by Argyle, Ray
“Don’t worry, he’s gone for the night,” Amanda whispered. She reached into Leonard’s pants and caressed him. Then he was inside her and all thought of restraint was now far from his mind.
After, he clung to this woman he hardly knew. Amanda was kissing his neck and ears and Leonard wanted her caresses to go on forever. His mind moved to thoughts of Rosannah, and he felt guilty for the pleasure he was taking from this embrace. The guilt told him it was time to leave. Besides, it was always possible Brodie might wake up and find them still together.
“You’re wonderful, Mrs. Brodie, but I think I had better go.”
“Must you?” she asked. “It’ll be hours before he wakes up.”
Later, outside with the snow drifting down in large, soft flakes, Leonard had to concentrate on finding his way home. He knew of people who had passed out on the roadside, to be found later frozen to death. That mustn’t happen to him. When he reached the crossing at the Beaver Valley Road he knew he was nearly at Vandeleur Hall.
Relieved, and now mostly sober, Leonard thought of all that had happened: his loss of Rosannah, his time at the Globe, Rosannah’s death, the inquest, the trial, the petitions, and the hanging of Cook Teets. His memories leapt from one incident to another in a confused jumble of haphazard recollections.
He never knew what he was getting in for, when he’d first met Rosannah. That’s not so strange. No one can tell what the future might reveal. Except those who live such narrow lives they can safely predict how the sameness of one day will be followed by another. He’d seen enough of that. Nothing ever new in their lives, no chances taken, no rewards sought or attained. What did he want from life then? His insides squirmed with remembrance of all the stupid things he’d done and said. He seemed to be forever starting over. And lonely – he was always lonely. What had he learned from where life had taken him? Perhaps he needed to write it all down.
At home, his wet clothes shed at the front door, Leonard wrapped himself in a robe and stocked the fireplace with fresh wood. It was long past midnight. He went to his father’s stand-up desk, lifted the lid, and took out paper and a pen. I need to write it in a book, he thought. Put everything about Rosannah and Cook down on paper, so everybody can understand what happened to them, and what I had to do with it. But where to begin? With Rosannah as the beautiful young girl she was? With Cook Teets and his blindness? Or with the inquest, or the trial? Standing at the desk, and writing in a fluid and clerkly hand, Leonard began Rosannah’s Story:
There was no sweeter girl in the entire Queen’s Bush than Rosannah Leppard. Her affectionate personality and warm, inviting eyes foretold an enduring friendship for those she invited into her life. It was these qualities, by unhappy circumstance, that would lead her into difficulty. Perhaps it is true she was not sufficiently discriminating in her choices. The better elements of the Beaver Valley, where Rosannah lived with her parents and her twelve brothers and sisters, were unforgiving in their criticism.
Rosannah’s short life brought her more of both the pain and pleasure than is our usual allotment. She grew up in a family that was desperately poor. She had seen enough of the outside world to know there was a better life than the one bestowed on her. The choices she made were made in hopes of attaining that better life.
I remember Rosannah for her bright eyes and dark hair, in which she often wore a white daisy. Also for her joyful teasing, which sometimes amused and other times exasperated me. I never saw her more aglow than the time she danced at a village social in the Vandeleur school. She wore a calico dress and a necklace of shells that she said came from the shore of Georgian Bay. There was a fine band that night of Negro musicians from Priceville, the little community started by fugitive slaves. Two fiddles, a banjo and an accordion. How they played! Rosannah, just sixteen, kicked off her shoes to dance. Her favourite tune that night was Going to the East, Going to the West, a song brought from the slave plantations of the South. I think she liked it because one of the steps called for a kiss. I was lucky enough to twirl her in my arms at that point in the dance.
Rosannah loved her children. This I know, although I saw her rarely after Lorena was born and not at all after the birth of her second, Elizabeth. Rosannah’s disposition would not allow her to be anything but kind and caring. I remember how she nursed a thrush with a broken wing, and the care she took with the kittens that were born behind her barn.
