Dr. DuSan And The Case Of The Walled Up Rat

This Week’s Prompt:68. Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.

The Research:Hold Fast!

The moment I heard the car pulling up to my small country house, I knew that Dr. DuSan had arrived at last. It had been sometime since a case of any sort had come to the pair of us—a time of quite on the eternal front, I thought. Surely, this was the sun rising to reveal the latest offense on common decency. I opened the door just before he knocked, pack ready and supplies on hand, face flush with excitement that comes with calamity.

“Shall we be off?” I asked, smiling with my coat half on and my umbrella in hand. Dr. DuSan looked a tad startled behind his old glasses, but smiled almost reluctantly.

“Well, if you are in such a hurry, I suppose we can get the necessary hospitality from our guests…” Dr. DuSan said, stepping back as I made my way to the familiar black car.

“So, what have they found this time? A body with no finger prints? A stabbed man, in a locked room? Some ghastly butchery with a surgeon’s eye?” I asked, pen and pad ready to take note of any and all unusual behaviors or markings that had been discovered.

“They? What they? Oh, the police. No, Mr. Leeman, this is not an official consultation.” Dr. DuSan said as we wound down the roads of the countryside off to London, the oldest hive and grandest of diabolical hives. “We are going to make a house call for a dear associate of mine, of no intreast to any member of law enforcement.”

“A house call?” I asked, blinking at the page. I knew Dr. DuSan kept a private practice, knowledgable as he was on the many ills and maladies of the body and mind. Still, his clients were more often friends in the fields then those in town.

“A friend, one who I have not heard from in some time.” Dr. DuSan said, with a nod. “Mister Cornelius Gorgian is of course not the most frequent of my correspondents, but I hope this meeting to be quite informative.”

“Ah, and you came to my house because…?” I asked, resigned that there was no great marvel to be had on this excursion.

“My dear Leeman, I took you as the curious and learned sort. Mr. Gorgian is quite the curiosity, the sort that is invaluable to the able and intelligent mind. You will find his company most enlightening I hope.” Dr. DuSan said.

Our conversation the rest of the drive avoided the topic of this ambiguous Mr. Gorgian. Instead, as we came into the city of London proper, politics and its many slanders and scandals occupied the discussion with a brief diverison into some strange notions regarding Puck in Midsummer’s Night Dream. In the end, we arrived at the relatively small house—for one Dr. DuSan’s friends anyway. Clattering the iron gate open, the good doctor hooked the brass knocker on his cane and rapped three times.

A young man came to the door, his office uniform partially unbuttoned and his tie loose. He smiled nervously, and extended a hand.

“Hello, um, can I help? Morgan Mandrake at your service.”

“Ah! Yes, yes, Mr. Mandrake. Mr. Gorgian spoke of you.” Dr DuSan said, returning the hand shake. “Quite the careful student, I hear. Or at least enough that the good sir sees you daily and nightly. Is he around?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Gorgian is out for the day on business.” Morgan said, moving to close the door. “I can take a message–”

“No, no, I believe I will wait for our meeting. It was quite important. Does he still have that green tea, in the blue tin?” Dr. DuSan said, putting his foot in the doorframe and moving past Morgan with a second step into the house.

“Um, well, he has some yes, but like I said—” Morgan said raising his hand in objection.

“Wondrous! A cup for me and for Leeman here.” Dr. DuSan said, looking around a bit. Confused, Morgan went to the kitchen, and Dr. DuSan gestured for me to take a seat. A wry look came over his face for a moment.

“Ah, to the left—left—there you are sir.” Dr. DuSan said, hearing the shuffling of various items in the pantry.

“I beg you pardon?” Morgan said, after starting the kettle.

“Hm? Oh, it is a gift of mine—most useful, truly. It was the topic of our meeting today. You see, to me, the walls of a house are like rolling water—translucent and almost transparent. With a bit of focus, I can make out anything within or behind them.” Dr. DuSan said, smiling, before walking over to the north wall and tapping it’s top. “Here, for instance, you will find a poor rodent that was trapped and has died of starvation among the pipes.”

