The Alchemy of Murder

by Carol McCleary

  “Frankly, Messieurs Doctors, a finding that the sewers were the cause would not be unwelcome by our government because it would rebut the baseless allegations that the fever is a plot to rid the country of its poor. But if not the sewers, then we must find the cause. Doctor Pasteur, your past services to France have been inestimable. And once again the country must call upon you. The crisis has reached new proportions because something of the most serious nature has occurred. It has spread to this area, La Poivrière.”

  Pasteur ran his own finger across the map. “So, it has spread across the city from the original site.”

  “Not spread, but jumped from one area of destitute people to another locale of the poor, passing over the more affluent areas.”

  Pasteur scoffed. “Microbes don’t pick their victims based upon their monetary worth or social position.”

  “Exactly what the radicals are shouting when they accuse the government of poisoning the poor. So why has the fever bypassed the well-to-do sections and struck the poor?”

  Pasteur and Roth exchanged looks. They found nothing in the samples to explain the epidemic from a scientific point of view, let alone from a study of society. Roth knew that even if Pasteur had a theory as to what was happening, he would not voice it. He was known for his reticence even to his closest associates when it came to expressing opinions prior to all the evidence being examined.

  “Tell me about the sewer openings in this new area of contagion. Is there anything unusual about them?” Pasteur asked.

  “The sewer facilities in the area are the same as many thousands of others in this city of over two million. There’s no reason for the Black Fever to strike lethally in one neighborhood and mildly in another. You scoff at the notion that a miasma was responsible for the outbreak. While a certain number of us in government would privately support your opinion about sewer gases, it’s the only explanation that the public considers credible. What else are we to tell them? That a politically minded microbe has decided to kill off the poor of the city?”

  Pasteur was silent, but his face revealed his opinion that such a theory was absurd.

  The minister waved at his aide. “Give them the samples.”

  The aide sat a box on the desk.

  “These are from Pigalle Hospital, which is where all Black Fever victims are sent. We are keeping that facility as our medical command center to reduce the possibility of further spread of the disease. I took the liberty of having Doctor Dubois at the hospital provide blood and tissue samples of the most recent victims.”

  “We shall examine the samples immediately. But I would have preferred to have taken them myself.”

  The minister looked pained. “As you know, the medical practitioners—”

  “Yes, yes, but I need your assurance that these samples were taken from a person immediately after death.”

  “The time of death and the time the samples were taken are on each bottle. Tell me, Monsieur Doctor, are there any conclusions at all that you’ve arrived at? I’ll be asked by the president at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting.”

  “For certain the fever does not spontaneously generate from inside the body. Like the plague, typhoid, and other contagions, it is caused by an invasion of a person by a microbe. The culprit is a parasite that attacks the body after it enters. While it is possible that the microbe breeds in the sewers and enters our bodies through contact with air or drinking water, at this point we have not established how the contact is made or how it spreads.”

  “Until we know, Messieurs, you understand that we must support the miasma theory.”

  “I leave politics to those of you who practice that art. From a scientific point of view, the decisive proof will be to discover the presence of the microbe by examining it in a sterile culture. That is what we shall do.”

  * * *

  PASTEUR AND ROTH retired to the laboratory with the new samples from Pigalle Hospital and immediately began testing.

  Microbes were mainly aquatic creatures that had to live in liquid to survive. When the “host” they infected died and bodily fluids dried up, most microbes also died, though some of them instead went into a state of hibernation—“spores” covered by hard shells, waiting to be picked up by another host. Once they found a warm, comfortable sea to live in, such as the human bloodstream, they grew and multiplied at an inconceivable rate. Microbes that carried human disease—plague, cholera, small pox, and dozens of other ailments—found the human body a bounty of food and shelter, an ocean of plenty.

  When a sample of blood and tissue was drawn from an infected person it provided a culture they could use to experiment with, enabling them to identify the microbe and learn how it spread and how to stop it.

  Their first examination of the samples was the most basic possible. Using sterile utensils and sterile plates, they took a piece of each sample and examined it under the microscope looking for microbes. Blood and urine were ordinarily sterile. Even when not sterile, a common microbe, like one causing a urinary tract infection, would be recognizable to them and eliminated as a cause of the Black Fever.

  Dr. Pasteur gave René and Roth precise instructions as to how he wanted the samples set up. This procedure was quite tiring—examining the samples in an undiluted state and then placing a drop of each sample in various mediums under varying conditions.

  Some microbes thrived when exposed to air, others existed without oxygen. Some lived only in a vacuum, others in pure carbonic acid. Like humans, they were particular about the temperatures they could survive in—while some could survive boiling water, others perished with a few degrees change in temperature.

  When an aide complained of the many tests Pasteur demanded, he told them, “Ce n’est pas la mer à boire.” It’s not the sea to swallow. He tolerated no malingering from his staff. Like a general leading an army, he demanded heroic efforts and was always the first to give such efforts.

  Soon after becoming employed at the Institut, Roth learned that the Pasteurians were proud that they were the only laboratory in France where it was possible to properly handle microbes, exposing them to an indefinite number of successive mediums, searching for the microbe’s favorite, instead of limited to just a few soups.

