Phantom of Blood Alley Read Online Free PDF Page A

a small circle about the same size as a thruppenny piece. I could feel PB’s gazeresting on me as I did so, intrigued, despite the pain of his toothache. I fished in my breeches pocket for a silver tanner.
    ‘Here,’ I said, placing both the small coin and the smaller disc of zinc in PB’s outstretched hand. ‘Put the two pieces of metal together, and clamp the pair of them next to your bad tooth.’
    The professor looked perplexed, but did as he was told. He closed his eyes. A minute later, he opened them again.
    ‘Ip’s pingling,’ he muttered.
    ‘Tingling?’ I said. ‘It’s supposed to. Wait a bit longer.’
    While PB sat there, the two discs of metal clamped between his jaws, I crossed the laboratory and put a kettle on the stove. I was looking forward to a nice cup of Assam Black more than ever. I was warming the pot when I realized that the professor was standing behind me. I turned to see him grinning broadly.
    ‘Quite remarkable!’ he exclaimed. He was holding the two pieces of metal in one hand, and the bandage in his other. ‘The pain has gone!’
    I smiled, pleased that my little experiment had worked so well.
    ‘The zinc and silver acted together with your saliva as a galvanic battery. It produced an electric current that worked on the nerves of the tooth, and relieved the pain,’ I told PB proudly. ‘Dalhousie has made some real breakthroughs in the field.’
    ‘You and your fields of interest never fail to amaze me, Barnaby,’ said PB approvingly. He took over the tea-making duties, swilling the hot water away and adding tea leaves to the pot. ‘I never know what you’re going to come up with next.’
    ‘Funny you should say that, PB,’ I replied, ‘because just recently I’ve become interested in the science of photogravure.’
    ‘Is that so?’ said PB. He chuckled as hepoured us each a cup of steaming tea. ‘I have to say that, for me, it is the photographic capture of movement that fascinates me most. It would help so much with my work to be able to analyse the gallop of a horse or the wingbeat of a bird …’
    ‘Talking of birds,’ I said, as I remembered the reason for my visit, ‘I dropped by to return your notebook, PB. It’s full …’
    ‘Excellent work, Barnaby,’ he said. He looked up and smiled, his tongs poised over the sugar bowl. ‘Now, is it one lump or two?’ he asked. ‘I always forget.’
    ‘No sugar for me,’ I reminded him, then stifled a smile as the professor proceeded to put six sugar lumps into his own small cup. He passed me my tea, ushered me across to the wing-back chair at the end of the room and perched himself on the edge of the ottoman opposite.
    ‘Photogravure,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Or photography, as I prefer to call it.’ Hestirred his tea. ‘I knew one of its earliest exponents, Dean Henry Dodson. We were up at university together, with adjacent rooms in New College, though he was several years older than me and already writing his doctorate.’
    I took a sip of tea, the aromatic liquid bursting with flavour on my tongue. No one, but no one, made tea like Professor Pinkerton-Barnes.
    ‘A strange fellow, something of a maverick,’ he was saying, ‘and, just like you, Barnaby, he had an interest in a vast range of subjects.’ He frowned. ‘Everything from medieval alchemy to ancient pagan cults, from mechanical calculating machines to apparatus designed to manipulate light …’
    ‘And he invented photography?’ I asked.
    ‘Invented,’ the professor repeated softly, and took a sip of his own tea. ‘From my experience, Barnaby, such things are rarely the invention of a single person.’ He smiled.‘Rather they grow from the accumulated work of many minds all seeking universal truths.’ PB shook his head ruefully. ‘Though there are always squabbles breaking out between rival scientists as to who thought of what first,’ he added. He took another sip of tea. ‘But yes, Barnaby, Dean Henry Dodson is certainly a