Unlike most physicians during the time he was a young aspirant, Uncle Ormond had first dedicated himself to his studies to become a physician and later turned to surgery. In times past, physicians tended to attain a medical degree while surgeons apprenticed, like trades people. He had done both, and then briefly served as a ship’s surgeon before becoming a house physician and surgeon at the hospital. Since his first day, he’d taken an intense interest in St. Bart’s history and his study contained stacks of journals with notes about the inscriptions, renovations and the hundreds of physicians who had practiced here for centuries.
Uncle’s journals documented most everything. There is a statue of King Henry VIII in the niche of the archway, with two pillars on each side and the figures of patients. In between the figurines is a window with an ornate canopy which contains a clock. On that first trip to the hospital, Uncle pointed out a map of the reign of James I and an engraving executed after the building of the Smithfield gate but before the reconstruction of the hospital in 1728. We went into the church and then walked the pathway leading to the hospital and the Great Hall. I saw where the cloisters had been and we visited the garden of the hospital, called the Garden dorter, to the right of what once was the monks’ sleeping area.
Uncle particularly liked discovering little facts about his predecessors and had compiled long lists of their names and accomplishments. But my study of his journals focused on the architecture, artwork and engravings scattered throughout St. Bart’s, like the windows in the church and the panels dedicated to famous people.
My reverie was interrupted when a young man tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “May I join you?”
He had a beard, close-set eyes, a long, hawk-like nose that reminded me of Sherlock, dark wavy hair, parted in the middle, and long side-burns on both sides of his thin face. I guessed him to be about thirty years of age.
I shrugged and said, “If you wish.”
“I shan’t disturb you,” he said as he sat down and opened a journal. Then he proceeded to do so by asking, “Do you come here often?”
“Yes, I find the fountain soothing.”
“As do I. I like to sit on the edge in summer evenings and read Theocritus. Even on busy days, it seems none of the noise of the city penetrates The Square. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, it is so wonderfully quiet.”
Years later, I would ponder that observation for the roar of war disturbed the lovely stillness of The Square in World War I. A bomb was dropped on Bartholomew Close and struck stone posts of the Little Britain gate, leaving its mark and passing through two wooden doors into the matron’s office. Again, during the London Blitz of 1940, bombs severely damaged the chapel.
For a few minutes, we sat in silence but then my curiosity compelled me to speak. I closed Effie’s journal and asked, “What are you writing there, if I may ask?”
He looked up and smiled at me. “A hospital report about the events of this morning.” He sighed. “Quite the morning it’s been. Nearly driven to madness.”
Driven to madness? I thought. Perhaps he has made Sherlock’s acquaintance.
“Is it not always a bit maddening? My uncle works here.”
He gave my face closer scrutiny. “Of course. You are Dr. Sacker’s niece. I’ve seen you when you visit him here. And you also know Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“I do.”
“He’s a bit... odd.”
I sucked in a breath. “A bit. But he is brilliant.”
Sherlock was a polarizing force, but while weary of him at times, I also felt a need to protect him, for to preserve something - someone - so original, so invested in erudition and the science of deduction, someone who could so effortlessly invert the rules, seemed to come naturally to me.
The man shuffled through a sheaf of papers and began writing again.
“So, you were telling me about your mad morning. How went it, sir? You look tired.”
He closed his journal. “At twenty minutes past nine, there were over a hundred persons in the hall and perhaps another four hundred on the range. Now, it must be conceded that they were quite orderly, trying not to push, the women engaged in conversation, the men generally silent. But the staff,” he added proudly, “made short work of it. By eleven the room was nearly empty.”
I understood his gratification at this feat. Clearing the hall was accomplished by a junior assistant physician, three casualty physicians, of which this man likely was in concert, an assistant surgeon and four house surgeons and their dressers. Uncle said it was not unusual for over thirty thousand patients to be processed through the hall in a year, and he said all of it was done with a glitter of wit and the greatest dignity and virtue.
“But,” he said, “my fatigue is not due solely to my morning duties. I was cajoled into a race in the wee hours last night.”
“A race, sir?”
“Which I lost miserably,” he said laughing. “I had just finished treating a battery of votaries of Bacchus who were unable to reach their homes or even say where they lived. So, we let them stay to restore themselves to consciousness. And then there I was at two in the morning, running from Oxford Circus to Holburn Circus, though I had to be on duty before eight this morning. But I ran anyway, against Dr. Willoughby Furner and Dr. Ormerod, both alumni of the Rugby School.” He shook his head and added, “What was I thinking?” he laughed.
I did not know Dr. Furner, but I was acquainted with Dr. Joseph Ardene Ormerod. He and his family lived on Wimpole Street; Uncle and Aunt Susan knew him well. He’d recently written an article about diseases of the spinal cord, and Uncle was co-authoring