  All had to be done carefully. Microbes were invisible killers. One could spend thousands of hours examining an invisible entity and be struck down by a single lapse in handling the specimen.

  When Roth finished examining samples under the microscopes, he told Dr. Pasteur, “I’m unable to isolate a microbe.”

  The frown on his face showed his disappointment.

  “There’s no reaction from laboratory animals commiserate with what one would expect. Even if the microbe is too small to be seen under our microscopes, it is not too small to kill.” Pasteur was puzzled. “We should be able to detect it in other ways.”

  * * *

  RENÉ, WHO HAD been working in an adjoining lab, interrupted Roth with his findings. “Tomas, once again I have encountered strange results from samples sent by Doctor Dubois. The specimen is marked as taken from a Black Fever victim, but I suspect that death was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  Carbon monoxide deaths were common in the winter months because most heating was done with coal. Poor people in small rooms with coal braziers were most susceptible.

  “Perhaps the person succumbed to poisoned air because he was weakened by the fever and couldn’t get out of the room.”

  René shook his head.

  Roth could see he was very disturbed. René knew how meticulous Pasteur was and feared making a mistake.

  “This isn’t the first time I haven’t been able to isolate a fever microbe in specimens this doctor Dubois has sent … and every specimen points to other ailments as the cause of death. I am completely stumped. I haven’t told Doctor Pasteur about my findings, but I feel now—”

  “You’re right, let me check them before you approach him. In the meantime, I’ll speak to him about me contacting Dubois and see if h
e will let me obtain specimens directly.”

  29

  An urgent message from the minister once again sped Pasteur and Roth from the Institut, this time to an impoverished district where an outbreak of the fever had occurred.

  They proceeded behind the health department director’s carriage to the tenement house they were to investigate, both of them wishing that they could make the investigation sans the company of the pompous and arrogant Doctor Brouardel and his assistant. Brouardel had no idea what science was really about or what it was capable of accomplishing.

  As the carriages halted on the corrupted cobblestone street in front of the tenement, they entered into a world of prostitutes, pimps, petty criminals, and the poorest of laborers. Three police wagons were lined up, waiting for them. A crowd had gathered. The message from the minister stated that the police would be present in case of any “disturbance.”

  Pasteur and Roth stepped down from their carriage. A dozen street children, hollow-eyed mudlarks with dirty faces and pinched bodies followed their movements with the intensity of lab rats. There was a sad cunning in the faces of these children: only the clever survived this milieu where young girls withered into whores and boys became fodder for the guillotine.

  Women who paused to note their arrival watched them with defeated eyes recessed in dark sockets; broken men, leading lives of quiet desperation, their hope crushed by the vicious trap of poverty, stared at the coaches and clothes as if they had been purchased with food taken from their children’s mouths. A black flag of anarchy hung from a window of the tenement. Desperate people listened to anyone who promised them bread.

  There was grumbling among those gathered. “Have you been sent to kill more of us?” a man yelled.

  “That’s Monsieur Doctor Pasteur,” an awed voice piped in.

  The crowd buzzed with the name and they parted respectfully as the scientists walked into the tenement in the accompaniment of four officers. Pasteur’s relationship with the medical profession was controversial, to say the least, but to the rest of France, he was a national treasure.

  The health director and his young assistant remained in their carriage, declining to step out. Cowards. They would never understand what the people were going through. Nor did they care.

  The concierge greeted Pasteur and Roth at the entry. “Welcome, Messieurs, welcome.”

  He was a revolting creature wearing a dirty shirt whose original color was lost under a goulash of food stains and grime; heavy suspenders held up worn pants and a globular belly.

  It was morning and he smelled of wine, garlic, sweat, and even less pleasant things, the likes of which got thrown into the sewer hole from chamber pots. Under a microscope, no doubt, he would have proved to possess more microbes than a barrel of sewer sludge.

  “You’ve had a number of deaths from the fever,” Pasteur said. “Has this building suffered more than others?”

  “Oui. At least half the people in the building have had the fever and eighteen have died.”

  The tenement house covered half a city block, seven stories of smoke blackened stone, crowded around a filthy cesspool of a courtyard. The only “plumbing” fixture was a pump handle in the center of the courtyard to draw water. The sewer hole they came to inspect was in a small room on the ground floor. A metal cover that had long ago rusted opened and a trail of droppings from chamber pots were the only furnishings. Pigeons cooed from the rafters as they entered.

  “Take samples,” Pasteur instructed Roth.

  The smell inside was worse than they had experienced in the sewer. The sewer smell was almost chemical. The room had the odor of human waste. It occurred to Roth that in many ways the sewer, where waste was periodically flushed out completely, was more sanitary than the pest hole of a room. The sewer opening was the suspected source of the miasma inhaled when people came to empty their chamber pots.

  “When a family suffered the fever, did it usually begin with the person who disposes of the family’s chamber pot?” Pasteur asked.

  The concierge shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Everyone gets it, Monsieur, all that God wants to have it.”

  “Of the people who died, how many were men, women, children?”

  “Nine women, five men, four children.”

