The Intuition: Part 5, Dr. Falke
A Horror Story
Will beheld Dr. Henrik Falke through the barred door of Falke’s cell in the Adler Psychiatric Hospital. The cell, though small, looked comfortable enough with a clean bed and a small table of books under the equally barred window. A green velvet wing chair completed the furnishings. There was no mirror, no washstand with razor, no oil lamp. The silken cord of the bell pull that Will had observed in the other three apartments on this floor was absent as well. Falke lay in his shirtsleeves atop the bedclothes, his back to the door.
“He’s been here for forty-eight hours,” Dr. Adler whispered. “I am confident he shall soon regain his reason sufficiently to allow him other amenities.”
“Is he suicidal?”
“No, my lord, only rather confused. He has neglected his health, and coupled with the strain of his unwholesome studies, it has caused him to lash out in violence at those who would help him.”
“If he’s violent, I am surprised you’ve housed him here rather than the cellars.” Will shrugged away a shiver. Adler’s cellars smelled worse than the London Zoo, and the cries and howls of the inmates affected the marrow with a commensurate chill.
Adler shook his head. “Henrik has been a colleague of mine. He suffers from delusions brought on by fatigue and poor diet. He is wayward and stubborn, but I will make certain he does not become like those poor creatures downstairs.”
The figure on the bed stirred. “I can hear you, Gottfried.”
Adler smiled at Falke’s back. He turned and gestured a third man forward to the bars. “Henrik, your brother has come. Do you hear? He and Lord Dovedale have come to visit with you.”
“My brother?”
The third man gripped the bars of the door and pressed his narrow face to them. “It’s me. Thomas. I know it’s been a long time, but I’m here now,” he said. His speech, quick and low, held the charm of the London streets. As an afterthought, he added, “Henrik.”
Falke rolled onto his back and stared at the visitors. The man called Dovedale, handsome and self-important, looked the soul of an English peer right down to his impeccable tailoring and regimental posture. Thomas, slender as a whippet, made soulful eyes at Falke and moved his lips in a silent plea.
Falke rubbed a hand over his face and swung his feet to the floor. His hair stood up in a dark fan on the back of his head and hung forward over his left eye. The eye exhibited the plum ring of a prizefighter, and other cuts and bruises were apparent. A splash of blood marred his white shirtfront.
“He was difficult to subdue,” Adler murmured in reply to Will’s cocked brow. “He broke my assistant’s jaw.”
“Might we step inside to speak with him?”
Adler cast a warning glare on Falke and drew forth a key from his waistcoat. “I do hope you can behave as a gentleman, Henrik,” he said, and turned the key in the lock.
Falke did not move as the door swung open. The visitors crowded in, and Will turned to Adler with a bland, dismissive face, his shoulder blocking the cell door. “Thank you, Dr. Adler. We shall be quite safe for a brief visit.”
Adler’s mouth worked, but he found no words of objection in the face of the other’s cool stare. Instead, he made a curt bow, swung on his heel, and stalked away into the dim recesses of the house. Will sank into the wing chair with a sigh and smiled at Falke, who glowered back.
“Who are you, and what game do you play?” Falke asked, his sleep-hoarse voice tight with anger. “I have no brother.”
Will held up a cautioning finger and gestured to Tom. The skinny little man stepped to the door and hung his head out of it, cocking it like a robin listening for a worm. When he pulled it back, his face wore a satisfied smirk.
“He’s toddled off. Safe as churches, it is.” He resumed a slouching position against the wall, his gaze fixed on Falke. “He don’t look up to dick, Billy.”
“Shut it,” Will said in a conversational tone stripped of its earlier gloss. To Falke, he said, “My name’s Will Dovedale. This is my, er, associate Tom Cooper. We’ve a proposition that may save your skin, if you’d care to hear it.”
“I was not aware my skin needed saving.”
