The Alchemy of Murder

by Carol McCleary

“First the frogs and rats, and now the worms. And the birds … I must not forget the birds.” Pasteur is lost in very deep thoughts.

  “Frogs, rats, worms, and birds?” I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t know about frogs and things, but I do know a woman died from the fever literally before my eyes.”

  My statement awakens Pasteur from his thoughts, “Tell me about her again. Tell me everything you saw.”

  I describe in great detail what happened that night before the graveyard incident and afterward, meeting Dubois, and what I saw the next day at the hospital. The great man taps a pencil on his desk as he sees beyond anything we can envision. An absolute stillness grips the room. I’m afraid to even move—afraid I will break the spell. Finally, he leans back in his chair and expels a great sigh.

  “There is an inconsistency, one that bothers me a great deal.”

  “And that is?” I have to ask.

  “The condition of the woman you saw being autopsied by Doctor Dubois. You described her blood as thick and black. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s how I remember it.”

  “Even the innards you saw were blackened.”

  “Yes.”

  “Doctor Dubois told you that they were typical symptoms of the Black Fever. Yes?”

  “Correct. Is that a problem?”

  “Black blood in the viscera can be caused by an invasion of the anthrax bacteria. Anthrax can only grow and multiply in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen gives blood its bright color; anthrax consumes the oxygen and turns blood blackish.”

  “Perun’s been infecting women with anthrax!” I can’t believe it.

  “No. Anthrax is a quick-acting contagion, but not something that kills in minutes.”

  “She could have been infected earlier.”

  Pasteur shakes his head. “The deterioration was too fast to have simply been anthrax.”

  “If not anthrax, then what?”

  Instead of answering my question, Pasteur looks up to Roth who is still standing beside his chair. “It’s not consistent. You see that, don’t you? What we were provided with is not consistent.”

  “Yes, I do see that.”

  “What do you see?” I can’t stand it. I’m on the edge of my seat.

  Pasteur waves his hand, as if pushing away a nuisance. “The samples we received from Dubois. You say the woman had blackened blood and that’s typical of the fever. I was told that the fever came from some black spots on the flesh that soon disappeared after death. The samples of blood and flesh I’ve been provided have been red.”

  Jules interjects. “Red, meaning they have not lost their oxygen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dubois gave you false samples.” I say the obvious and silence follows. Thoughts dribble down from my brain and out my mouth. “It’s more than just the women. There are many people sick in the city, people dying. Dubois has hindered the research on the influenza outbreak to let people die. Why?”

  Pasteur grimaces. “Mademoiselle, hundreds of thousands of people have died across Europe and North America from the contagion, and those are just the ones counted in the so-called civilized countries where such statistics are maintained. I thought of the Black Fever as a strand of the less deadly influenza. Now I must wonder if it is not even related to the general malady. We are not just talking about a man who stalks women in the night. We may be dealing with a killer that stalks civilization itself. I don’t know what’s killing those people, but I must find out.”

  “What are we to do?”

  “I must conduct more tests. Everything we have talked about is nothing but the most severe speculation. It must be proven. I must have laboratory results that are irrefutable. No one will listen if I cannot come forward with objective results. I need legitimate samples. We must begin negotiations with the minister.” He looks to Roth. “He must intercede to provide me legitimate samples.”

  “Are you talking about a government official?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “That could take a long time.” Those thoughts were not dribbling down from my brain anymore, they were gushing. “I may be able to get you samples in a matter of hours.”

  “How?”

  “It just happens that the uncle of a victim of the fever is a close friend of mine. I’m sure I can get him to have the body released to me quite quickly.”

  * * *

  JULES AND I are outside the Institut before he asks me the obvious question, with much dread in his voice.

  “Tell me that you’re not planning to have Malliot pretend to be Dubois’ uncle and get us the body. That would be ridiculous. The man would never agree.”

  “I’m not planning to have Malliot pretend to be Dubois’ uncle.”

