Down the lane, a child wailed and a door slammed. A cat watched a spot in a foundation, but other than a young boy across the way drawing pictures in the dirt, there were no signs of life, no activity in the lane. Alarm settled in the pit of Bianca’s stomach as she stepped inside Tenbrook’s building.
Again, Ferris Stannum’s rent was closed, but this time she ignored the door and listened to the sound of conversation coming from Goodwife Tenbrook’s quarters. All she heard was the muffled drone of men talking.
Bianca crept softly up the stairs, pausing to hear Barnabas Hughes speak. Amice responded. Another man, whose voice she did not recognize, asked a question. Unfortunately, Constable Patch enthusiastically chimed in. Bianca groaned at the thought of dealing with him yet again. Before ascending the final risers, she prepared herself for the inevitable scorn he would probably lob at her.
“Well nows,” said Constable Patch, looking past the physician when she stepped inside. A third man stood apart from the others, trimming his fingernails with a knife. He had the grubby attire and insolent air of a man used to performing unpleasant work. Bianca took him to be the bearer. “What an incidence to see you here,” crooned Patch.
“I came to collect some equipment from Ferris Stannum’s. I paid Amice for them.”
“That so?” He looked to Ferris Stannum’s daughter.
“Aye, it is true,” confirmed Amice.
Patch continued, “We seem to have another peculiar death on our hands. Two deaths in as many days at the same address. Do you not find that special?” The constable’s eyes widened. “Or, if not special then at least—interesting?”
Surprised and doubting it possible, Bianca shouldered past the physician and Constable Patch for a better look at Goodwife Tenbrook. The landlady had drawn her hands near her chin as if pulling up her sheet. Her body lay in rigid repose; her eyes stared fixedly on a jagged crack running along the beam overhead. Flies inched along her frame, exploring her ears and nose, landing in her mouth. The lips had thinned, exposing Tenbrook’s front teeth, her mouth forming an O. Could her final expression have been one of astonishment? Or perhaps she had taken a last gulp of breath. “Who found her?”
“I did,” said Amice. “She has the key to my father’s rent and if I wanted to get in, I had to see her first.” Amice rested her fists on her hips. “It’s my duty to tend to my father’s belongings. The old bit wanted the last say on every move I made. Serves her right.” She spoke directly to Tenbrook’s corpse. “Ye reap what ye sow.”
Bianca hoped Constable Patch recognized Amice’s frustration and would realize the words were spoken in anger. She still cringed when she thought about her own interrogation at his hands. And though Amice was feisty, she did not think the girl would be adept in proving her own innocence. “How did you get in to find her?”
“The door was open. I imagine she kept it cracked last night like everyone else did. ’Twas another mucky one. I doubt she worried that anyone might do her in while she slept.” Amice pinched her face in distaste. “Who would want to touch such an ugly old shrew?”
“So you found her this morning?”
“Aye, that. I have a rare day to myself. Shame to spend it chasing after a key and having to fetch a constable and all.”
Bianca turned to Hughes, the physician. “Did Constable Patch send for you?”
“I arrived as the coroner was finishing. I had told Mrs. Tenbrook I would return and see how she was faring. I didn’t expect to find her dead. My daughter is ill. I chose to care for her rather than indulge an old woman whose malady, I believed, stemmed from loneliness.”
“Has a cause of death been determined?”
“The sweat,” pronounced Constable Patch.
Bianca had thought Hughes had considered this when he attended her. He had not been concerned the disease was to blame for Tenbrook’s complaints. She looked over at the physician. “Do you agree with the coroner?”
Hughes straightened and pressed his palms together, bringing the tips of his fingers to rest on his lips. “Patch and I were just discussing my visit with Goodwife Tenbrook yesterday. I suppose it is possible. The disease can act swiftly.”
Bianca’s distress was momentarily forgotten by her need to clarify the physician’s findings. “But you did not suspect the sweat when you visited her, I thought.”
