Two Doctors

“Two Doctors” is a horror story by the English medievalist and author M. R. James (1862–1936), first published in his A Thin Ghost and OthersCollection of five short stories by the English medievalist and author M. R. James, first published in 1919. (1919).^[1]

The story concerns two doctors, Dr. Abell and Dr. Quinn, both of whom practise medicine in Islington, now part of London but at the time the story is set was a separate small town. It is told by an unnamed narrator, in the form of a series of witness statements relating to an early 18th-century criminal case concerning the mysterious death of one of those two doctors.

“Two Doctors” has been described as James’s “weakest and most difficult story”.^[2]

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Synopsis

The narrator begins by explaining his pre-war habit of buying old ledgers to make use of the unused paper inside, and remarks that it is not uncommon to find old papers within them. But one ledger he bought in 1911 stood out. It contained what appeared to be the preparatory materials for a legal case, and consisted of statements by potential witnesses. The man who would have been the defendant seems never to have appeared, and the narrator finishes his introduction with the words “You must see what you can make of it”.

The story, as put together by the narrator from the papers he has found, begin with Dr. Abell having some kind of disagreement with his long-time servant Luke Jennet, who wants to leave his employment as he [Jennet] was “one that always liked to have everything pleasant about me”. Jennet eventually takes up a position with the town’s other physician, Dr. Quinn, and says that he never spread gossip about Dr. Abell, or encouraged the patients of his former employer to move to Dr. Quinn, although some do so.

The local clergyman, Dr. Jonathan Pratt, is familiar with both Dr. Abell and Dr. Quinn, as they are regular churchgoers. He describes Dr. Quinn as “a plain, honest believer”, and Dr. Abell as “a source of perplexity”, citing one occasion when Dr. Abell asked his opinion on “supernatural beings that are neither angels nor demons”, which he claimed to have encountered as he went about the country lanes at night while attending to his patients. Dr. Pratt tried to make light of the question by saying that Dr. Abell should inform an academy of science of such an encounter, at which Dr. Abell stamped out of the room in a huff.

One evening some time later Dr. Abell visits Dr. Pratt’s house. Dr. Pratt jokingly asks him if he has had any meetings of late with his odd friends, meaning the supernatural beings he had spoken of earlier, but Dr. Abell replies “You were never there? I did not see you. Who brought you?’ He then tries to explain away his response by claiming that he must have been half asleep when he answered.

In an attempt to change the subject, Dr. Pratt talks about some juggling tricks that his brother had seen at the court of the Rajah of Mysore. Dr. Abell responds by saying that he would like to have the power to move objects without touching them, at which point he moves his hand towards the fireplace and a poker falls towards him. Dr. Pratt suggests that such powers could only be obtained by making a deal with the Devil, and include as one of its conditions “a heavier payment than any Christian would care to make”.

Dr. Quinn begins to be severely troubled by nightmares, dreaming that he has to go out on a moonlit night and dig in a certain place in his garden. There he finds something which looks like a chrysalis but is the size of a man. It feels like cloth, and when he opens it up he sees his own dead face inside. The thought occurs to Dr. Quinn that he might prevent the nightmares by changing his bedding. He buys a very soft feather pillow, into which his head sinks completely, and some sheets which are embroidered with the image of a bird and a coronet. The servants do not know where he obtained the new bed linen, but after after acquiring it, Dr. Quinn sleeps very well.

Some time later Dr. Pratt is asked to go over to Dr. Quinn’s house, because he is either dying or already dead. Dr. Pratt finds him lying in the middle of his bed, with the two ends of his feather pillow folded on top of each other and completely covering his face, apparently having died of suffocation. Dr. Pratt does not believe that the death was accidental, but there are no signs of intrusion or forced entry. Dr. Abell is nowhere to be found, so another physician is summoned to determine the cause of death, which after a post-mortem examination is declared to be “Death by the visitation of God”.^[a]The same cause of death was attributed to Mr Wrexall in “Count MagnusHorror story by M. R. James, first published in 1904, about the death of a travelogue writer who inadvertently releases two demons from the sarcophagus of Count Magnus.“.

Attached to the papers about the case of Dr. Quinn’s death, the narrator finds a report about a break in at the mausoleum of an unnamed noble family in Middlesex. No bodies were taken, but other objects were, resulting in a North London dealer suffering “heavy penalties as a receiver of stolen goods”.

Commentary

The story might be an example of what James called “the malice of inanimate objects”.^[3]

But the obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the objects stolen from the mausoleum were the feather pillow and the sheets, and that by the use of magic Dr. Abell first caused Dr. Quinn to have nightmares and then somehow ensured that he bought the haunted sheets and pillow which killed him.^[4]

Notes[+]

Notes
a	The same cause of death was attributed to Mr Wrexall in “Count MagnusHorror story by M. R. James, first published in 1904, about the death of a travelogue writer who inadvertently releases two demons from the sarcophagus of Count Magnus.“.