“Truly?” Morgan said, tilting around the corner to get a better look at the sot to which Dr. DuSan pointed.

“Get yourself a hammer, and you’ll find him back there. Or rather, forget the hammer. Come, Leeman, get a stool and take my cane. A good sharp blow should find us the poor soul.” Dr. DuSan said, gesturing over. I picked up a stool, confused as I took the cane in hand. It was weighty on the top—in more than one case, it’s shillelagh like construction had saved our skin. Standing atop an ottoman, I struck the wall hard and fast, the wood cracked and splitenerd.

“Astounding…” I muttered as I removed the small dead rodent from the wall with the cane. “Truly astounding.”

“Yes, testing the limits of my capacity was to be our subject today. And still will be, I hope, for he cannot be too far off.” Dr. DuSan said, taking his tea without sitting down. I stared down for a moment before hoping to the floor. It was a most peculair talent—I had no idea as of yet how Dr. DuSan had known the rat’s presence, or why he persisted with the ruse, but for now I played along.

“Hm, well, that is a fascinating quirk. But as I said, Mr. Gorgian is out for the day, perhaps longer, and I can take his–” Morgan said, grimacing at the sight of the dead rat.

“Nonsense, we’ll take our time. Don’t worry, my good friend, we won’t bash down anymore walls.” Dr. DuSan said nodding, along. “Just finishing our tea, and see if he returns.”

“My good sir, please, I have studies to read and I cannot attend to both them and you today. If you wish, I will inform Mr. Gorgian of your visit.” Morgan said, more insistently this time.

“Well, I know when hospitality has been retracted. Me and Mr. Leeman will finish our tea and take our leave…But please, I left some belongings here last time I visited. Allow me to collect them, and we shall be on our way.” Dr. DuSan said, gesturing up the stairs. Morgan took a sharp breath and a sigh, before gesturing in the affirmative, albiet with an implication of impatience.

Dr. DuSan gesutred me up the stairs, tapping the walls occasionally with his cane, whistling as he went. We collected a bag and some books he had left behind, Morgan watching us irritably. Every now and then. Dr. DuSan glanced over his shoulder to meet our former host’s gaze while walking about, in no hurry to accede to his demands that we leave the premise.

After about an hour of touring the upper floor, in search of his remaining bags, Dr. DuSan at last left. We packed into the car, tipped our hats to Mr. Mandrake, and thanked him for the tea. As we drove down the city streets, a single question eventually came over me.

“The point of all that, Leeman, was to confirm a suspicions. Now, with some accuracy, I can inform the authorities of Mr. Gorgian’s murder.” Dr. DuSan said.

“Murder? What on earth has you say that?”

“Listen, Leeman—Mr. Mandrake assured me that Cornelius Gorgian had left town for sometime. A fact I do not doubt. However, he did not contend with my claim that we had arranged a meeting—no doubt by then he was more focused on vacating our eyes from the premises. Further, he was greatly concerned at our topic matter—the discovery of a dead rat. Tell me, Leeman, who knows the inside of a house better than a rat?”

“Well, no one I suppose.” I said, thinking for a moment.

“Very likely no one. For a rat to die the way it did, it was not happenstance. No, rather, the walls had been altered lately, such that it’s preferred pathway was blocked. I had my suspicions when I noticed the wall thinner at it’s point of entrapment—there were small marks along the ceiling, as if some creature were struggling to get out.”

“Of course…”

“Now, then, determining were Cornelius’s body was, that required a bit more work. My first clue was his calmness in greeting us. He was convinced we would not locate it—so I reasoned the body was well hidden already. Now, in London, a burial at night would be difficult to hide and there is little room for such things. So, I tested a theory. The location of Cornelius’s teas are well known to me, as are the difficulties of his kitchen. Thus, I set the first test of my memory.