“I took it under consideration. However, I believed she was exaggerating her symptoms in a play for sympathy. Nothing gave me pause to think her complaints life threatening. She had been drinking heavily and I believed her malaise was a result.” The physician interjected a smile of assurance. “I often see this in older women, especially widows. A little attention and some kind words are a great consolation. When they get to be that age, they are often overcome with loneliness. Minor concerns can overwhelm them.”
“You gave her a draught,” said Bianca.
“I gave her a sleeping philter. You saw how agitated she was. A restful night’s sleep is a great balm for an unquiet mind.”
Bianca glanced at Constable Patch, who listened without comment. Just a few months before, he had accused her of poisoning her friend Jolyn, when all she had done was give her a tea to settle her nausea. Was this not similar? Yet Patch accepted Hughes’s explanation without question. Perhaps being a physician had its advantages. More likely, thought Bianca, a man’s explanation carried merit, while a woman’s did not.
“I recall Goodwife Tenbrook had said she could not breathe. You were not concerned that she had the sweating sickness yesterday?”
“What I took as a wheezy chest when I put my ear to her back could have been a symptom. However, the elderly often have an accumulation of phlegmic humour. After examining her, I saw no other evidence for the diagnosis.”
The streets murmured with rumors of the dread disease, yet the physician did not consider Tenbrook’s symptoms indicative of the sweat. Bianca remembered John’s fatigue and worried she would not recognize symptoms of the illness. “Can you tell me, sir, what symptoms do you look for?”
“Do you question my expertise?” said Hughes, turning haughty.
“Nay, sir,” said Bianca. “I wish to understand the disease so that I may cure it.”
“How pretentious to claim such a feat. What else have you—cured?”
“I am flattered you should like to know. Perhaps we might discuss my remedies someday. However, now I wish to learn more about the sweat.”
Constable Patch’s eyebrows lifted and his eyes shifted to Barnabas Hughes. Patch reveled in their brambly exchange. Apparently, he was not the sole recipient of the girl’s impudence.
The collector snorted, breaking the strained silence.
Called upon, Hughes launched into an explanation, offering more information than anyone, except Bianca, cared to know. “The afflicted suffer from a stinking sweat,” he said. “It is as if the disease opens the pores and drives every foul humour, every evil thought, every pollution, out of the body onto the surface of the skin. Faces flush. Victims complain their heads feel gripped with a squeezing pressure. They often rant and claim fantastic visions.”
Amice wandered off, searching Tenbrook’s cluttered living quarters for the key to her father’s room. She picked through the woman’s endless collections of scrap rope, torn pamphlets, and cracked pottery, certain that even a woman so disorganized must have a special place for keeping keys or other necessities.
“I have heard hearts beat with rapid, shallow pulse,” droned Barnabas Hughes. “I have seen the sick ask to have their thirst quenched, but it is never enough. They could drink a barrel of water and they would ask for more. But I have also witnessed the miraculous recovery of people so delirious that I suggested the family prepare themselves for their burial. Most often, by the time I am summoned, the short, panicked breaths and pressure in the chest have begun and there is nothing I can do to prevent the disease from running its course.”
Bianca was the only one listening. She thought of John, and besides his swe
ating, which she could attribute to the mercilessly humid weather, she did not believe he showed signs of the disease. Still, it was a concern and she wondered if John might have concealed a symptom to prevent her worrying.
Barnabas Hughes finished his discourse.
Bianca walked around to the other side of the bed. She got within inches of Tenbrook and studied her face. “Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about a victim’s skin when they die of the sweat?” She kept her eyes pinned to Goodwife Tenbrook’s complexion.
“Peculiar?” asked the physician.
“Have you ever examined their skin, or the eyes of one who has died of the disease?”
Barnabas Hughes exchanged looks with Constable Patch. They both looked at Bianca, puzzled.
“I do not see a flushed complexion, a hallmark of the disease, as you say.”
