Please read! A
limerick for your perusal:
Disclaimer
This is not an original
story,
To sir Arthur belongs the true glory.
So please don't sue
Cause if you do,
I'll cry, and then
you'll be sorry!
To prevent confusion, the narrator is NOT Dr. Watson. She is a new character of my own creation. Any resemblance to other characters in the cannon is purely accidental.
M is for Murder
Chapter One: A
Nocturnal Visitor
A hospital is an eerie place to be at night. When the normal hours end, all unnecessary light is extinguished to conserve fuel. Most of the doctors, nurses, and secretaries that keep the place running during the day go home, leaving the buildings dark and empty. It is a curious emptiness, though, for a hospital is never completely silent at night. The moaning of a sufferer can be heard at all times. During the day, the commotion created by the busy staff covers the sounds, but at night they hang in the air like the disembodied moaning of spirits.
Not surprisingly, there is always an argument at the end of the month over who will take over the night shift for the proceeding four weeks. My fellow nurses call it the "graveyard shift" and avoid it like the plague. For some reason, though, this foreboding atmosphere has never bothered me. There is something oddly soothing about the solitude to be found in a hospital at night. It is an atmosphere more conducive to work and quiet reflection than any other I have found. I am not a terribly social person and often keep odd hours, so in many ways I find the graveyard shift ideal. My colleagues are more than happy to let me have it, and so I spend the vast majority of my nights on duty at the hospital, waiting for the occasional emergency.
This was a particularly slow night. I passed the time sorting through the hospital records, absentmindedly organizing the ones that were out of place. While I did so, I thought about an article I had read in the Times a few hours ago. A young man had been murdered during a robbery of a jeweler's store, and Scotland Yard was busy tracking down the culprit and avoiding the questions of the reporters. The article expressed a confidence that the investigation would be concluded shortly, but every word rang with false certainty, and I found myself wondering what had so perplexed London's finest.
The sound of a bell ringing cut through my meditations. I hurried towards the front desk where I found a boy vigorously pulling the chord that hung beside the door with such a force that I was certain he would pull it off if left to his own devices. "Can I help you, my lad," I asked soothingly.
"Please miss," he said so quickly it was more of a squeak than a plea, "there's a man outside and he's badly hurt."
"Did you happen to find him there?" I asked, more to calm him than out of any real curiosity.
"No miss, a man sent me here to tell you. He gave me a shilling." He showed me the coin proudly.
"And where is this man now?"
"He got into a cab and drove away." I digested this curious piece of information, while the boy stood nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Please, miss, the man needs help fast. He's been beat over the head something awful." He shivered and I wondered, with a sinking heart if a dead man waited for me on my doorstep. I followed the boy outside, preparing to be greeted with a dead body.
The man who lay on the hospital steps was not dead, but he was covered in so much blood that he soon would be if measures were not taken to stop the bleeding. I knelt down beside him and began a cursory examination, looking for broken bones that would make it impossible to move him. He had, indeed, been beaten roughly, and I could tell immediately that he had at least two broken ribs and a lump the size of my fist on the right side of his head.
I managed to move him carefully into a private room with the help of the boy and a stretcher. After giving the lad another coin to add to his collection, I sent him on his way and prepared to see to my patient.
Mercifully, the blow to his head had fallen just to the left of his temple, and therefore had not shattered the delicate bone there. He certainly had a concussion, but with any luck, it would cause no lasting effects. A washcloth and gauze did wonders for the appearance of his face. His features were sharp and angular, though swelling and a broken nose marred its beauty. I imagined when he was well he would be quite handsome.
He was a tall man, about six feet I guessed from the way his feet protruded slightly off the edge of the bed. He looked vaguely familiar. Where had I seen him before?
I turned to the bloody mess that had once been his shirt, trying gingerly to unbutton it. After a few fruitless attempts, however, I gave up and took a pair of scissors to it. Modesty is not a virtue in my profession, and frankly I have no use for it. Finally, I managed to completely remove the shirt, and gasped involuntarily. Now, the amount of blood on his clothing and the pavement outside made perfect sense. The skin on his torso had been slashed into four long diagonal cuts that crossed each other. The cuts created to x's that met at the top and bottom, forming a diamond in the centre. I shuddered at the gruesome inscription and allowed myself a moment to wonder what it meant while I continued to apply bandages, in a seemingly vain effort to stop the bleeding.
As I cleaned and treated the patient, a thought struck me. I had absolutely no idea who this man was. He had been dumped anonymously on the hospital steps in a very unorthadox—if not downright suspicious—way. He had been attacked with some intent, as evidenced by the strange mark left on his body. I searched his pockets for some indication as to who he was, but found nothing. His coat and pants were torn, faded, and generally in a horrible state of disrepair. He seemed to be a poor laborer, one of the thousands of unfortunates who clogged the pubs at this time of night, but something about him didn't seem to fit. I regarded his body for a moment, my hands continuing to do their work without the help of my brain.
Suddenly inspiration hit me. It seemed so obvious I wondered why I hadn't seen it immediately. He couldn't have been a laborer for his hands were covered, not only in blood, but in chemical stains. Stains I recognized well from my days as a student, but knew that no common laborer would have ever been able to acquire. What sort of blue collar worker played with highly combustible chemicals- chemicals that were, for that matter, only available to scientists and students?
To readers of "The Case of the Still Heart": Please forgive me, I have been struck by a deadly case of writer's block, so I'm putting it aside for a while. 14 page papers, existentialist plays in Spanish, and Rembrandt have conspired against me. So send me your good plot vibes (and some A+ vibes for the paper would be nice to!) and I'll try to get back on that sometime soon. (if you have any ideas, by all means send them my way)
To new readers: I LOVE reviews, criticism, comments, your thoughts, anything. Tell me what you think. Nit picks are just fine (I'll even try to fix them), flames as well, if you feel it necessary. Even a simple "I read this, just so you know" is greatly appreciated. I like to know who's out there. And of course, praise is more than welcome and will be rewarded with luck vibes and good karma.