Rosannah was always helpful to her mother, although her failure as an obedient Catholic gave rise to much disagreement and distress. I remember the two of them making wild plum preserves, and apple pies from the sack of Mackintoshes that Rosannah’s father had brought home from a carpentering job at Meaford. The preserves were served with roast goose and pie that Christmas. People in the Beaver Valley may have been poor, but between what they could grow on their stony acres and what they could capture in the woods or streams, they were seldom hungry.
Leonard slept late the day after Christmas. Toward evening, with a fire burning in the parlour he stood, again wrapped in a robe, at his father’s desk. He returned to the desk many times in the weeks that followed. One Sunday afternoon, Leonard stared at his watch that lay beside his writing paper. His glance shifted to the stack of notes he had collected. He’d gone over them time and again, recalling every detail of what had happened. He had studied the depositions Cook and others had given at the inquest and he read and re-read the report of Dr. Sproule’s autopsy. He looked again at his watch.
It was then it came to him. The trial had heard that the amount of strychnine found in Rosannah’s body was insufficient to prove the cause of death. Dr. Ellis, the public analyst who had examined Rosannah’s organs, admitted he’d only been surmising, based on the symptoms she’d shown, as to the composition of the fatal dose. Why, he’d even swallowed a bit of strychnine right there in the courtroom, without suffering any harm. Leonard had it all in his notes; he now saw it was even possible she’d died from another cause. It was too late to save Cook or bring back Rosannah, but not too late to find the truth. If he was ever going to redeem himself – in his own mind at least – for the mistakes he’d made, he’d have to produce evidence – new evidence – that would exonerate Cook. He needed time to think about this.
Leonard put out the Chronicle every week, recording the small happenings of Vandeleur. Winter gave way to a sudden spring that greened the fields of the Beaver Valley, and finally summer settled on the land. Writing sessions at his father’s desk became a rare thing. He could go no further, Leonard decided, until he was more certain about the cause of Rosannah’s death. He’d have to learn the secrets of strychnine – how the poison worked, what it could do to a person, and exactly how long it took to do it. There was only one place he could find that out: at the School of Medicine in Toronto.
Chapter 22
SECRETS OF THE DEAD HOUSE
September 8, 1885
Once out of Union Station, Leonard Babington found the streets of Toronto clogged with horses and carriages, with new buildings having risen all around him. It was a much busier place than he remembered from five years ago, when he’d been caught up in the excitement of being a real reporter, working for the Globe. He checked into the Queen’s Hotel, took dinner in the dining room, and after a foray into the fringes of The Ward – an immigrant district more congested and louder than he ever remembered it – he returned to his room and slept like a brick. In the morning he set out for the School of Medicine.
At the corner of Church and Front Streets Leonard admired the magnificent new branch of the Bank of Montreal. Further east, he passed the St. Lawrence Hall and the City Hall, buildings he knew well from his days as a reporter. But those were not his destination this morning. He continued east until he reached Sherbourne Street. There, he turned north.
The Toronto School of Medicine was identified by a small sign tacked onto its front porch. The two-storey brick house was little different from its neighbours; other than the sign it bore no indication that wonderful e
xperiments were conducted here on the human body, a place where the future doctors of Canada were being trained.
“I am a journalist,” Leonard told the man who stood over a desk in the foyer. “I want to inquire about certain medical practices.” Leonard made mention of the Globe, without as much as saying he was from that paper.
“Then you’ll need to see Dr. Barrett, the principal,” he was told. “He’s giving a lecture now. Perhaps he can see you when he’s free.”
An hour later, Leonard was admitted to a small back room. Dr. Barrett sat behind an oak desk. Two chairs stood at angles to the desk. Bookcases lined the walls, filled with texts and files of medical journals. A sofa, covered with a fabric in a red rose design, occupied what little space remained. Leonard was surprised to see that on it sat a young woman.
“I am glad to meet you, Mr. Babington,” Dr. Barrett said. “The School wishes to educate the public as well as its students. There is so much we need to do in public health.”