“When he returned, I saw the nerves of Mr. Mandrake—he grew more insistent after a display of my ‘abilities’. So I made sure to check his expression at every turn. The face, and the eyes, my good Leeman, are in fact windows into the soul. And so, our Mr. Mandrake gave away his guilt. For I saw, as I approached the hallway wall, his eyes dilated like a doe caught by the huntsman. Now, I did deduce more of the case from the blows of my shillelagh. The wall resounded slightly off in a number of places. I concluded that the mangled body of Mr. Gorgian was in fact scattered through the walls—as the authorities will discover no doubt.”

“Ah, so that was why you kept—”

“Yes Leeman. A bit of psychology, biology, and wit can uncover even such a cunning mind.”

It did not occur to me, not until Dr. DuSan was explaining himself over the phone, that one questioned remained unanswered. How had he known to make the house call at all? Certainly, I reasoned, he might have noticed a lack of correspondence. But if this Cornelius Gorgian was gone long, so would have others. A creeping unease came over me, as Dr. DuSan returned, having left his anonymous tip with the constable.

---

 

This story I think veers more into something of a mystery more than a true horror story. There is something unsettling about it I hope, but it is more in the delivery then anything else. All in all, I enjoyed writing it, and think the ending question could be expanded in later works.

Next week, we join mad revelers and don terrible masks as we see to startle and reveal!

 

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Hold Fast!

This Week’s Prompt: 68. Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.
The Resulting Story:Dr. SuSan and…

The prompt this week brings us to something of a genre these days: the detective with supernatural or near supernatural capabilities. Pysch, The Mentalist, Monk, the BBC’s Sherlock, and so on. All these shows feature uncanny detectives who pretend to have psychic or unnatural powers, or in the case of Monk, Columbo, and Sherlock they use less conventional modes of thinking to achieve similar ends. The detective in reality possesses only human faculties, but these faculties are exaggerated to the point of unfailing power.

From a literary perspective, this prompt reminds me of one particular story by Edgar Allen Poe: The Tell Tale Heart. Poe’s influence on Lovecraft as a horror author is indeed vast and in need of reconciliation. Here the fear of the murderer is the greater force. The noise of the imagined heart still beating in the floor boards drives the murderer to madness and compels him to confess his misdeeds to the officers of the law. This story likewise plays on the fear of discovery—of more than the murder, of course, since the body is located early on. The detective must suggest that he has seen more by making the walls transparent then merely the body.

From the perspective of folklore and other traditions, the detective has an intreasting lineage. A common capabillity of sorcery and magic is the location of the unseen or the lost. The abillity to find and retrieve missing objects or to ascertain unseen causes can be found in various places around the world, often as the cause of illness or despair. For instance, among the !Kung, shamans locate unseen arrow heads that cause illness among the living. Shamans of the Netsilik deal with invisible casues of illness as well, from extra souls sapping life force to the strange tupilaqs.

More elaborate attempts are also recorded. The Key of Solomon supplies one spell, which deploys the rope of a hanging and sieve to locate a thief that has made off with an object. The Lesser Key gives three demons who can find those things lost or hidden (Foras, Kimaris, and Vassago, pictured below). The Book Pow-Wows or Long Lost Friends is a grimoire of more recent origin in the United States which supplies ways to imoblize thieves and compel them to return stolen goods, as well as locating hidden treasures beneath the earth such as water and iron.

The detective interacts in a similar way here—despite the fact that his magic is a farce, he is playing off the world of the unseen. While fear has physical symptoms, feelings and experiences, they are rarely considered the root of the emotion. Like a shaman or magician, the detective plays off the hidden world to reveal things about this one. Psychology’s connection isn’t that far fetched—the term quite literally refers to the science of the soul after all—and so might be an intentional allusion here. Especially in the era Mr. Lovecraft was writing in, psychology’s exact meaning and fate were contested.