  “Thank God. I’m relieved.”

  “I’m planning to have you be his uncle.”

  61

  “We are all so sad over Doctor Dubois’ death,” the nurse says. “He was an example for all of us. We don’t know what we shall do without him. Are you also a doctor, Monsieur Uncle?”

  Jules grumbles something to the nurse that sounds like “no” as we march down the hospital corridor. He looks more like a man being twisted on a rack in a medieval dungeon than a grieving relative. He’s hopeless as an actor. The only saving grace is that there is no reason for the nurse to be suspicious. No one in their right mind would claim the body of a Black Fever victim unless they were a close relative.

  Dubois’ body has been keep in a walk-in icebox next to the loading ramp at the back of the hospital. On the way to the hospital, we arranged for a mortuary wagon to pick up the body and wired Pasteur to meet us at the mortuary within an hour.

  “I’m so glad that he has close relatives,” the nurse continues, talking through a vinegar sponge. “We all thought he was an orphan. Do you live in Paris?”

  “Occasionally,” is all Jules says.

  We go out the backdoor and onto the loading dock, depositing our sponges in a tub by the door.

  “You both look familiar. Have you ever visited Doctor Dubois here?”

  “On occasion.” Jules glances at me with concern.

  “Then that must be it.”

  The mortuary wagon driver gets off his rig and comes onto the dock. While the nurse has the driver sign papers, Jules and I stand on the dock and try to look like grieving relatives.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it,” I say to Jules, “after you pass, you are no longer a person but a thing. It’s no longer Doctor Dubois, but his body.”

  “That’s because his spirit has fled the dead and decaying mass.”

  “That’s a comforting thought. Everything’s going well, don’t you think?” I spoke too soon. A man I take to be a doctor hurries across the dock to us.

  “Bonjour. I am Doctor Brouardel, the Director of Health. Doctor Dubois was one of my assistants.” He shakes hands with Jules, squinting at him and adjusting his pince-nez to get a better look. “Have we met, Monsieur?”

  Jules clears his throat. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.” He looks as innocent as a fox caught in the chicken coop.

  It suddenly occurs to me that the Director of Health may have been on the same government health community that Jules served on with Pasteur.

  “You and your…” Brouardel looks to me.

  “This is Doctor Dubois’ fiancée, Mademoiselle Carré.”

  The health director is as surprised as me to learn Dubois had a fiancée. I put my handkerchief to my face to hide my grief and murmur something unintelligible, hoping to hide my foreign accent.

  “I’m quite surprised. I never knew Luc had family or a fiancée. Why, I had even heard—well, never mind that. Again, I wish to offer both of you my condolences. When will the funeral be? Naturally, I’ll want to attend.”

  “Ah, that’s still being planned. We shall notify you,” Jules says quickly.

  Dr. Brouardel removes his hat. “There he is now.”

  A hospital morgue attendant wheels out a body wra
pped in a black sheet. I walk away, handkerchief to my face, to give the impression of grief. Truthfully, I am affected. Whatever Dr. Dubois was, I am still affected by the sight of his body as it’s being loaded into the back of the mortuary wagon.

  Behind me Jules and Dr. Brouardel exchange good-byes, then Jules quickly joins me. Our fiacre is waiting across the street from the dock and I have to tell my feet not to break into a run. At the carriage, I look back and see Dr. Brouardel turning from a discussion with a morgue attendant to the nurse who had shown us to the loading dock. The nurse gestures behind her rather frantically and on to the landing comes a familiar figure—a man with one hand.

  “Oh my God. The cat’s out of the frying pan.”

  Jules looks back as he assists me into the carriage. “Another uncle has arrived. That should give Brouardel some pause. I thought he was going to recognize me—he served on the same health committee as Pasteur and I.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  He shakes his head and shrugs. “Brouardel could turn the police on us. We would be arrested, imprisoned, and guillotined. But in fact, probably nothing will happen because Maillot will not dare blow his own cover by exposing us.”