Dr. Barrett went on:
“This is my niece, Miss Kaitlin Tisdall. She’s studying medicine here at the School. Unlike certain institutions, we welcome women students. Kaitlin will see you meet our demonstrator in anatomy. We call her Dr. Ann. Maybe you’ve heard of her. Ann Stowe-Gullen, the first woman to graduate as a doctor in Canada.”
Leonard thought Dr. Barrett a little pompous. The presence of the pretty young woman slightly intimidated him. He decided to be quick about explaining his mission.
“I’m interested in the case of a man accused of poisoning his wife with strychnine. I would like to know more about how the drug affects the body. If it could be mistaken for some other poison. Perhaps see how an autopsy is conducted. Whatever would illuminate the reaction of the human body to a foreign substance.”
Dr. Barrett listened intently. “You’re well spoken for a reporter. We’ve had some in here who didn’t have the foggiest idea of what they were about. Glad to see the Globe is hiring a better type.”
Leonard ignored the reference to the Globe.
Kaitlin sat quietly as Dr. Barrett spoke. She wore a long checkered skirt, a white blouse and a cape, and her hair was in a bob. Leonard thought her very attractive.
“Let me take you around, Mr. Babington,” Kaitlin said.
The classroom where Dr. Barrett had lectured was now empty. Its dozen desks, similar to those that had furnished Leonard’s school in Vandeleur, were piled with papers and textbooks.
“I’ll show you the dead house,” Kaitlin offered. She saw the puzzled look on Leonard’s face and quickly added:
“That’s what we call the dissection room. Don’t let it bother you.”
The room she led him to might once have served as a dining room. It contained two tables and a few chairs. Hooks on the wall held old coats and aprons. There was a pile of sawdust in the corner. Someone had laid a shovel, much used and rusty, beside it.
Kaitlin pointed to a trapdoor that opened to the cellar. Lifting the door, she motioned below.
“We students go down there to retrieve the cadavers. Don’t worry, there are none there right now.” She chuckled, her laugh like the tinkling of a bell.
Kaitlin led Leonard down a flight of narrow stairs. At the bottom, she pointed to two large vats in a corner of the cellar.
“They’re filled with wood alcohol and other chemicals,” she said. “You get used to the smell after awhile.”
Leonard had begun to feel queasy. He told Kaitlin he didn’t have much time today, but would come back another day. He left hastily, making apologies. Once outside, he gulped fresh air and felt his head clear.
Leonard returned three times to the School of Medicine that week. He had tea twice with Kaitlin. He told her about the trial of Cook Teets and confided that while he had once worked for the Globe, he now had his own newspaper.
They talked about whether Leonard could witness a dissection.
“Are you sure you want to?” Kaitlin asked. “We’ve been told never to divulge the secrets of the dissecting room. We can be expelled for that. In the popular mind, dissection is an abomination.”
When Leonard met Dr. Ann, he was surprised at how young and attractive she was. She had graduated just that year. Perhaps she owed her appointment to the fact her mother had been educated in the United States as a doctor. Then he realized he was being unfair.
“Kaitlin tells me you’re a newspaperman and that you wish to see a dissection,” she said. “They’re always done in private, but it’s time the public realized we can’t treat people without understanding the body’s organs. That’s the purpose of dissection.”
“Where do you get the bodies?” Leonard asked.
“That is the problem. You’d think they’d let us have unclaimed cadavers from the morgue. But no. Unless we get a rare donation, we have to go all over for them. There’s a man in Buffalo who supplies us. He’s been accused of stealing from the graveyards. You’re a journalist. You could explain we need a legal source. But you must never let it be known your presence was something I allowed.”
“Leonard can take the place of the janitor,” Kaitlin suggested. “Old George is always there to wipe things up. The girls never pay any attention to him. We can send him off for the day.”
