Episode 2. The Casebook of Dr Miller- Case 1. John.

The journals of Dr Oliver Miller- Part 2 Dartmoor September 1897 Loosely based on 'The whisperer in Darkness'.

Written, narrated and produced by Charles Walker.

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Transcript

Record of experiences and findings of Dr Oliver Miller, Coroner for the South London boroughs.

The following is a record of the two-week period between September 14th, 1897, and September 29th of the same year.

My practice in South London was as hectic as ever, my services being of constant demand by the constabularies. On the morning of the 14th I was preparing to leave my residence and indeed was exiting out onto the street when a letter arrived- the author of which I recognised immediately from the neat but rather flamboyant script.

I hadn’t been in communication with my old friend and colleague Dr Henry Williams for some years and I was immediately intrigued as to the contents of the missive.

Placing my bag onto the hall table, I eagerly opened the letter. Looking back now, if I had known of the outcome of this simple action, I would not have been so eager to discover the contents.

The missive was brief and to the point. Henry now being the coroner for South Devon, based out of Totness, had taken on a ‘case’ of which he wished for a second opinion, and due to its strange nature, he wished to confer with a friend rather than another coroner in the district.

He invited me to visit and stay with him for a few days if it was of convenience and acceptable to me.

I shall omit the reply and travel arrangements made, suffice to say, that after arranging for sufficient cover for my duties, I found myself by means of train and coach- the latter part of the journey on the South Devon Railway Company, arriving at Totness railway station. Stepping out of the carriage, pleased to feel the solid platform beneath my feet, I spied my old friend expectantly scanning the coaches and those embarking.

Our first meeting after several years of absence was jovial and I acquiesced readily when he suggested we walk to his residence in town- travel by any method of locomotion other than my own feet always leaving me feeling somewhat queasy.

Now, like many, I am ashamed to say, I suppose my impression of Devon had been formed mainly from reports of the Moors and of the area being somewhat bleak and uninviting. However, I was surprised and pleased to find that the Town of Totness was an inviting and pleasant place, it’s main street climbing as it does (quite steeply in parts) to overlook the surrounding areas which were far less bleak in nature that I had presumed.

Entering my friend's property and after being made comfortable in the room provided for me and also taking advantage of the chance to change into more country attire to feel more presentable after the long journey, I finally found myself sat in the drawing room, drink in hand, Henry obviously eager to engage me in conversation as to the reason for my being there.

It transpired that there had been a large number of disappearances over the last few years and beyond this a number of corpses had been found, most, not all, retrieved from the local rivers, others being found in advanced states of decomposition on the moors. This to a coroner practising in London was not of such great surprise or concern to myself. London with its large populus was rife with disappearance, murders and poisonings, and bodies were oft found in the Thames. However, I was soon to realise that this was not the same in Devon. The area was for the most part sparsely populated and with many living on remote farmsteads. Life could be harsh, but, murder and suicide were far rarer events than in my own province.

I listened intently but in truth I was somewhat disappointed in something that seemed to be within the normal daily routine to me. Henry, however, continued on to say that I would fully understand when I had had the opportunity to examine some of the corpses, which he suggested should be on the following day.

As it is necessary to be concise in my description due to the limitation of the medium that I have chosen to record my findings, I shall only record the most pertinent facts here.

The corpses of which there were two, they being the most recent to be fished from the local river, left me somewhat aghast. This was not due to their state of decomposition, which was advanced to say the least, the bodies being hugely bloated- it was rather as to the composition of the ‘bodies’. Even the most casual of examination would present the facts that even allowing for the state of bloat there was something out of place here. A more in-depth examination revealing that the corpses could neither be classified as human or animal, or indeed anything that science had yet to classify. The general disposition was that of a human form, however these bodies proved to have additional limbs, and additional internal organs and skeletal features.  A disproportionate number of the bones being of abnormal length and more disturbingly some appearing in the form of an exoskeleton, as one may observe on an insect.

I had no answer for my friend. Everything here was so far removed from the abnormalities of birth one sees or the consequence of disease or malnutrition.