For instance, the spiritualist movement we discussed before was a significant part of psychology for a period of time. The science of the soul for a time included things that now are frankly the occult—the sort of beliefs that are more akin to New Age than clinical psychology. We can include here the works of Sigmund Freud and his camp, who’s school of psychoanalysis may not be as credited now as it once was, as well as works such as Mesmerism which sought to use powers of the mind to affect the body—for instance to work healings. Mesmerism and other hypnotists engaged in occult experiments as well, in some cases attempted to glean information on other worlds or past lives from the hypnosis. These ideas often hinged on vitalist theories of life—that there was a cosmic and measurable life energy that permeates the cosmos. This energy is often associated with heat, electricity, and other phenom on. Other examples of vitalism include Odic forces, which produce bio-eletric fields and is referenced in dowsing(and were delightfully used in an Atomic Robo story here); elan vital, which contains the bedrock for consciousness and gives rise to evolutionary changes; and Orgone, which is past Lovecraft’s time, but which supposed that everything from illness to weather could be effected by these internal forces of the body.

Wilhem Reich’s Cloudbuster, a device based on Orgone to manipulate the weather.

Other works that blended the understanding of the body and the soul, to unfortunate results, was phrenology and race “science”. The discredited field tried to explain the nature of the soul by examining physiological differences in skull size. Given Mr. Lovecraft’s proclivities and racism, we can throw it on the heap of more bizarre uses of psychology.

I pursued this line of reasoning further, as the field of pseudo-science and strangeness is interesting to me. According to Wikipedia—a good resource for my cursory research—there are a number of pseudoscientific theories I was unaware of: graphology, the analysis of handwriting to determine the psyche of an individual; primal therapy, the idea the individuals are most effected by prenatal experiences; and the law of attraction, that by thinking on a thing we draw it closer. These various pseudosciences and discredited theories do place the idea of a psychological detective as essentially supernatural or magical detective as plausible or believable.

So, with all this in mind, how should our story proceed. The prompt has the detective deduce the murder, but drive the criminal to confession by pretending to be magical. We thus begin the first act with the discovery of the body. We would then go on to examining the house searching for evidence. Three instances, I think, of ‘finding’ hidden evidence and then the confrontation. Now, I think this particular drama could end one of two ways. Either it ends with the murderer and the police being lead to where the detective found the body, and thus the murderer confessing. Or, the murderer is driven by fear to lash out against the authorities and attempt to flee or kill them. Either ending could work, and I’m not sure which is better in this case.

I recently concluded that our psychologist might not be the best character to take as a point of view–rather, a more interesting character would be an associate of his. A Watson, a character who like the audience is unsure of what is coming and going, but nonetheless curious. As written, it seems our detective knows the murderer, and that seems far less entertaining of a story then one where the audience and one of the characters is partially in the dark as to the proceedings.

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Drowning Deep

Trigger Warning: Suicide

The Relevant Research:The River Runs Deep

This Week’s Prompt: 38. Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

Silver light settled around the bodies beneath the bridge, a ghostly corona around a corpse homage to the moon above. There was a total of ten identifiable bodies resting there, waiting. Gazing upward at me, pupils rolled back to reveal pallid with dots among the bloated flesh. All drowned.

“Could be a serial killer?” Dorothy next to me said as the various smarts started trying to figure out how to haul up this mass with damaging much.

“Could. Be the weirdest yet. I mean, I guess he could just drown them, but seems like people would have heard something.” I said, squatting down to look. “Can’t be group body disposal, though. The one at the bottom’s rotted quite a bit. What’s the underwater version of a maggot?”

“Fish?”

“Funny. Anyway, if they were all dumped at once, they wouldn’t have rotted so weirdly.”

“Different drops then.” Dorothy said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but I’m not seeing any wounds. Look, no cuts, no lacerations on the top one. No blood at all.” I said, frowning and looking to either side of the bridge. “Plus, you’d think someone would have noticed, right? Like on a morning jog? River’s been clean most of the month.”

“Clean, but how many people look down into the rivers these days. Maybe he dead weighted them?” Dorothy said, shining her flash light towards the feet. Nope. Completely bare of rope.

“Suicides?” I ask, thinking for a moment.

“All in the same spot?”

“I mean, it would explain the lack of bonds or wounds. But your right…wouldn’t they see the bodies? And if they did, why would they…I mean, seems like a weirdly private mass suicide.”

“They’re not all cults, Jim.”

