The Night Calls Read Free

me aware he had been indulging in pure deduction. But even so, for some time after that day, I did my best to avoid him and pleaded my studies as an excuse.
    Now, with the fiddler’s melancholy notes still in my ears, I thought of that incident with the watch once again. And I found that I missed my jousts with Bell even if, despite my painful lesson, I still had doubts about the man’s ‘method’. Perhaps he had won that particular contest, but was there not, even here, some plain old-fashioned luck? After all, in his attempt to divine human character from an inanimate object, I had fed his ego by handing over a damaged artefact. But supposing that cursed watch had belonged to some fussy old solicitor rather than an artist whose mind was giving way? If the thing had been in utterly pristine condition, what could Dr Bell have had to say then beyond some vague and useless observation? Much of my old spirit returned as I remembered how disconcerted the Doctor had looked at first when he realised it had been cleaned. Supposing it had not only been cleaned, but bore no marks whatsoever? Bell’s expression might well have remained just as unhappy for the whole test.
    As the music faded behind me I smiled to think of that, and before the walk was over I had made up my mind that I was ready to see him again. Not that I would abandon my scepticism. Perhaps now a part of me wanted to challenge his method because it had inflicted such pain. But surely such challenges were good for him and for me, just as long as I took more care?
    And so the next morning I made my way along the dark stone corridors to Bell’s strange vault-like room in the university. As you entered it, you passed through a kind of tunnel between huge shelves of various compounds and chemicals until you arrived at an enormous tank which ran halfway to the ceiling. Today that tank was dry, rather to my surprise, for I was used to seeing strange things in its watery depths. Beyond it a huge bookcase towered to my left and I came past it to find his empty desk.
    ‘Well,’ said a familiar and sharp voice from somewhere below me.
    I whirled round. At first I could see nothing at all in the shadows, but eventually I made out a shape lying down very flat between two low bookshelves. The space was so confined you could hardly see Bell’s wiry body. But slowly I made out his features and saw he was staring at me. He was indeed quite horizontal, lying between two shelves that were so close together only the smallest volumes could possibly have fitted them, and yet Bell had somehow clambered in and managed to lie flat. He had a watch in one hand.
    ‘Doctor?’ I said in amazement.
    He ignored me and looked at the watch. Then his legs moved and he wriggled out from under that tiny crevice and drew himself up to his full height, which was more than six foot. His expression was fierce. ‘Your business?’ he said.
    ‘But what are you doing?’
    ‘I am establishing whether a man called André Valère was truly able to lie in a chimney space much smaller than a grave in order to conceal himself from the constabulary of Rouen in 1780.’
    ‘1780?’
    ‘Nothing has been presented to me in months, but I do not wish to remain entirely inactive in the field. If I cannot obtain fresh material, I can at least occasionally exercise my powers with older cases, especially those unsolved. Perhaps you are not aware of the Rouen matter? Valère was a suspected strangler, but they could not place him near the scene. I think he was in a chimney crevice no bigger than this when the third murder was discovered. He seemed to vanish into thin air and, though there was speculation, they thought the space was too small. This bookcase is a few inches smaller and I could have stayed longer; he only needed twenty-three minutes. So I am convinced.’ He had taken up a brush and was removing some dust from his jacket lapels as his tone became more clipped, but his eyes never left me. ‘Now, your