  A dreadful thought occurs to me. I grab Jules arm. “Jules, what if Maillot really is Dubois’ uncle?”

  Instead of answering, he stares out the carriage window at the passing buildings.

  “The cat’s out of the bag.”

  “What?”

  “The cat’s out of the bag, not the frying pan. I heard it during a trip to America. You have the expression wrong.”

  “Either way, our cat is cooked.”

  62

  On the way to the mortuary, we pass one of those terribly poor neighborhoods that breed prostitution, thievery, and misery. Children with dirty faces and skinny frames play in the gutter as we sweep by in the carriage.

  “Did she really say that?” I ask.

  Jules is silent for a moment. “Did whom really say what?”

  “Marie Antoinette. Did she really say, ‘let them eat cake’ when the poor were shouting for bread?”

  “I’ve heard an anecdote that one of her children asked, ‘why don’t they eat cake’ when he heard shouts for bread, but I would not swear to the veracity of the tale. For certain, the queen never said it.”

  “We live in strange times, don’t we, Jules. Anarchists are not only planting bombs, but willingly using their own bodies as vehicles to set off the bomb, hoping to kill as many people as possible. People are going to bed starving in many countries. And I hate to admit that even in America we have greedy businessmen like Artigas who don’t care who gets hurt as long as they profit. They say you can predict the future. Will the world ever change?”

  “It’s a certainty that the world will change. The question is, will people change and stop hating each other?”

  * * *

  DOCTORS PASTEUR AND Roth are waiting at the mortuary with a case full of laboratory equipment. They will take blood and flesh samples from the corpse and check them immediately. The mortician gives me a piece of his mind while the body is being unloaded.

  “This is most unusual, Mademoiselle. We do not permit such procedures on our premises, nor would I have agreed to it if I had known the deceased is a fever victim.”

  “You should feel proud,” I tell the skinny little man, “one of the greatest men of France has chosen your establishment to conduct a test that will save the city, maybe even your life or the life of one of your family members. You will be rewarded in heaven for your assistance.”

  He rubs his hands and gives me a look that only morticians and snake oil salesmen can conjure. “I am afraid I shall require a more Earthly reward. Shall we say twice the agreed fee?”

  “The root of all evil,” I tell Jules, after I pay the man.

  “Money?”

  “Greed.”

  * * *

  AFTER AN HOUR with no word from the scientists in the embalming room, I suggest to Jules that we take a walk and get some fresh air. “I need to walk or I’ll start screaming.”

  I find myself taking a hold of his arm. It makes me feel safer with him at my side. To my pleasure he responds by moving closer to me. I really have no desire to talk and it appears neither does Jules. All I want to do is forget everything that has happened and what I’m afraid will happen, so I image how I would like things to be right now with Jules and me … tonight, we are a married couple out for an evening stroll in a beautiful section of Paris. It’s late fall and the leaves are changing colors. Later we will join friends at Maxim’s for dinner. The air is crisp and—

  “Nellie.” Jules interrupts my dreaming. “A police wagon just came around the corner.”

  “Just keep walking,” I tell Jules.

  We go only a few paces when I come face-to-face with someone from the past.

  “You!”

  I smile, “Bonjour, Detective Lussac. We have been waiting for you. Isn’t it nice,” I turn to Jules, “we just called the police and here they are.”

  Jules looks puzzled, but says nothing.

  Detective Lussac’s companion is a man in his fifties. His face is long and there is no humor in his eyes or mouth. I recognize him as the man I passed the night I fled the police station.

  “You have led us on a fine chase, Mademoiselle Bly. I am Chief Inspector Morant. You will find that the police of Paris are more than willing to reward your devious activities with time in jail.”

  Jules steps forward. “Nellie has been uncovering a plot so serious to the fate of our city she will be rewarded membership in the Legion of Honor rather than a jail cell.”

