Guy Adams - Sherlock Holmes - The Army of Doctor Moreau

“Ah,” he said. “So there is a Mrs Watson then, eh?”

“There was,” I replied, feeling suddenly awkward, as all widowers do. People don’t like to hear about loss, they rarely know how to respond to it.

Mann handled it better than some. “Sorry to hear that,” he said with a smile. “You always think you know the people you read about, of course you only know the half of people’s lives.”

“The half they choose to tell you.”

“Indeed.”

Sensing that the best way forward was to move on, he reached for a folder of notes that sat in the tray on his desk. “On the matter of Edward Prendick, perhaps it’s better if I walk you through the affair. I have my notes here, for whatever help they may offer, and I still have a key to his house courtesy of the dead man’s solicitor.” He took the latter from a drawer in his desk and dropped it into his overcoat pocket. The folder of notes under his arm, he gestured to the door. “No sooner are we arrived than we head off again,” he smiled. “It’s a short walk to the house but I can give you the background on the way.”

It was important, I felt, that we had one thing clear above all others:

“Is there any chance that the body found was not that of Edward Prendick?” I asked. “Had the acid disfigured enough to disguise his identity?”

“It did considerable damage of course,” Mann agreed, “but the face was clear enough. The man we carried out of here was certainly Edward Prendick.”

Which meant that the list of those theoretically able to replicate Moreau’s work was most definitely reduced to two, the man himself and his assistant Montgomery, both of whom were supposed to have died on the island but we would never know for sure, not now that the one and only eyewitness was confirmed dead.

I had been sure that an investigation into Prendick’s death would reveal flaws, a big enough crack that the man himself could have slipped through it. I trusted Mann’s work, though, he was astute enough; if he said Prendick was dead then I had little doubt that was so. But was it suicide or murder?

We headed back out onto the high street, the sweetness of the shop windows, the fragile, lacy appearance of a town built on grace and gentility, not matched by Inspector Mann’s conversation.

“Edward Prendick,” he said, skirting past the doorway of a fishmonger and avoiding an ejected bucketful of crushed ice, “was known to the few locals that had cause to know him at all as George Herbert. He wished to keep his identity a secret and, having been frequently quoted in the press around the time of his rescue, he felt it best to maintain a pseudonym. It wasn’t difficult given that he barely interacted with anyone from the town. If a man says his name’s Herbert who has cause to disagree?”

We turned off the main street and began to walk towards the church.

“Every town has its reclusive citizens,” Mann continued. “The rural life appeals to many different personalities but there will always be those who choose to live somewhere simply because it’s a place where others aren’t.”

Looking at the hustle and bustle of the streets, I couldn’t help but feel Mann was exaggerating. As someone who had spent time on Dartmoor I knew real wilderness when I had cause to be stuck in it.

“Of course,” he said, as if predicting such an argument, “Billericay itself is a positive circus of activity, but some of the small villages that fall within my purview are empty places indeed—collections of houses with silent, unfriendly people in them. All staring out of the windows at one another and refusing to make conversation.” He grinned. “Luckily they’re mostly so shy they don’t bump each other off either!”

Past the church was a narrow track that led out into the surrounding fields.

“Prendick had the best of both worlds as you’ll see. He bought Moon Cottage some years ago, an old farmhouse with absolutely nobody on his doorstep. He had nothing around him but fields.”

And very pleasant fields they were too, I thought, as we marched across them.

“Only two people dealt with him on a regular basis,” said Mann. “Mrs Alice Bradley who worked as a home help, cleaning up a bit twice a week and Harold Court, the local postmaster.”

“He received a lot of post?”

“Indeed, chemicals, equipment, specialist items. A lot of it needed to be signed for. Which is why Court was in a position to identify the body—he knew him well enough.”

“Had he received any post on the day he died?”

“Hard to say for sure. Bear in mind the body wasn’t discovered for some time and it was difficult to be precise as to the time of death. Normally, Mrs Bradley visits on a Tuesday and a Thursday. That week she was visiting her sister in Northampton and so Prendick would have had no visitors for ten days. We know he collected a parcel from Mr Court on the Wednesday. Mrs Bradley visited the following Thursday and found him dead. The local coroner—who’s a good man, though I know we country folk are assumed lacking by the powers that be in the metropolis …”

“Not by me,” I insisted.

He smiled. “Well, he claims Prendick could have died on the Wednesday but he wouldn’t want to guarantee it either side of twenty-four hours or so.”

We were clearing the crest of a hill and I could see a small cottage in the distance, still a good few minutes’ walk away.

“Moon Cottage?” I asked.

“The very same,” Mann agreed, leading us down the following slope.

“You’re wondering,” he continued, “whether Prendick received anything by the post that could have driven him to suicide.”

“A man must have some encouragement to consider selfdestruction.”

“Indeed he must. But remember that Prendick may already have had it. He chose this life of solitude because he feared the world and everything he found in it. That was clear enough from the report he wrote of his rescue. He was a man who had faced the most unforgiving ridicule, in fact there had been talk of his being committed.”

“He was already deeply damaged.”

“Indeed. Which is why, as grotesque as it might seem, I am inclined to agree with the court’s ruling that it was suicide.”

We had almost reached the house by now and Mann drew to a halt to elaborate his point. “I agree that acid is an agonising choice of weapon, but Prendick showed considerable signs of mania as you’ll soon see. Such people often choose to inflict great pain on themselves, a spiritual purging of some deluded sort.” He counted the points off on the fingers of his gloved hand. “Add to that the fact that the place was locked up securely from the inside; we had to put a window through to get in.”

“That could have been done simply to mislead?”

“Locked-room mysteries are all very well in fiction, Doctor, but they’re not usual in the real world. Besides, it would have been a pointless effort in this case as we would have been inclined towards suicide anyway. The state of the walls—well, you’ll see that in a minute. Finally, drinking acid may be vicious but it’s hard to force someone else to do it. You haven’t the benefit of seeing the body but it was ingested cleanly. If someone forced it down him one would expect signs of splashing, burn marks to the face and lips. As it is the damage was consistent with his drinking it calmly and slowly, incredible in itself given that it must have hurt from the moment it hit his palate.”

“Another sign of mania perhaps,” I said. “It’s amazing what the human body can achieve when the mind is damaged. I’ve seen poor, deranged people commit the most terrible acts of self-mutilation and be almost completely unaware.”

“My thoughts exactly.” We walked the last few steps to the house and Mann removed the key from the pocket of his coat. “And you’ll see just how deranged Prendick was once we get inside.”