I remain within the purgatorial throes of editing a Really Large Goddamned Book. The Dead Takes the A Train is, hands-down, the largest thing I’ve written, and even if it was half-written by the darling Richard Kadrey, it is still a big chonk of text and it has eaten my life.
In lieu of reviews today, please take the first scene from the Hound of Baskerville remix I’m stress-writing in between edits.
“Well, Watson,” I wagged our new acquisition in the direction of my old friend’s favourite chair. “What do you make of it?”
When Watson said nothing, I spoke his responses for him.
“Dr. Mortimer’s stick,” I said, assuming Watson’s diction. “Suggests that the man is a successful, elderly medical practitioner. Well-esteemed since no one of poor repute would be given such a fine souvenir.”
The stick was indeed impressive: expertly crafted, made of a thick dark wood, with a band of gleaming silver gorgeting the head. The words ‘To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H,” were engraved on the metal, along with the date ‘1884.’ All in all, the stick was much like its owner: dignified, solid, reassuring.
“I imagine he’s a country practitioner too,” I continued for Watson, adopting his accent. His was crisper than my own, his enunciation more careful. “The thick-iron ferrule at the base of the stick is deeply worn, suggesting frequent use, and I can’t imagine a town practitioner being so in need of something like this.”
I bobbed my head.
“Lastly,” I said with a spirited flutter of my free hand. “There is the matter of this 'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return."
I planted the stick back down, and was pleased by its weight and the thump it made as it impacted the hardwood.
“Really, Watson, you excel yourself," I said, pushing back from my chair.. "I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. “
“A psychopomp, if you will, guiding the truth to its natural conclusion.”
I laughed at my little joke. Though Watson never professed to being such, I suspected he was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. Men came home from war with religion in their pockets, or nothing at all. Faith corroded quickly when exposed to unanswered prayers. Out of the corner of an eye, I thought I saw Watson shake his head. He had become taciturn in his old age.
“Regardless, I’m afraid most of your conclusions were erroneous.”
Watson groaned or perhaps, it was the floorboards settling.
“I said most. Not all of them,” I noted. “The man is certainly a country practitioner. Someone who walks a great deal. But it’s more likely that a presentation to a doctor would come from a hospital than from a hunt. If we follow this line of thinking, it becomes rather obvious that initials 'C.C.' would stand for ‘Charing Cross,’ don’t you think?”
When Watson said nothing still, I supplied for him: "You may be right."
“And to continue: on what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Are you still following me?”
Watson seemed to nod. He’d come to resemble again the young officer I met all those years ago: thin as a lathe, angles and whetted edges, softened only by a drooping grey moustache. Gone was the muscle and the imposing stature he’d accumulated in mid-life. The slenderness flattered him, however. With the dimensions of his face, it gave Watson a monastic gravitas becoming of his profession.
I warmed to the denouement. Thatching my fingers, I leaned forward, certain that Watson was as eager to hear my conclusion as I was to announce it.
"Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician—little more than a senior student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff."
I did not wait for any rejoinders. Instead, I rose, pacing to one of the overstuffed bookshelves bracketing the narrow living room. Even for my vocation, my collection of publications was a little hedonistic. I spared no expense when it came to my hoard, purchasing literature whenever such an option availed itself to me. Genealogical records, medical compendiums, reference texts. Whatever I could take, I took.
Humming a jaunty tune to myself, I raced a finger down the spines of my books, moving between rows until at last I found what I was seeking:
“There,” I said, retrieving a small volume from its cubby hole. I flipped through the pages before I added: “Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon. House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology, with an essay entitled 'Is Disease a Reversion?' Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society. Author of 'Some Freaks of Atavism' (Lancet 1882). 'Do We Progress?' (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883). Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.”
I winked at my friend. “See? No mention of hunting or anything of such ilk. I imagine he must have treated a few hunters, however. In the dark of the woods or the wolf-light of the moors, it cannot be easy to distinguish between man and stag. You rely instead on a memory of form, your eye trained for a flash of muscle. Then it happens. A flicker. You see your moment and–”
I pantomimed lofting a rifle in the air.
“-- blam.”
To my exasperation, my antics yielded no applause.
“You’re impossible to amuse these days, Watson.” I sighed. “But that’s a problem for another day, for I see that Dr. Mortimer has come to our door.”
As always, a cat photo:
Heh. That's good stuff, Cassandra. :)
LOL dead Watson is cracking me up!