The Empty Grave of Edgar Allan Poe

THE LIBRARY OF THADDEUS TRIPP

1. Doctor Death and the Collector of Fenton

          It was a foul night, slatting it down in sheets, a bitter wind moulding handfuls of rain and hurling them into the faces of the few pedestrians still abroad. As they scurried past, bent double to dodge the full force of nature, I caught the fleeting thoughts of warmth and comfort and home, and I must admit I wondered why I had abandoned the same for another evening in the company of Thaddeus Tripp. Only for a second though, for I admit to having the habit and as the new regime has kicked in at my own house, I must seek others to provide my fix.
          I slammed the front door shut, for the lock never catches without a degree of force, and followed the huge bulk of Thaddeus into the library. He seemed unusually excited, for he barely gave me chance to drape my wet coat over a chair and seek out the roaring heat of the fire, before throwing a tabloid at my feet and saying, "Have you been following this?"
          It was the Shipman case. The doctor convicted of murdering 15 of his elderly female patients with lethal injections of morphine. The police were currently investigating a further 23 suspicious deaths and admitted that they had looked at a total of 141 old, dead women on the doctor's books. The particular tabloid which Thaddeus had thrown, the front page of which was now curling up from its proximity to the fire, declared that the final total might reach 1500. It seemed to take a certain nationalistic pride in this, that we had produced the most prolific serial killer in the world and Britain was Great once more. It, like all the others, had dubbed Shipman, 'Doctor Death'.
          I nodded and took my customary seat, though leaned forward to be nearer the fire and warmed my hands. Thaddeus caught the motion and realising he had neglected his duties as host, offered me a drink and pushed the box towards me. Customarily we drank tea at our soirees, but to offset the chill in my innards I accepted his suggestion of 'something a little stronger' and settled back in my chair with a tumbler of whiskey and a Player's Medium Navy Cut from the box. As I sucked in the death-dealing smoke and allowed the nicotine to weave its magic, I listened to Thaddeus as he explained his theory concerning the case of Doctor Death.
          "Have you ever come across Morgan Robertson?"
          It was a typical opening gambit for Thaddeus. He would name some obscure writer and I would shake my head and puff out some smoke and then he would be off. Tonight was no exception.
          "In 1898, Robertson's novel, 'Futility', about a luxurious ocean liner striking an iceberg and sinking with appalling loss of life, was published. He called his imaginary ship, 'Titan'. In design and complement of passengers it mimicked the Titanic exactly. Robertson described his ship as 'unsinkable' and he chose to destroy it on its maiden voyage."
          "Oh, that Morgan Robertson," I interjected. I had heard the story before, although I'd never seen a copy of the book, let alone read it. "Coincidence," I said, all warm and cosy before the fire, with an internal glow conferred by the whiskey and cigarette.
          "Then there's the case of Mark Fenton. He wrote detective fiction for the American pulps in the Twenties. He seemed to possess an uncanny knack for choosing plots and characters that prefigured actual events. "A Whiff Of Gas" was published by Black Mask in 1923. It features a private detective called Frank Church, who is employed by Rosie Vale to discover the fate of her father at the hands of a crime boss called Amon Hilter. This criminal mastermind has an Italian bodyguard known only as Muscle and employs a legion of oriental killers to do his dirty work. Rosie Vale's father, an eminent scientist, has been kidnapped by Hilter so that he can invent a deadly gas with which he can hold the world to ransom. Professor Vale is made to test this gas on various lowlifes which Hilter's 'nips' shanghai from the streets. Hilter's favourite pastime is watching the results of these experiments, particularly when the helpless victims are 'hebes'. Naturally, as in all such primitive literature, the hero vanquishes the villain, saves the world, rescues the scientist and wins the hand of his daughter."
          "Nostradamus called him Hister, I believe."
          "Indeed. You don't find this fascinating?"
          I lit another cigarette and gave it suck. "Terribly. Write down any random sentence, include a name or two, and four hundred years later seek out the correlations. It works with any gibberish, if the reader possesses enough imagination."
          "With Nostradamus, I would agree. But Robertson and Fenton wrote only a decade or so before the events occurred."
          "I still say it's coincidence."
          Thaddeus sighed. "Do you know who was a great collector of Fenton's work?"
          Not for the last time, I shook my head.
          "Manuel Garcia Monteros." 
          Oh god, I thought, not Monteros again! I had begun to doubt that the blind, Argentinian fabulist even existed. I had never seen a single copy of his work; not even here in Thaddeus's vast collection. I had looked in bookshops, fished the Amazon and related digital streams, enquired at my local Public Library, in fact I had gone so far as to put in a request at the British Library in London since they claimed to possess a copy of every book ever published - except the one I wanted, of course. When I once challenged Thaddeus on the matter, he had graciously admitted that the English translations of his work were all currently out of print and second-hand copies were notoriously difficult to find. He had then suggested I try the Argentinian Embassy, adding that to read Monteros in translation was akin to smoking filter tips. He knew that I had neither the time nor the inclination to learn another language and that cruel allusion to my habit was his way of ending the discussion.