Tom snorted. “You’re in here, ain’t you, guv? That old crow what’s got you nibbed ain’t like to let loose of you, neither.” His gaze cut to Will. “We seen what he’s got in mind.”
Falke ran a hand through his hair, rearranging the spikes. “What is he saying?”
“This morning, we had a little tour of Dr. Adler’s hospital. He invited us to observe a surgery, one that will hold great interest for you. His patient was strapped upright in a chair, his head shaved and held immobile by means of a clamp. I assume he had been drugged, for he made no struggle, but he was very much awake. His eyes followed us as we found our seats. Adler took up a trephine from a tray and proceeded to drill two holes in the poor sod’s skull. With a knife, he reached through each hole and carved out a rasher of the man’s brain, neat as a butcher. Bloody cool about it, he was. I’d never seen the like, and don’t care to see such a horror again.” Will paused and reached for the flagon of water on the table.
“Don’t.” Falke raised a warning hand. “It is laced with sedative. I have been forced to drink of it, but I have avoided it since the early hours of the morning. My head is clearing.” He pulled his feet up onto the bed frame and hugged his knees, resting his forehead on them. “Gottfried is a doctor of diseases of the mind. I have followed his research with admiration, and I know him to be daring, even unconventional, in treatment. Such a surgery, though …” Falke’s blue eyes flashed out at Will with abrupt intensity. “I do not think I believe you. Dr. Adler would not invite the scorn of his peers with such a practice. It would be outlawed.”
“As your work is outlawed, Dr. Falke?”
“What do you know of my work?” Falke uncoiled from his crouch at the edge of the bed, surprising Will with his swiftness. The doctor, pale and beaten, yet possessed the lithe menace of an incensed serpent.
“Calm yourself. Your work is the reason we are here. The gossips in that sewer of a neighborhood you call home have wagged their tongues until the story of the wicked Dr. Falke has flown all the way to the Ringstrasse. You are as infamous as Faust. If Adler had not nabbed you, the gendarmerie undoubtedly would have knocked at your door.”
The doctor slumped on the bed, his head hanging. He lifted his eyes to where Tom leaned against the wall.
“What is he supposed to be? He looks like he’s crawled from a chimney.”
Tom straightened and tugged at his lapels. His hair, a stark and unctuous black, lay flat against his skull, immobile and grooved by the teeth of the comb. A faint shadow darkened his cheeks and upper lip, convincing enough as stubble to casual observation.
“I think I looks like enough to be your brother.” He touched his blacked hair with his fingertips and turned an affronted gaze toward Will. “Don’t you think so, Billy?”
Will stood. “I think the ruse was enough to gain us entrance, along with my title and the element of surprise. Adler is no fool; when he returns, he will have muscle with him. We should be gone, Dr. Falke. We can offer you escape from this place, and from Vienna.”
Falke hesitated, his expression bemused and yearning. “I have no reason to trust you.”
“We take train tonight. We travel with a young woman called Elke. I believe you are acquainted with her?”
Falke stood as though the name had drawn him upright and lifted his coat from the foot of the bed. As he shrugged into it, Tom flitted into the corridor. A low whistle spurred Will to settle his hat upon his head and gesture toward the open door.
“After you, Doctor.”
In the corridor, Tom came loping from the shadows at the top of the central staircase.
“Best hotfoot it, mates. I can hear the old toast downstairs, heading this way and dragging a coupla bludgers with him. They’ll be on us quick as the clappers.”
Tom scampered past them toward the opposite end of the corridor and flung open a door there. Falke turned an incredulous face to Will.
“He is incomprehensible.”
Will took the doctor by the arm and hustled him along the hallway. As they reached the opened door, Tom pointed into the gloom of a narrow stairwell.
“Goes to the kitchen, this. Down you pop, Dr. Falke.”
