma, he was aware of a glimmer of light flickering through the trees to his left, and thought at first it was a carriage coming his way. He determined to hail it, and hoped the driver would stop for a mud-covered madman who had just jumped off the Paris train in the middle of nowhere. Then he realised the apparent movement of the light was caused by the swaying of trees, whipped back and forth by the driving wind. The yellowish light was coming from the windows of a large house set far back in thick woodland.

He decided he needed to get out of the pouring rain, and walked along the road a few hundred yards until he found the driveway to the house. Two crumbling pillars loomed out of the darkness, both leaning at too precarious an angle to support the wrought-iron gates properly. These hung open, their bottom edges dug deep into the weed-covered driveway, clearly not having been moved for years. There was no indication on the pillars as to the name of the house, nor its owners. Potter hoped that, whoever they were, they would take pity on a damp and hungry traveller.

The driveway was as unkempt as the gateway, and Potter’s only hope that the place was actually inhabited rested on the fact that he had seen lights in the upper rooms from the road. And as he approached the gloomy facade of the edifice, he was relieved to see at least one light still shining from one of the windows above the main portico. He was not so sure about wanting to place himself at the mercy of the inhabitants when he heard an unearthly scream emanating from the darkness above him.

When Potter had asked Doctor Gaston whether a tall, dark-haired man had appeared on the doorstep of his asylum six months ago, much in the same way he had done this night, Gaston had stared pensively into space for a long time. His eyes, when they had returned to stare at Potter, glittered darkly.

‘I am afraid not. People very rarely choose to visit us voluntarily, you understand.’ He had smiled knowingly, and by way of further explanation waved his hand to take in the dark, desolate chateau. ‘The relatives of those patients who…’ He strove to find a suitable word, one not tainted with the stain of incarceration, ‘…those patients…residing with us, pay as much as they can. But the upkeep of the chateau is so crippling that it is difficult to maintain it to the standards of its former residents…’

Potter, almost dozing off at the drone of Gaston’s monologue on the causes of madness, suddenly realised the doctor was making a suggestion about his search for Le Prince.

‘You know, it is no surprise to me that this man you are seeking…’

‘Le Prince.’

‘…Le Prince, disappeared. Little is known about the effects of cyanide on those who indulge in the science of photography.’

Potter frowned.

‘What has cyanide to do with this case, doctor? Are you suggesting that Le Prince had been poisoned?’

Doctor Gaston smiled. ‘Let me explain. About forty years ago, a man called Archer discovered that a substance called collodion made an excellent surface for photographic images. In order to fix this image, a solution was required, and most photographers used a weak solution of cyanide of potassium, silver nitrate, and water. Unfortunately, this solution is highly poisonous, and should not be allowed to touch broken skin, nor should the fumes be inhaled. Many people have died as a result of their interest in taking photographs.’

Potter remembered Albert Le Prince’s comment about his brother’s use of collodion, and being immersed in chemicals.

‘What are the symptoms of cyanide poisoning?’

‘Initially, headaches, faintness, anxiety. Often the sufferer has a burning sensation in his mouth. Later, he will suffer attacks of excitement, anxiety, and increased heart rate.’

‘And finally?’

‘Coma, convulsions, paralysis…and death. Inevitably – death.’

‘You seem to know a lot about the subject.’

‘Oh yes. I have been making a study of the progression of the symptoms, and have observed several research subjects in this very house.’

Potter shuddered at the apparent callousness of the doctor, and his reference to the demented, poisoned souls as simply subjects for his research.

‘Then, if he did jump from the train that day, what were his chances?’

The doctor sighed.

‘If he tried to hide somewhere, and the later stages of cyanide poisoning took effect – heart arrhythmia, respiratory depression – then he undoubtedly would have died a lonely and painful death.’

‘And I am wasting my time. Fancy imagining him pursued and murdered by rivals, when in fact he was simply being persecuted by his own deranged imagination.’

‘Not in the least. Our chance meeting has provided you with the most likely fate for the unfortunate Monsieur Le Prince. Break it to his wife gently.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Please, there is a village a kilometre down the road, Monsieur Potter – Pont-sur-Vanne – I will arrange for my assistant to take you there in the carriage.’

When Potter made a token protest at the inconvenience, Dr Gaston brushed it aside.

‘It is better you do not stay here tonight. My patients can be…unsettled by strangers.’

So it was that Potter readily agreed to the doctor’s offer of transport as he now felt his search was over. He thought it likely that Le Prince, doped with accidental cyanide poisoning, had fallen from the train and been killed. At the very least, he would have been seriously injured, and perhaps had crawled away into the woods only to succumb to cyanide and the elements soon afterwards. He shivered at the thought that Le Prince’s fate could easily have been his own.

It was thus with some relief that he took his leave of the doctor and his forbidding residence, looking back only briefly to see the man standing in front of the portico, lit by the flickering lantern he held above his head. Then Potter sighed and settled back in his seat, looking forward to finding a warm dry hotel in the nearby village.