          "Monteros believed in the conjunctions between reality and fiction. He wrote several essays on the subject. I have them somewhere, I'll have to look them out for you."
          "I'd appreciate it," I interjected without a trace of hope.
          "He did not know whether it was the writer looking into the future and picking up... transmissions, as it were, from events that had yet to happen. Or whether by writing something down, by forming some template of words, this would necessarily design a future in its image; as if all writers are magicians, casting spells, which have the effect of changing reality. Or, maybe even creating reality, forming the future. Perhaps nothing happens unless some poor wretch has written it all down first. It would go some way to explaining  the parlous state of the world."
          "Or maybe it's just coincidence."
          "That seems to be your only contribution to the subject under discussion."
          I detected a hint of annoyance in his tone. I admit that sometimes I can be stubborn. I will close my eyes to the potential wonders of the world because I have been caught out before. My life has been one of continual disappointment. So, nowadays I tend to look for the simplest explanation and stick to it. If I ever see a ghost or a flying saucer, then I will believe. Until then I will twirl my finger at the side of my forehead. All other strange occurrences I will declare to be the result of coincidence, nothing more. And if I am ever asked what force is behind this amazing series of coincidences, then I will stare my inquisitor in the face and make the aforementioned sign of the loony. For the same reason I have also ceased to watch television documentaries about the search for the giant squid. "So, what are you suggesting? That Monteros wrote a story about Doctor Death?"
          "No. As far as I know he only wrote about his speculations in a couple of essays. He offered no evidence from his own work. Although I think he was in correspondence with Kingsley Amis at one point, I'll have to check the 'Collected Letters'. I think Amis came to similar conclusions around the time he wrote "The Green Man". But no, there is no Doctor Death in the stories of Monteros. Although now you mention it, I wonder if it would be worthwhile checking the instances of that name throughout the world of literature. It does seem to have an obvious alliterative ring to it, I'm sure it must have been used many times before."
          "Don't forget to check the comics."
          Thaddeus laughed. It was one of those belly-busting guffaws which always made me jump. "I take your point. It cannot be as simple as that. The phrase must have been used countless times in an infinite variety of circumstances. There has to be another element. Not just the words, but the story itself, the description of the character, the sequence of events in the plot. Why else would only certain books seem to contain this prefiguration? There's something missing in Monteros' explanation."
           "Try coincidence."
          He ignored me. "Maybe it depends on the popularity of the work. Maybe it needs to have been read by enough people so that it passes into the collective unconscious. Yes, that might explain it."
          He reached for another paper. As he handed it to me, I saw the headline under the photographs of Shipman's known victims and realised what had sparked this evening's conversation. The editors of the tabloids must walk a fine line between underestimating the intelligence of their readers and risking the obvious literary allusion. The editor of this particular broadsheet had no such qualms and I wondered for a moment whether Thaddeus was onto something. I recalled the television interviews with Shipman's patients, the ones that still lived, and their encomiums to the good doctor. Some even said that they would go to him again, with no hesitation, he seemed such a kind and caring man. And there was no obvious motive for the crimes. Perhaps something in his past, to do with the death of his mother, but no one was certain of that. The good doctor had dispensed medicine and comfort with one hand, while dealing out little ampoules of death with the other. And all in that pleasant suburb of Manchester.
          "So, when Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the book, did he catch a glimpse of the future?" Thaddeus waited a second for my reply, but I was still thinking. "Or, do you believe he just hit upon the name by accident, and so conferred on the town of Hyde an inevitable disaster?"
          I took a last look at the headline: 'The doctor Jekyll of Hyde'. "I believe that it is a coincidence."
          Thaddeus gave out a despairing grunt.
          "However," I continued, "since the police are doing such a sterling job digging up the graveyards of Hyde in search of Dr. Shipman's other victims, I would suggest you send them a note, suggesting they also run a thorough check on all the other doctors who have practised in the town, going back to.... When was it published?"
          "1896."
          "That should keep them busy for a bit."