I bade my friend that we remove ourselves from the site as expeditiously as we may, he suggesting that we could if I so desired, take a coach to the moors to take the air- which he said was often bracing and that at the same time we could visit someone that I may find of interest. He would say no more as to who this individual was, so, wishing to put as much distance as possible between myself and these forms, I acquiesced.

The September day was sunny and fresh and the coach ride to the edge of the moors was pleasant enough. As the journey progressed and we neared our destination the famous moors came into view, the trees thinning out to be replaced with twisted and stunted specimens , the ground covered in course grasses and low shrubs. Rocks of various sizes pushed through the thin earth and the famous tours came into view in the distance. Here was the countryside that I was familiar with if only in my mind. Wide open, barren spaces, with only the stoutest of low vegetation prevailing and where the sky seemed to loom almost ominously over all below it, cowering everything below to hug the ground.

The farmstead stood on the very edge of the moor, and we were greeted by a rather haggard looking man of I would estimate some 30 years old. He smiled as we approached (I would presume that not many coaches came this way and he must have heard our coming from some distance off).

Henry provided the introductions and we found ourselves sat in a clean and rather rustic kitchen. John insisting that we remove our jackets and make ourselves at home. “You won’t feel the benefit of a jacket on the moors if you wear it inside as well”.

Again, I shall only provide the most pertinent points of our conversation, which was punctuated by many silences as we listened and nodded.

The moors were a beautiful place, but they were also a dangerous place with fast developing mists that one could quickly become turned around in and lost. Folk law was rife from lights that lead the unprepared away never to be seen again to creatures that prey on folk lost on the moors. Witchcraft was also, we were informed, preformed in the seclusion of that barren landscape.

This was not all, however. John informed us that he had witness lights moving on the moors- too bright or rapid for lanterns, moving swiftly over the landscape to then soar upward into the night sky. He had also experienced cries that matched no animal walking the earth, and then there were the Visitors, as he named them. Creatures that he had seen from afar with forms that were neither man nor beast. His dog, a border collie that stared at us the whole time we were there, couldn’t take to them, growling and barking whenever they were near.

They, John informed us, knew that the Visitors had seen him observing them and of recent days they had embarked on visiting the farm in the middle of the night, first just moving around the property, watching, possibly testing the boundaries- but of late, tapping at the windows and door as if also testing them.

He had at first shouted at them and they had retreated, however once shouting did not seem to deter them, he had taken to shooting into the sky with his shotgun. The visits had continued to increase and on the last visit the door had fairly rattled on its hinges with their hammering at it. There was a buzzing sound in the air and voices that were just pout of hearing with no discernable words of language. Having had enough, and simply wanting to be left alone, he had shouted as to his intent and then stealing himself had opened the door, firing both barrels of his shotgun. Nothing and no one was to be seen, however he heard a scream just past the gate. From fear or from wounding he did not know and he was not disposed to go looking, rather barring the door against the night and leaving any investigation for the morning light. The following morning on examining the ground no footprint human or otherwise were revealed. Shot gun pellets showered the ground and around the gate which by the signs of the chunks blown out of it he had hot, he had found a green substance in places in the dirt- akin to blood, thick and viscous.

The Tale was so far-fetched that I would not have given any credence to it, had he not seemed so genuine and had I not seen the corpses in the morgue earlier that day.

Taking our leave Henry suggested that we take a pint at the local hostelry and the air being chill on the moors I agreed with the thought of a good pint of ale and a warm hearth in mind.

The ale didn’t prove to meet my expectation, but the warm of the interior and the general conversation did, the locals only being too happy to talk after the bar maid overheard mine and Henry’s conversation.

Stories were rife of the happenings on the moor, although many smacked of the folk law and superstition of less educated folk. Nothing akin to the telling of John the farmer though. They did however make comment to the farm and its owner, saying that gunshots had been heard in the night and the shouts of John at some unperceived or as they presumed imagined foe. The result of living alone on the edge of the moors they said. “It’s a lonely life and if you don’t even take the time to spend with others, then that what you get”.

We walked the moors for a while after and my pre-conceptions were confirmed that this was a strange place indeed, barren and uninviting. I admit I felt exposed in the expanse of open sky, as though I would float off or possibly be snatched into the air at any moment, with nowhere to hide. I could well imagine how a solitary life on the edge of the moors could affect even the strongest of minds. We didn’t find anything of great note but as I say, I could well imagine how the mind could conceived of all manner of things both real and imagined in this place, especially in the dusk and dark.