“If she died several hours ago,” said Hughes, “the febrile skin would have subsided.”
“How many hours does it take for the face to lose its color?”
“The process begins almost immediately.”
Hughes bent down to examine Tenbrook’s face. “Do you see something I may have missed?”
Bianca did. She shrugged, watching Amice and Hughes for their reactions.
Amice didn’t appear in the least interested. She was on a hunt, lifting jars and peering into them, biting her lower lip in distraction. Barnabas Hughes simply looked irritated.
Bianca expected Constable Patch to intervene. Aware she was overstepping the bounds of her station, she sensed both men’s growing disaffection. She moved away from the body and feigned interest in the table, which was strewn with the possessions of a woman who apparently kept everything.
Constable Patch was baffled by Bianca’s insinuation and utterly irritated with her. He waved the collector over. “Well nows,” he said. “I suppose we is done. It is too warm to further delay your duty.” He grimaced at the smell of excrement wafting from Tenbrook’s bedding. “Ye may take the body.” He stepped aside so the collector could strip Goodwife Tenbrook of her night shift and the crucifix she wore around her neck. “Take that as payment,” he said to the collector.
The man brought it up to one eye and squinted at the center garnet. He lifted his brow in thanks and positioned Mrs. Tenbrook on the bedsheet.
“If you do not need my further services, I shall take my leave.” Hughes bowed from the neck to Patch and glanced at Bianca. As he strode to the door with his leather satchel in hand, Bianca suddenly remembered a final question.
“Sir,” she said, hailing him back.
Barnabas Hughes reluctantly turned.
“Do you know where Thomas Plumbum lives?”
His voice weary, the physician gave her directions. “If that is all, God keep you.”
The sound of his footfall echoed through the building as Constable Patch and Bianca watched him disappear down the stairs. They turned back to the bearer, who finished tucking in the ends of the winding sheet.
“Ha!” said Amice, holding up a key with a length of hemp tied to it. She went over to the bed, where Mrs. Tenbrook’s wrapped body lay looking like a link of gray sausage. “Thought you could keep me from claiming my rightful due, did you? All your mean and miserly ways got you nowhere. Well”—Amice jutted her chin forward to suggest some cordial advice to the deceased—“it got you dead is what it got you.”
While Constable Patch watched Amice, Bianca scanned the table looking for the cup Barnabas Hughes had used to administer the sleeping tincture to Goodwife Tenbrook. It had a blue glaze near the lip, and she found it amid the jumble of objects on Tenbrook’s table. She dropped it in her pocket. Also thrown onto the mess was the near empty bottle of wine Tenbrook had taken from Ferris Stannum’s room. “Amice,” said Bianca, stepping away from the table. “Can you open your father’s door so I may get the retorts?”
Amice finished chiding the sausage and looked over. “Aye,” she said. “Come on.” She trooped from the room with Bianca in tow, leaving Constable Patch to follow the collector as he started down the stairs carrying the body.
CHAPTER 17
Bianca took a retort that looked like the head of an ibis with its long beak protruding from the side. She also chose two smaller retorts before leaving Amice to organize the leavings of her father’s alchemy room. She told Amice she would ask Thomas Plumbum if he cared for any of Stannum’s equipment, but that was not the only reason she wanted to meet with the man.
Tucking the smaller devices under her armpits and stashing the bottle of wine in her pocket along with Tenbrook’s cup, she was able to carry the larger retort. She jangled as she walked, clattering with breakable goods. As soon as she took a precarious step into the lane, the boy across the way, who had spent the morning drawing pictures in the dirt outside his family’s rent, skipped over to see what she was about.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the copper contraption she carried.
“It is a retort,” said Bianca and the boy fell into step beside her.
“What’s it do?”
“It helps separate liquids when I heat them.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it is what I do.” Bianca glanced at the child walking barefoot beside her. “I make medicinals.”
“Medicinals?” he echoed, quickening his step to keep up.
