by David Pirie
‘If it is a relative,’ said Stark impudently. ‘By the by, what in the world has happened to your Miss Scott? We thought you were walking out with her, and now the women I see at the library say she has gone to London.’
‘I believe she has,’ I said.
‘But Doyle,’ said Neill, ‘you must tell us, is it true you had trysts in Latimer’s lab?’
‘A strange kind of tryst,’ I said quickly. ‘The women only needed to practise their dissection and I offered help. Now, what of our quest for Agnes?’
But we were already footsore and exhausted. Neill saw some women’s heads peering out of another house of assignation a little way down. He called at them, ‘Agnes Walsh?’
As always they shook their heads.
‘Well,’ said Neill, grinning, ‘let us try something more exciting.’ And to my amazement he whooped and yelled out, ‘Jesse James! John Wesley Harding!’
The women laughed at these antics.
‘Who in the world are they?’ I asked.
‘They are Western heroes,’ said Stark. ‘He was telling me about them today.’
‘Yes,’ said Neill, excidedly. ‘Harding has a notch on his gun for every kill, and he’s rumoured to have twenty-three. Jesse James is a Christian gentleman who robbed a train in Iowa and gave three million dollars to a Southern school. The place is so vast. You could search for years and not find a man. And think of how hard we have found it tonight in just one small town. Come on, let us return to Rutherford’s. We are doing ourselves no good at all here.’
The memory of that fruitless evening quest for Agnes Walsh colours all the days and weeks that came after it. For now, just at the moment I so desperately needed to pursue the case against our mysterious assailant, it seemed to come to a complete standstill. The Doctor was gracious enough when I told him I could make no headway in my search for Agnes Walsh, but I could see he was frustrated. And his frustration grew as week followed week with no new development.
But none of this affected my mood on the days I visited Elsbeth. Mrs Henderson turned out to be a small, exceedingly friendly woman of tidy habits. But quite soon she went to St Andrews for her annual holiday fortnight, leaving us alone to walk among the dunes or sit in that beautiful beach hut, staring out at the water. It was, I think, on my third visit that she broached the subject of Sir Henry Carlisle. We were sitting in the tiny kitchen, it was cloudy outside, and Elsbeth had been a little quieter than usual, absently kneading the blue scarf she was wearing with her hand. No doubt she was wrestling with her conscience, for she knew the question she wanted to ask was inviting a breach of confidence. But in the end her natural sympathy for her sister overcame any scruples.
I was discussing Lady Sarah’s condition and had laid out the matter delicately yet I hope reasonably clearly. I never specified the infection, for Bell was adamant I should not, but I felt it only fair to provide enough indications so she could reach her own conclusions.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘this infection … you are in a position of confidence and I do not press you for a final diagnosis, but I wish to know one aspect, which is this. Was it passed by her husband?’
And she looked at me with eyes that held so much quiet feeling, waiting for an answer.
Of course I had to give her one and in the end common sense triumphed over medical etiquette. ‘I believe so,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘In which case,’ she said very quietly, ‘I would very much like to kill him.’
The softness of her tone in no way detracted from its passion. I stared at her and she nodded.
‘It is why, as you may have noticed, I never speak of him.’ She was trembling now and my heart ached for her. ‘You see before you a woman doctor with means and with motive. The act could perhaps be disguised as part of something else. His nocturnal habits seem promising.’ And then some of the spirit went out of her and she turned away. ‘But do not worry,’ she spoke haltingly, the tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Unfortunately the scheme has a flaw. Even now, after all that has happened, I am persuaded my poor sister actually loves him.’
I took her in my arms then and she wept. Of course I could not tell her what I suspected. Until I had conclusive evidence, it would only be terrifying her with my own notions. And the last thing I wanted was for her to come running back to Edinburgh where she was surely most at risk. I thanked God that here she at least was away from him. If only we could help her sister to escape.
Sometime later that afternoon the sun came out and we went to the beach house and perhaps, because of this confidence, something had changed. Our manner together was slower, more languid, as if we were both in a kind of dream. We started to talk of Africa and her memories of it.
‘Have you ever thought,’ she said, as we stared out, ‘that we do not know what we will remember? Now I think I will recall this beach and this hut and both of us here and the things we have said.’ She turned. ‘And your eyes reflecting the colour of the sand. But who knows? Perhaps I will only remember the dull book I read before you came.’
The words made a big impression on me. I wanted so much to give her things she would remember. And so in reply to this, without any preparation, I asked her to marry me.
For a moment she looked shocked. We had an understanding, but I had not before thought it right to introduce the subject formally. She moved back and away from me. ‘Do not mock me,’ she said.
But I put my arms round her, and she knew it was true. The next few hours were full of plans and kisses and laughter and fevered talk. And later, for some reason, as we were walking on the beach, she sang a song under her breath.
And one could whistle
And one could sing
And one could play on the violin
Such joy there was at my wedding
On Christmas day in the morning
My heart pounded with excitement as I rode the train back to Edinburgh, but there was news awaiting me. Bell had been to see Lady Sarah and found her feverish and agitated, while Carlisle had almost made up his mind to seek a second opinion. No final decision had been taken, but the Doctor felt it would only be a matter of days. If there was further deterioration, Elsbeth must be informed at once, and no doubt Sir Henry would bring in a doctor more to his liking, one who would essentially act as his lackey. After such a wonderful day, I dreaded the prospect of returning to Dunbar with news of this kind.