Will and Tom followed, Tom pulling the door shut behind them and increasing the thick darkness in the stairwell. The men moved with quiet speed, turning at a wide landing and descending again into the bowels of the house. The homey smell of baking bread, and the savory bouquet of a well-seasoned beef goulash rose to meet them. Will’s stomach gurgled.
They emerged into the heat and bustle of a large kitchen preparing for the mid-day meal. Kitchen maids darted from station to station, carrying out the terse commands of the chefs. Steam billowed from ovens and rose in sinuous ribbons from simmering pots. All about them was red-faced industry; whatever talent for scrutiny the kitchen staff possessed was focused on the dishes under construction.
“Walk like the place is yours,” Will murmured, and strode out into the fray with purpose.
Falke and Tom followed, nodding now and again as though in approbation of the culinary skill on display, and making for the great doors at the kitchen’s far end. Will paused to snatch a slice of dried pear from the tray of a flushed pastry maid and stare into cowed silence a cook with a hostile face. Tom opened one of the doors and the others followed him as he slipped into the paved delivery area.
“That way.” Will pointed down the narrow alley toward the busy street. “We’ll catch a ride and collect our baggage.” He took the watch from his pocket and glanced at its face. “Dr. Falke, we shall accompany you to your rooms and, provided the coppers aren’t loitering about, you can pack a bag. Only one, I’m afraid. We travel light, and already we are two persons greater than when we began.” He turned toward Tom. “Will you …”
Tom had already nipped out to the street and hailed a passing carriage. He grinned at Will and Falke as they hurried toward him.
“Climb aboard, gents, and let’s duck. The elderly party back there probably don’t even miss us yet.”
Dr. Falke gazed about his rooms in helpless despair. “They’ve taken or ruined everything. Years of work.” He pushed the shattered remains of an alembic across the stone floor with his foot. “How shall I continue?”
Will turned from the heavily curtained window where he had been watching the street. Tom stood smoking and talking with the carriage driver, ready to give a signal should he spot the police. The drape had not yet fallen across the grimy glass before Will had a bundle of Falke’s lapel clutched in his left hand. His right had curled into a fist at his side.
“There is much to do, and time grows short, Doctor,” he said in a quiet growl. “Gather what you need and let’s be gone. Do not force me to impress upon you the importance of haste.”
Falke’s eyes blazed like blue flame. He pushed Will’s hand from him and drew himself up into a collegiate boxer’s stance. Will’s lips quirked upward, and he shook his head in slow admonition.
“Where is the genius of which I’ve heard so much? I’d take you apart like a child’s jigsaw puzzle, Doctor. Come now.” He looked around at the wreckage of Falke’s rooms and moved to pluck a canvas valise from atop a heap of apparel. “Here is clothing. What must you have? Be quick about it.”
Falke snatched the proffered valise and began stuffing things into it. “It would help to know where we are going,” he grumbled.
Will had returned to the window, watching Tom and the carriage through a slim opening in the drape. “It will be cold and mountainous,” he said.
Falke dumped what he’d gathered and began again with the new information to guide him. When he pulled tight the straps of the valise, Will closed the drape and made for the door.
“Wait. There is one more thing.” Falke crossed to the cold, black mouth of the fireplace and contorted himself into it, reaching upward with one arm. When he withdrew it, he held a small leather case.
Will stood with one hand on the door latch, wearing an expression of impatient bafflement. “A strange place to keep your dressing case, Falke.”
The doctor brushed soot from his sleeve. “I never use the fireplace. This house is a tinder box. And this … it is what is left of my work, should I find the opportunity to begin anew.”
“You forget our fourth companion. I believe she, too, is what is left of your work.”
Falke’s gaze dropped. “I do not forget. She is a hellish miracle.”
“Indeed. Shall we go and collect her?” Will pulled the door open and strode out into the fluttering snow, leaving Falke to follow like a dog at his heels.
Fantastic Liz. The Intuition had me hooked from the start and each new Part sinks that hook in even more. So good. - Jim
Quite a crew he’s gathering!