Bianca’s mind was on Thomas Plumbum, and she walked briskly in spite of her burden, in an attempt to lose the grubby gamin. But he kept pace with her.
“Is you a conjurer like that old man who just dieds?”
“I am far from being a conjurer. I cook balms to help people overcome illness and disease.”
“Ah,” said the boy, skipping backward in front of her. “For a penny I’ll carry those for you.” He pointed to the retorts under her arms. “You look as if your hands is full.”
“I can manage well enough.”
The boy ignored her rebuff. “I seen the collector carry out a body. Was it the old lady?”
“It was.”
The boy picked up a rock and hurled it as far as he could in front of them. “First the old man, then the old woman. What they die ofs?”
“It is not certain,” said Bianca, wishing the boy would lose interest. But she harbored a kindness to children, especially those with an inquisitive nature, having been so inclined herself. “Mayhap it was just old age.”
The boy became thoughtful. “Well,” he said at last. “I will miss the old lady.”
Bianca glanced at him. “Were you on familiar terms?”
“I was. She used to give me a penny to run errands for her.”
The two turned the corner and were thrust into the brilliant sunlight of a wider lane. With the sun came the cruel heat and their pace slowed. “What sorts of errands?”
“Delivering letters. Like I did when she found the old man dead. I guess I won’t be making any more money from her.”
Bianca stopped walking. She turned to face the boy. “You say you delivered a letter for Mrs. Tenbrook the day Ferris Stannum died?”
“Aye. It was to that puffer on Soper Lane. I seen him visit the old man the day before the collector came for his body. You was there, too. And that man with the leather satchel.”
“Do you know what the letter was about?”
The boy shook his head. “But I was to wait for an answer after he read it.”
“What answer did he give?” Bianca watched him intently, hanging on his every word.
The boy shrugged. “He said, ‘Yes.’”
“Yes?”
The boy readily answered with a nod, hoping to win favor with her. But suddenly, those astonishing blue eyes bored into him, making him squirm under her scrutiny. He realized, too late, that he had shared too much of what he knew. He kicked himself for being smitten with her and for losing the chance to make some coin.
“Did the alchemist give you anything to return to Mrs. Tenbrook?”
The boy forced himself to look away. He
might still have a chance to make a penny. He clamped his mouth shut and made no indication one way or the other.
Bianca repeated her question.
Still he remained silent.
She moved up against the side of a residence, set down the beaky-nosed retort and alembics. Feeling around in her pocket, she dug out a coin and held it up. “Does this help you remember?”
The boy snatched the coin from her hand before she could reconsider. “Nay,” he said. “He gave me nothing for her.” Gleeful he had made enough for a loaf of Carter’s bread, he couldn’t control his sudden appetite and skipped away, leaving Bianca to ponder what she had just learned.
Bianca tucked the retorts under her arms and stepped into the flow of pedestrians. What could have been in the note to Thomas Plumbum? Maybe Tenbrook sent word that Ferris Stannum had died. Bianca sniffed. Tenbrook was not the sort to inform people of Stannum’s death out of consideration for those who loved him. Nay, she would contact others only if in some way she could have benefited.
Tenbrook had taken exception to Amice selling her father’s equipment because she believed she had the right to collect Stannum’s back rent. The landlady purposely kept the key from Amice. If Amice wanted into her father’s room of alchemy, she had to go to Goodwife Tenbrook first. It made sense that the landlady would contact Plumbum to see if he was interested in buying any of Stannum’s paraphernalia.
Bianca regretted not having paid more attention to the boy. He was observant and keen to use his wits to make coin. She wondered what more she could have learned from him. At least she knew where to find him.
Overhead, laundry stretched between facing buildings, hanging limp in the languid summer air. Bianca would pay a visit to Thomas Plumbum once she deposited her retorts at home. She hoped John had recovered and gone to Boisvert’s. If he had, then she could concentrate on finding answers to Ferris Stannum’s death without inciting his comment.
Death of an Alchemist Page 13