Of course, I wanted to see Lady Sarah but Bell counselled against it, for we both knew how her husband would react. The next day I found the very idea of going to lectures intolerable. I wanted to act. After pacing the university in a state of agitation, I decided I had to do something and so, without much hope, I set out once again through the city to try and find word of Agnes Walsh.
After visiting the usual streets with absolutely no result, I was soon searching further afield. As before I received only blank glances and shaking heads, but one woman who was cleaning her step, not so far from the dockside brothel I had once explored with Bell, went rapidly inside and slammed the door.
Yet I felt I must persevere, and the memory of that day fades into others like it. At night I made frantic notes on the case, striving for a way through, looking for some connection I had missed. Some weeks earlier my father had, for the first time, been taken to an asylum and I found some solace of a self-pitying kind standing in his now abandoned study, staring forlornly at the odd paintings, wondering if he would ever return to us and to his room. During the day and evening I continued to roam the streets.
Eventually, having failed so miserably to extract any information from the women I approached, one windy afternoon I turned to other sources and started asking among the beggars who congregated on the corner where poor Samuel had fallen. They at least talked to me, but it was clear they had never heard of Agnes Walsh. At last I gave up and had started on my way home in a dejected state, when suddenly from behind me there came a great cry. ‘Please, help, oh, please, sir.’
I whirled around to
see a woman running after me. She was wearing bright clothes but her face was pale and frightened and she looked quite distraught. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I have seen you here before, sir. You said you were medical. You were asking for Agnes, sir. Agnes Walsh.’
It was the first time any of these women had ever mentioned the name aloud. I was amazed.
‘Yes,’ I said at once as she came up to me panting for breath. ‘I have been trying to trace her. Do you know where she is?’
‘No.’ The woman looked at me beseechingly. ‘But I know someone who knew her. And, sir, if you are medical, we are in need of a doctor. My friend, she is taken very ill. She is near, sir, please, will you come?’
THE STRANGE MEDICINE
We hurried down a side street, then a wynd and into a small rooming establishment. I had never seen it before but it was the kind of place we had tried so often when seeking an answer to our puzzle. She led me at once to a small untidy sitting room, which smelt foul, and here all was commotion. A woman in a purple dress was holding another, who was bent double and vomiting into a yellow ceramic basin. The invalid was wrapped in a blanket but a nightgown lay on the floor beside them.
‘This man will help,’ said my guide, and the woman in purple turned and I saw her look of fear. ‘Oh please, sir, she is taken so poorly.’
I moved quickly to the other woman, who was still retching. Some of the filthy water slopped out on to me but I felt her forehead, which was cool, and her pulse was steady.
‘You’re not feverish,’ I said. She retched again but nothing came. ‘I am only a student doctor, but it is something you have eaten.’
‘It is something she has eaten all right,’ said the woman in purple, who had dark hair and dark eyes.
And now the poor girl who was so afflicted straightened up, breathing heavily. She was very pale, staggered a little, but managed to reach a chair and sat down in it with a great groan of relief. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh. Ah … Ah feel a wee bit better. But I thought it wouldna stop.’
I could see the worst had passed. ‘You will feel very weak, you must sit quietly.’
‘Aye, I will, sir. Thank you. Aye, I feel better now. It was like it would go on for ever.’
‘What was it you ate?’ I asked. ‘For we should make sure nobody else takes it.’
The dark woman in purple gave a bitter smile at that. ‘Aye, we should that. You’d better tell the truth, Kate.’
Now Kate, who had been sick, looked away from me, still giving little gasps for air. But her friend put a hand on her, half of comfort and half remonstrance.
‘Come on, you must,’ she urged.
‘Yes, please tell me.’ For I had caught the eye of the woman who brought me here and recalled her tantalising words. ‘I would like to hear. What has done this?’
Kate looked up and the woman in purple pointed at the nightgown lying on the floor. Kate nodded. I was baffled until the woman went over to it and took something out that had been lying underneath. I stared in astonishment.
For she was holding a little red box, its top embroidered in scarlet. It reminded me of nothing so much as the box Lady Sarah had been holding in her bedroom, though I had only seen that briefly. I took it from her eagerly and opened it. It was a pill box, but to my disappointment it was empty.
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked Kate, making an effort to sound less excited than I was.
Kate didn’t answer for a long time, though some of her colour was returning. ‘A gentleman,’ she said at last. ‘He was a gentleman.’
‘She has the rest of the pills, sir, but she has hidden them,’ said the woman in purple to me before turning back to Kate. ‘You must give them up now.’
‘She is right, Kate,’ I said but I spoke gently. I hardly wanted to scare the girl at this stage. ‘Did you know this gentleman?
Kate nodded. ‘Aye, sir, I kent him from afore. I used to work at the madame’s and he would come there a good deal once.’