  Most dumping of chamber pots would be done by women and older children, exposing them more to the sewer hole. But that fact meant very little. Women were also more likely to care for the sick, and thus were more exposed to it, and children, along with old people, were most likely to perish from the fever.

  “Tell me, Monsieur Concierge,” Pasteur said, “is there anything about your building that is different from the others around it?”

  “My building is better run and cleaner than any around.”

  Pasteur and Roth exchanged looks and abandoned any notion of getting information from the man. There was little difference about this tenement building, the people in it, or the way waste was disposed of, than thousands of other buildings in the city. Most private homes, except those of the very rich, lacked up-to-date plumbing. And even the rich often had less effective plumbing than was available to the Romans two thousand years ago.

  During their earlier venture in the sewer, Dr. Brouardel boasted that he refused to have plumbing installed in his own home out of fear that the pipes would draw poisonous fumes into the house from the sewer. Pasteur and Roth both scoffed at the notion. Plumbing with proper traps kept out sewer fumes, but many people still maintained the notion that the pipes would let in poisonous gases.

  When Roth finished gathering samples, he found Pasteur staring up at the ceiling. Pigeons were coming and going through a hole near the ceiling and nesting in the rafters.

  “Pigeons,” Pasteur said in almost a whisper, watching, lost in a world of his own. He had found another piece to the mystery.

  The director’s assistant stuck his head in the room. The fool was wearing a nosegay. “Messieurs, the Director inquires as to whether you are ready to leave.” He sounded like a scared child. “A problem is mounting out here.”

  A much larger crowd had gathered outside and continued growing as people throughout the neighborhood became aware of their presence. Men wearing the red scarves of revolutionaries were arguing with the police officers.

  “They’ve come to murder more poor people!” a Red yelled.

  Another shouted, “All oppressors of the people must die.”

  The building manager was trying to sneak away when Pasteur’s sharp command stopped him. “Monsieur Concierge, have you discovered any dead pigeons or other birds?”

  “No, Monsieur.”

  “How about any dead animals? Dogs, cats, rats?”

  “No. But there would be none of those.”

  “Why?”

  “The people eat them. Pigeons, too, when they can catch them.”

  Pasteur continued staring up at the ceiling, oblivious to the chaos outside. Roth took his arm and hurried him toward the carriage for Roth was certain a riot was to unfold at any moment. The director had exited his carriage and walked beside them.

  “What have you concluded?” he asked.

  Pasteur stared at him dumbfounded. “I don’t reach conclusions from staring at tea leaves, Monsieur Director.”

  “Are you accusing me of being a witch doctor?”

  “I was speaking of my own methods, not yours. I must return to my lab and test the samples. Now, you must excuse me. I’m tired and hungry and wish to return to the Institut before I’m murdered by anarchists.”

  As their carriage rumbled away, Pasteur leaned back, worn and fragile. His hands were shaking from the exertion and his complexion was pale. Pasteur said something and Roth, deep in thought, didn’t catch it.

  “What did you say?”

  Pasteur’s eyes fluttered open for just a second. “Pigeons and frogs.”

  Pigeons and frogs. A microbe that killed humans and rats, but not pigeons and frogs. What did hot-blooded birds and cold-blooded amphibians hav
e in common that protected them from the microbe?

  30

  Nellie

  During the carriage ride to the Café Procope to meet Jules I decide not to tell him about the man who inquired about me at the café and the large man in the alley. Best I proceed with caution, until I know I can trust him. Besides, he may have hired the large man to spy on me. His comment about coming to Paris to kill a man still buzzes in my head.

  When I enter the café and observe Jules sitting at his table writing with the ghost of Voltaire by his side, I find myself drawn to him in a romantic way. He’s quite attractive with his salt-and-pepper hair, strong jawbones, and imagination—traits I’ve always been drawn to. I love a man with an active and intelligent mind. Like my father.

  He’s writing frantically, captured by an idea, perhaps another balloon journey to a mysterious island or to the bottom of the sea in a submersible. What a thrill it must be for the writer to play God, creating a world and populating it with people and places of their imagination.

  I shake my head. These silly, romantic thoughts are plain out ridiculous. This is just a business arrangement, nothing else. I must stay focused. Besides, as my mother would tell me, he’s too old for me.

  The maitre d’ maintains a pretense that this is the first time he’s seen me as he escorts me to the table.

  “Are you ready to continue your crusade, Mademoiselle?” Jules asks, putting aside foolscap and pen. “This mad passion to find this creature of your nightmares?”

  My affinity with the man flies out the window.

  “My crusade, Monsieur Verne? I don’t mind playing Joan of Arc to your country, doing the work of the police, but my penchant for sacrifice falls short of being burned at the stake. Furthermore, he’s not a creature of my nightmares, but of your city.”

  “Mademoiselle Brown,” Jules stands up, “I stand corrected. I just hope I won’t be burned along with you. Shall we go?”

  I am amazed at how quickly this man can turn my heart around; one minute I have a deep affection toward him, the next I could strangle him, and then he’s back to warming my heart. I could use a café au lait and a sweet roll, but I smile graciously and we leave.