“Most, most are cults.”

“Could have been a pact?” Dorothy said, frowning sat the water. I shook my head.

“Pacts are smaller, usually. Plus, now that I think of it, if this was organized—a”

“The rot would all be the same.” Dorothy finished.

“Guess we’ll have to see what the guys find.” I said standing up. My knees audibly cracked. I slipped the flashlight into my jacket, and tipped my hat to the boys trying to figure out how to lift the bodies out without them disintegrating.

Suicide wasn’t exactly new to Windgift. There was a joke around the department, ever since the factories and railroads made the city big, that one in every two murders was really a suicide by criminal. But it had exploded lately, near the waterfront. This was the first pile but the concentration was the only thing that separated it from miles of river shore.

I wandered down the raised and fenced coast line. There was an occasional shimmering fish swimming up its waters. I wondered if they knew when people died here, if they started up and up to feed on the remains. If they were gathering for a feast. Wonder what kind of fish ate only the fingers and toes.

The bodies were ruled a suicide, with a probably corpse desecration by a surviving member or by the scum who’d set them up for it. Lawyers were watching their wills, vultures watching a limping cow to find it’s hunter. There was no revolutionary firebrand to collect, though. And if the wealth made its way to some singular cult leader, it did so through a venerable hydra of untraceable transfers and shells of human beings. It was an epidemic, a plague.

I looked at the pristine, perfect pale river. A disease that, by all efforts of our fine municipality, had no healers at the moment. Not enough. So they had, failing to cure the disease, put someone to stand out as to prevent the systems.

I sat at my chair atop the iron tower, watching the iron fences around the bridge from behind metal bars. The first guy ‘fell out the window’, so they built a railing. The second hung from the railing, so they added spikes. Next bit the wounds and leapt out. So they finally put in bars. And, premptively, they removed the rafters and anything that might serve such a purpose from the room.

I even got a nice new uniform that was a too elastic to hang anything from, and entirely lacking a belt. I hadn’t exactly been happy to receive the job. Even without the collapse rate, preventing self destruction wasn’t what I had signed up for. I mean, yeah, you always had to watch the occasional drunk. But this wasn’t the robber and gangster filled apocalypse I wanted to be the watchman against.

I had already shouted scripted warnings out onto the bridge three times that night. Once I had to use my tranquilizer for a fool who had nearly scaled the fence. It wasn’t lethal within four shots, and it made a loud cling on the third to signal for back up in case the shot had been self aimed. Hard, given the length, but there was no need to risk it.

As night began to rise and the clouds lost the little light that escaped them. It was another dark night, with stolen stars lining the streets and glittering in the river, giving it an outline of dull gold. Occasionally a thin veneer of oily waste rolled down its way, distorting the shape like a large serpent slithering just beneath the waters.

It was beneath one of these persistent blights on the face of the river that I first saw it, between those bars. A languid form, a second ripple working its way out of the oil drifting on the surface. It was a spiny thing, with a longing, flicking extension like a tail. I didn’t see it properly yet. It caught my eye as a strange disturbance and nothing more.

Following it there was a clatter of steps on the bridge. Bolting up, I saw someone leaning against the iron nailed planks. Her ear was pressed up against it, listening intently. I leaned over in my chair, impulsively reaching for my rifle and my megaphone.

She was staring straight ahead with this blank stare, focused. She took a step back, staring now at the barricade, almost stroking it.

“Get away from the barricade ma’am.” I shouted through the megaphone. I don’t know if she heard me, entranced by something invisible. She stepped back, and took off her shoes. Then her socks, then her gloves.
“Ma’am, step away from the fence!” I shouted a second time. No signs of her making a move but bizarre behavior on the bridge could not be tolerated. She started rapping a rhythm on the rough wood. I frowned, listening for a tune.

And I heard it. I heard it first in the rapping, but then in something else. A sound that wasn’t there before. A soothing melodic sounds, a melancholic sound coming from the river. Gripping my rifle, I turned out the window. And there I saw it, coated in oil. The head of a great dog, a scaly hide behind it. It swayed as it almost howled out a siren song above, calling to the woman. Calling to me, to join it in the river and be free.