‘At Madame Rose’s?’ I felt slightly giddy, as if I had gulped a glass of water and found it was brandy.
She nodded. ‘He is a good-looking gentleman. Some said he was a lord. We had not seen him for a while. Since his particular friend left.’
‘And that friend,’ I said, ‘his friend was Agnes Walsh?’
There was a palpable reaction in the room to the name. Both women fixed their eyes on Kate.
‘Aye, sir. But she had left. We never speak o’ her, but ah ken where the grave is. Near Greyfriars.’
‘Her grave?’ I could not restrain my excitement now. ‘So she is dead?’
The woman who had brought me here nodded. ‘She died some months ago, but nobody talks of her for she had the pox and she brought us all bad luck.’
Naturally I asked how she died, but here there was only confusion. Kate supposed Agnes had drowned herself, but the woman in purple contradicted her and said she had died of her own disease. Clearly Agnes Walsh had become something of an outcast in her last weeks, her condition was hardly something these other women wished to advertise. I asked them again about the mysterious man who had liked her. Kate was the one who knew him best, but she had not seen him since she had left Madame Rose’s, and then, by chance, they had met last night when he stepped out of a hansom. She had been standing, hoping to attract some custom, and she thought he must have stopped for her.
‘He asked if I was clean. And I said I was. Then he come here and paid and we lay on that bed, sir. He talked to another girl here too. Harriet. I think he likes her, but she’s no here. Then after we got up, I said how I felt a little poorly, and he tells me he knows doctors. And he gave me the pills. Said it was for my liver, sir.’
Evidently she had held back from taking one until earlier that day, then had taken only a small amount, yet its effect had been dramatic as I saw. Now I begged Kate to give me the pills, but for some reason this seemed to frighten her. ‘You are a student, sir.’ I cursed the fact I had told them this. She shook her head. ‘It is the business of a doctor, sir. A proper doctor.’
The other women remonstrated with her, but Kate was adamant, for, as her strength returned, so did her anxiety. At once I told them I would return with one of the most distinguished doctors of the town, and on no account must she touch the pills before then.
As luck would have it, Bell was not in his room but in the square outside, where I saw him striding with his retinue, towards one of the larger lecture halls. I managed to reach him almost as he entered.
‘Dr Bell! I must talk to you.’ He turned and I saw his reaction. It was only now that I realised what a sight I was. Not only had I been running: my shirt and jacket showed abundant traces of the foul contents of Kate’s basin.
But Bell came over to me. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘I have a lecture to give.’ The other doctors were waiting by the entrance, obviously perplexed, but they could not hear us.
‘It is Carlisle. I am sure of it. He has killed twice. Another woman has been very nearly poisoned today. And he may yet kill his wife.’
I produced that sinister red box from my pocket as I spoke. Bell stared at it. I had described the box I saw at Lady Sarah’s to him and he was quick enough to make the connection. There was just a moment’s pause and then he turned and made his way back to the other doctors. ‘I am afraid,’ he informed them with due gravity, ‘I have an urgent medical case that cannot wait. You will have to step in for me, gentlemen.’
As a hansom drove us back through the narrow streets to Kate’s little dwelling, the Doctor sat back, eyes closed, listening to my story. He opened them only to study the pill box which I had shown him. For some reason he was particularly interested by the inside lining and smelt it judiciously.
I suppose I had expected praise, but none was forthcoming. He merely remarked that it was fortunate I had caught him before the lecture and soon we were back in the wynd, rapping on the door. Fortunately Kate herself answered, and at once the Doctor exuded charm and authority. ‘I am Dr Bell,’ he s
aid, smiling. ‘The Professor of Operative Surgery. And I understand you have been ill, madam?’ Kate, who looked much better, was so impressed by this imposing figure in black hat and coat that she could not quite bring herself to answer, but simply nodded and curtsied and led him once again into that little room.
It was tidier now, and, though still cramped, the basin was nowhere to be seen. Bell made her sit down and sat close beside her, talking in a low voice as he enquired diligently into her symptoms. When he was quite satisfied she was over the worst, he proceeded to hear her story much as I had heard it. But he remained utterly patient, asking only the occasional question about the man’s appearance which elicited little except that he was good-looking with thick dark hair.
At last, he told her gravely that it was essential that he saw what remained of the pills she had been given. She nodded and turned away from us. I still do not know quite where she had them, perhaps in some pocket, but when she turned back she was holding four pills.
The Doctor took them eagerly in the palm of his hand and smelt them.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘Kate. I am glad to see you are stronger. But you will tell me exactly what he said to do and what you did and when.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl, who I was beginning to admire a little. There was clarity in her blue eyes and a certain determination in her face. In fact, I reflected ruefully, she had probably been quite right to reserve her pills for someone who wielded more authority than I did. ‘He said to take the three, sir. But I didn’t take them till this morning. I was going to do as he said but the smell of them put me off, sir …’
The Doctor leaned forward. ‘So what did you take.’
‘I only took a bit of one.’ She kept her eyes on him, a little frightened now as if he would scold her.
‘You are sensible, then,’ said the Doctor. ‘What happened to the rest of that one?’
‘I put it in the gutter, sir, when I slopped out my bowl.’