Terror on the Orient-Express – The bloodied Fez

5 Durward street, Whitechapel, London, 1893.

– Well, what can you make of… that ?
The
doctor Saroch look upon his colleague. The doctor Hobbs was not someone
easily shocked nor prone to sensationalism, and yet, he saw fear in his
eyes. He bent over to the patient and began his examination. Skin
dried, quasi mummified. Slow breathing, alive ? Eyes were moving under
the lids. Atrophied muscles. All evidences pointed to signs of
senescence, but teeth, bone structure and callosities said otherwise.
This was somehow the body of a young man, yet pruned and dried like an
very old person.

He went to the head and tried to remove this dark fez that seems to be the only article of clothing of the poor sod. He gasped.
– Oh my god ! It’s growing under his skin !

Pencil doodle on A6 sketchbook