I had allowed three or four days away from my practise and the following day, Henry having to work, I took a carriage back up to the moors. I wanted to speak to John again, and something drew me to the moors, fearful but intrigued.

Alighting at the farm and asking the coach driver to wait for me, I approached and knocked at the heavy wood door. It was then I noticed the holes made from shotgun blasts in the door and the door swinging inward of its own accord I took in the sight of the disarray of the interior. Furniture was upended and smashed; the walls peppered with shot gun pellets and blood on the floor, both green and red.

I must admit that if I had my time again that I would and should have searched the house, but I didn’t. I ran back to the coach with instruction for the hastiest of travel to whoever served as the local police in these parts.

The driver looking taken aback and on no further explanation whipped the horses into flight and within some 30 minutes, although it seemed an age and the travel excruciating slow, we arrived at what served as the local police station.

What followed is the most disturbing of my visit to Devon.

After some considerable time spent recounting the events of the morning and then part of the events from the previous day to justify why I would have been present at the farm, the constable, allowing for my standing, agreed to come out to the farm, although he seemed more curious than concerned.

Arriving back at the farm, something did not seem right as we approached down the track. The gate hung at an angle which I knew not to be the case as I had slammed it behind me some short hours before. Passing though the now ineffectual gate I saw to my astonishment a dilapidated shell of a building. The chimney had collapsed, the majority of the windows were smashed and entering into that shell, years of dust and animal excrement lay on the floors of the empty rooms.

I looked aghast at the constable standing behind me and cried that this was not so. He shrugged, I think you must have experienced some nightmare or some such, this farm has been derelict nigh seven years. Wishing to prove myself right, I requested that we take the waiting coach to the village and hostelry so those there could provide substance to my story.

I shall not recount in full the embarrassing experience that followed, suffice to relate that the villagers present did not recollect my visit the previous day while also confirming the constable's statement that the farm had sat empty now for nigh on seven or eight years.

Indeed, to add further slight to the situation my dear friend Henry upon my return to Totness had no memory of the request to visit, no suspicious corpses had been found in the area (non beyond livestock that occasionally get into trouble) and we had not travelled out to the farm. He implied that the long journey the previous day and our perhaps having imbibed too much scotch and brandy on top of a very late and expansive meal had probably caused vivid dreams. He said he was however extremely glad that I had taken the time to visit after so many years of absence of our friendship and that although he was sorry that I couldn’t find the time to stay more than the two days, he would visit me in London as soon as was possible.

Possibly with time, I would have doubted my own experiences, so many others having not experienced the same as I. However, several days later on wearing and subsequently putting my hand into the pocket of the same jacket I had worn on my visit to Devon, my fingers found and wrapped around a shotgun cartridge. Pulling it from my pocket I examined it closely. I had no inkling of whence it came, I do not shoot for pleasure, nor have I ever. The shell seemed lighter than I would have expected, and it became evident that the casing was loose from the cap. Prising the two apart, I found a roll of paper, and written in pencil in an unsteady hand....

They know. They won’t leave me to talk now. I remember the others they have taken. Remember, even if no one else does.

I have no knowledge of what became of John, I cannot even begin to imagine what took him or to where he was taken from his lonely life on the edge of the moors. No one it would seem will mourn or question his disappearance as it would seem his mere existence has been scrubbed from history itself.

I have no idea what it was that I saw in that mortuary, and I never will as even they seem to have been removed from existence and the recollection of anyone that has reason to be there.

However. I remember John, and I remember those creatures, and I will not stop until I have answers.

I did, for one brief moment with the sun shining in clear skies on an October morning consider returning to Dartmoor and the remains of that remote farmhouse that I knew once to be warm and pleasant inside, not ruined and cold, to look for more evidence.

It was a fleeting thought soon to be replaced with my own cowardice and fears of the unknown. I wonder if I am truly of sufficient constitution and mental strength to continue with this line of enquiry and investigation. I suppose that what sets one person apart from another is not that they are stronger or braver, or made of the right stuff, but simply that they choose the path that takes them into danger.