I thank god the bars caught me before I did anything, that the railing spikes stabbed my leg shaking me out of it. I carefully lowered my long rifle down between the bars. Looking down the scope I fired a dart at the beast. It yelped but carried on.

I fired again, this time down the throat. It banged on a tooth and lead to a grimacing, ducking thing that still skulked near the surface, howling at me. The woman at the bridge was banging on the wooden barricade.

I fired the third time, the loud ding of the rifle matching the dart’s sinking into it’s right ear. It howled at me, and sunk beneath the waves. It was utterly gone when I looked for it. My darts floated on the empty water, and the woman, shaken by a fellow law officer, moved along.

I scribbled a note on the paper before leaving.
“Shoot singing river dogs on sight.”

I doubt anyone will take it seriously, but it now joins the one about beautiful lake women and swans. I fear, honestly, that our river has become sort of gathering place for things like that dog. Next time, I think, I’ll aim for the bloody eye.

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The River Runs Deep

This Week’s Prompt: 38. Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

The Resulting Story:Drowning Deep

To drown is to die a bad death. This prompt invites us to consider many aspects, many things that one might see down among the inky black of the sea. The image of an underwater city brings to mind fantastic locales of Atlantean ruins, but more directly brings to my mind (perhaps do to the morbidity of the rest of the subject matter) to an old Poe poem, presented here in abbreviated form(Because Poetry is Amazing).

City In The Sea
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne 
In a strange city lying alone 
Far down within the dim West, 
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best 
Have gone to their eternal rest. 
There shrines and palaces and towers 
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) 
Resemble nothing that is ours. 
Around, by lifting winds forgot, 
Resignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters he. 

The poem ties the deep, undersea city with elements of hideous horror, of time, and of Satan. All topics we’ve discussed before and one’s that provide plenty of room for horror. But we’ve done them before. We also covered the notions of some nautical myths in our talk on Rhode Island, although a few more regarding ships and the souls of the dead need mentioning.

There is of course the famous Flying Dutchman, made famous in the most contrasting roles I’ve seen: Davey Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean and Spongebob Squarepants. The Flying Dutchman is a continuation of sorts on the themes of the Wild Hunt Infernal: The Crew is condemned forever to plow the waves and skies. Davey himself seems to have a sordid past, either a devil himself or Jonah damning sailors yet. The souls of unfortunate sailors descend to his place, and in this way he holds all three of the elements as one.

Chilean Folklore presents another ship, however, manned by more then the dead. The Caleuche is a phantom ship at sea that contains not only the dead, but also gives instruction and transport to warlocks. To access the ship, a warlock must summon a Caballo marino chilote, a golden horse with a fishes tail. The King of The Sea would then permit transport to the ghostly vessel.

Of course, not all such water horses were kindly. The Scottish waterhorse would rather ride into thnae lakes and drown it’s rider than provide mystic aid. A plethora of drowning entities follow this route. The Siren sings to drown, as we’ve said before. Slavic Vodyanov and Rusalka drown those near their rivers as well.

My favorite drowner, as of late, is the Ahuitzotl. The river dog, as it is sometimes known, will lurk in the river and then drag you below with the hand behind its tail. After drowning, the little beast will eat the finger nails, eyes, and teeth. And oddly specific sort of animal.

These drownings provide a better plot, I believe, then the undersea city itself. There is something awful and personal about drowning: It is a death that kills and isolates inequal measure and rapidly. It is also often, to my mind, associated with suicides. It is hard to kill a man by drowning intentionally, as opposed to by poison or by a simple knife. It is a death that often involves much struggle or none at all, betokens either great force or a void of anything.

I think the story will take the form of a mystery then. A series of drowning, along a canal. The same spot. But is it, our inquisitive detective will wonder, the work of a murderer? Is the place now a nexus of despair, a self perpetuating site like some bridges become? I don’t want to say too much, as I have little to say. Come by next week to behold the horror that lurks beneath the surface.

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