  “And who may I ask are you, Monsieur? For if you have been conspiring with this woman,” he points a long, Ichabod Crane-like finger at Jules, “I will need your name for the police blotter.”

  “I am Jules Verne.”

  “Nonsense. You look nothing like Jules Verne.”

  “I look precisely like Jules Verne without a beard.”

  “Monsieur, you look like a madman, with or without a beard.”

  The mortuary door opens and Dr. Pasteur steps out, basically muttering to himself, “It is a calamity.”

  Inspector Morant grins. “I suppose you will tell me that that is Phileas Fogg.”

  “No, Monsieur Inspector. That is Louis Pasteur.”

  The police inspector guffaws so hard he bends over. When he straightens, the humor is gone. “Put these two in irons. And that old man, also. We will have them all transported to a prison hospital for mental examination.”

  Detective Lussac stares at Pasteur and then at Jules. “Inspector. I think we have a problem.”

  63

  “A truly fiendish scheme,” Dr. Pasteur informs us.

  We are in a conference room at the headquarters of the Sûreté. In attendance besides myself are Jules, Pasteur, Roth, Inspector Morant, Detective Lussac, the Minister of Interior, and the Prefect of Police.

  “Anthrax,” Pasteur says, “cholera, botulism, probably the bubonic plague, typhoid fever, even a strain of influenza, God only knows what’s in the bomb.”

  “A bomb?” The Minister of Interior is completely puzzled.

  “A microbe bomb.” Pasteur shakes his head. “The contents of the compound are more obvious in examining the body and viscera with the naked eye than under a microscope. You see the fever rash typical of typhoid, black marks on the skin from the buboes, blotches and boils of plague, a report that the body was still twitching still hours after death with the spasms of cholera … I can’t tell what all is in the compound, only that a drop of it is the most lethal poison on earth.”

  The Minister of the Interior stares up at the ceiling for a moment, pursing his lips tightly together. “You say a scientist actually mixed all these—these poisonous microbes together?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But it’s not that simple. To the contrary, it would be extremely difficult to develop a culture that different microbes can live in all
at the same time. It would take years of experimentation. And we don’t know if it is in liquid or solid form.”

  “He’s had years.” Everyone looks at me. “I have been hunting him for the last two years, Artigas employed him three years ago. And he’s had plenty of human lab animals to experiment upon.”

  Pasteur nodded. “That may be true, but I suspect he has only recently developed the compound that Dubois was infected with. I draw this conclusion for a couple of reasons. First, Dubois’ symptoms are much more varied than what I’ve been told other Black Fever victims have experienced, inferring that the compound given him is more complex than earlier ones. And secondly, there are the birds and the frogs.”

  “The birds and the frog?” the Minister asks.

  “And the rats. I should have suspected anthrax immediately because the frogs and birds were not affected by the contagion and the rats were. Anthrax, like all other life forms, survives and multiples only in a specified environment. The blood of frogs and birds are not hospitable environments for this particular microbe. The frog’s blood is too cold, the bird’s too hot, but the rat, like humans, has a temperature in the right range. I now believe that the contagion that struck the tenement I personally inspected was heavy with anthrax, more than what appears to have struck Dubois. I suspect that this madman has been experimenting with different deadly microbe combinations and only recently developed this complex combination.”

  “A microbe cocktail.” I’m amazed. “He’s going to unleash Pandora’s box on Paris.”

  “But how is he spreading it?” Inspector Morant asks. “Thousands of people have contracted the disease.”

  “All the microbes in the compound are highly contagious,” Pasteur shakes his head. “Once he has one person infected, it will spread like wildfire to others. But I suspect that he has also been experimenting with methods of spreading the microbes to large numbers of people at the same time. The easiest way would be by infecting what they breathe, eat, or drink.”

  “Absolute insanity.” The Minister gets up and paces the room. “We must find this madman before others die. Inspector Morant, I want you to put all the men you can spare into finding this fiend.”