Leonard arrived a few minutes early for the demonstration. There was very little light in the dead house when Kaitlin led Leonard into the room. He felt uncomfortable, wearing a tattered coat belonging to the janitor. Kaitlin directed him to the end of the room to stand near the sawdust pile. “Just look bored, pretend you’re ready to sweep up,” Kaitlin said.
Several girls entered the room. They paid no attention to him.
When the cadaver was placed onto the table, Leonard was stunned at what next unfolded.
“You will observe the skin has been removed from the body.” Dr. Ann told the students. Leonard felt almost overcome by the subtle, sweet smell of phenol and the other chemical preservatives used to cure the body.
“De-skinning is part of the necessary preparation,” he heard the anatomist say. “Now we can begin the dissection. Watch carefully. You will have a close look at the organs that will be the object of your care and attention for the rest of your medical lives.”
The cadaver was that of a male. Working fastidiously, the anatomist cut out the heart, liver, and kidneys. She held each up in turn, commenting on its condition. An engorged heart valve pointed to respiratory difficulties. A blackened liver indicated a diseased organ. A small towel covered the cadaver’s waist. Nothing was said of its genitals.
Leonard struggled to stay on his feet. Kaitlin sensed his discomfort and edged toward him. Taking care no one was looking, she held his hand and squeezed it twice. A sense of momentary blur passed over him. He found himself looking at the flesh on the table, now with no more abhorrence than if he were viewing a slaughtered animal. It looked like raw chicken.
Leonard was amazed by Dr. Ann’s ability to pluck organs from the body. There was no blood and scarcely a fragment of flesh fell astray. He imagined Rosannah’s body as it must have lain on the autopsy table. And he understood now a lot of what had seemed puzzling in the medical testimony at the trial. He could see how the examination of an organ could lead to the solution of a crime. He was glad he’d come, although he wouldn’t want to watch a second time.
“I can understand how a doctor must know these things,” Leonard later told Kaitlin. “Now I need to learn more about strychnine.”
“You could start with the pharmaceutical journals,” Kaitlin said. “We keep them in the book room. Later, you can ask Dr. Ann about anything you don’t understand.”
Kaitlin left Leonard to riffle through the magazines piled up on a shelf along one wall. He read about children who had died after being given strychnine by mistake, and of experiments on dogs that died a half hour after being poisoned. He found an article about strychnine’s effects on humans in The Practitioner’s Handbook of Treatment. “In toxic doses this drug produces severe and prolonged s
pasms, in which the body is arched, resting upon the head and heels. Death commonly occurs in an hour or so.”
They’re all in agreement, Leonard thought, that strychnine is quickly fatal. And in the manner witnesses had said Rosannah died. But there were other points he had to clear up. He raised them with Dr. Ann that afternoon.
“There was evidence at the trial.” Leonard told her, “that the body can withstand a minor amount of strychnine. How much does it take to kill?”
“Not very much, about fifty milligrams, just a tiny bit in a teaspoon.”
Leonard leafed through the notes he’d made at the trial, looking for the testimony of Dr. Ellis.
“This is the defence lawyer questioning Dr. Ellis:
Defence- Did you find enough strychnine in the body to prove conclusively it was from strychnine that she had died?
Dr.Ellis- Most of whatever was there had dissipated.
Defence- So you didn’t find enough to kill her?
Dr.Ellis- No.
“What do you think of that?” Leonard asked Dr. Ann.
“I think it means there was a lack of forensic evidence to show the woman died of strychnine poisoning.” An important technical point, Leonard thought. That fact could have been useful to Cook’s defence, had it been raised at the trial.
“I understand it now,” he said. “Rosannah’s death bore the symptoms of strychnine, but there wasn’t enough in her body to prove it. It dissipates too fast. But if strychnine did cause her death, she must have consumed it sometime that night, not the previous afternoon. However you look at it, the jury had no evidence on which to convict Cook Teets.”
By now, Leonard had been in Toronto for more than a week. He decided he had learned all he was going to about the effects of strychnine. It was time to get home to Vandeleur. The next morning, he sought out Kaitlin and told her of his decision.