An Oxford Anomaly

by Norman Russell

  At first, all he could hear was a mere jumble of echoes, but very soon the sounds resolved themselves into words. He tried to open his eyes, but found that he had not the strength to do so. He could hear his own flat, stertorous breathing, but felt no pain. That could only mean that he had received an intravenous injection of morphia.

  ‘His left lung is virtually useless,’ someone was saying, ‘but it can still maintain an acceptable breathing function. I strongly urge you to let me perform an artificial pneumothorax.’ Who was that speaking? Perform a what? He had collapsed just as he had more or less bullied the truth from the disturbing Dr Lucas. What had been the upshot of that? Hush! Dr Jex-Blake was saying something.

  ‘His left lung is badly compromised by tubercular lesions, Dr McKay. Do you think it can sustain an induced collapse? Of course, I defer to your specialist knowledge of consumption.’

  ‘He needs lung rest while allowing the body to rest, Miss Jex-Blake. A pneumothorax will achieve this, while bringing the patient a great measure of relief from pain and stress. Will you let me proceed? We cannot afford to wait for him to wake up from the induced stupor to give his consent.’

  ‘Will you administer ether?’

  ‘No. We cannot compromise the airways any further. He will feel very little pain, as you know. Once I have penetrated the pleural cavity he will be fine.’

  Antrobus was no stranger to hospitals. The smell of coal gas, and the series of little ‘pops’ told him that the strong gas-lights over the operating table had been lit. In a moment, he would sense the bright glow behind his closed eyelids as the lamps were pulled down on their flexible tubes. The voices became blurred once more, and in a moment he felt a sharp pain in the chest. The sound of hissing air followed, and he felt the gentle pressure of a hand on his chest. A moment later, he had relapsed into a calming sleep.

  Antrobus opened his eyes, and saw Sophia Jex-Blake sitting on a chair beside his bed, reading a newspaper. Evidently, he had been removed from the theatre, and was now lying comfortably in a small white-washed room lit by a single window, and with a framed print of Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ hanging on the wall in front of him. What had they done to him? Would he be able to speak?

  ‘Where am I?’ he ventured.

  Dr Jex-Blake put her paper aside, and regarded him through her little round reading-glasses. She looked very smart in a dove grey morning dress, with matching bonnet.

  ‘You are in the Chester Royal Infirmary,’ she said, ‘and in order to spare you the effort of speaking, I will tell you what we have done to you. There is a pulmonary specialist here, a Dr McKay. He didn’t believe that I was a doctor at first, but after I had proved to him that I was not some eccentric, middle-aged lady with mania, he agreed to look at you. Your haemorrhage was a very serious one, and took far longer to abate than we had hoped. When it was under control, he suggested that we perform an artificial pneumothorax to relieve pressure on your left lung. Your lung is surrounded by a kind of sac called the pleural cavity. If one introduces gas or air into the cavity, the lung collapses in on itself, allowing it to rest. You will stay here in the Infirmary for three days—’

  ‘But the case! I have Oakshott in my sights again—’

  ‘Be quiet, Mr Antrobus. You mustn’t talk yet. Just listen to me. You will stay here for three days, at the end of which time Dr McKay will refill your lung with air, by means of a special syringe. You will receive further refills in the ensuing months – they can be performed by any hospital – and thus your damaged left lung will undergo healing.’

  Antrobus attempted to sit up, but found he had been strapped to the bed.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Mr Antrobus, will you be still? If you don’t behave, I’ll leave you to the tender mercy of the nurses. We will forget your sufferings for the moment, and talk about the business in hand. Certain facts are now becoming clear. We know that Miss Probert is long dead, and buried at Prenton Bridge Criminal Lunatic Asylum. The woman whom you met, the woman calling herself Miss Probert, is almost certainly the delusional and deranged Margaret Meadows. Do we know what crimes Meadows actually committed?’

  ‘She—’

  ‘Will you be quiet? I’ll have you sedated, James, if you go on like this. My question was a rhetorical one: I intended to answer it myself. Margaret Meadows committed acts of mutilation and murder. Miss Arabella Cathcart committed an act of murder. Both women were placed under the care of Dr Samuel Critchley. Two murderesses, Inspector, both placed in the hands of the same doctor.’

  Antrobus squirmed under the leather restraints. He was bursting to speak, but knew better than to disregard his doctor-friend’s instructions.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophia, ‘I can almost hear your mind working. Now here’s another rhetorical question: what new condition developed in both women? The answer is, they both developed delusional spasm. Miss Cathcart believed she had murdered a young man called Thomas Cave. How did she come to think that? She listened to the story that Robert Grant, the deranged undertaker, told her, and appropriated his crime to herself. Happily, the delusion faded with the years, and she was cured.

  ‘Margaret Meadows believed that she had murdered Vivien West. Dr Lucas was adamant that she had done no such thing. Her delusion, alas, remained with her, but then came an added complication: she underwent role-exchange, and in her own mind became the wardress whom she had murdered. To her, the wardress was still alive, and not a burden on her conscience. Furthermore, in her role as wardress, she had distanced herself from the belief that she had murdered Vivien West. It may be that she is not beyond some kind of redemption. But she has never been cured.

  ‘Now, James, Robert Grant told Arabella Cathcart that he had murdered Thomas Cave. Who told Margaret Meadows that he had murdered Vivien West?’

  ‘Oakshott!’

  ‘Yes, perhaps you were right all the time. Oakshott possibly knew that Margaret Meadows would appropriate his confession to herself. Or maybe he knew her well, and in some kind of agony of remorse, confessed to her that he had murdered Vivien West. That, however, is mere surmise at the moment. Incidentally, I will forgive you for that vocal outburst. Do you feel fairly comfortable? Is there any pain?’

  ‘Very comfortable. No pain at all.’

  ‘Good. Now I’m going to tell you about the cerebellum. It’s an area at the back of the brain that controls such things as balance, language, and the regulation of emotions such as fear. It also affects some aspects of memory. The good Dr Critchley has always taken risks, and I suspect that, in subjecting the cerebellum of both women to electrical impulses, he went too deep into the cortex, and triggered their propensity to suffer from the severest forms of delusional spasm.’

  Dr Jex-Blake stopped speaking, and folded up the newspaper that she had earlier discarded. She looked at the man strapped to the bed. Was she to lose him? Surely not. But inspector or no inspector, he would have to do as he was told. Three days, and he would be standing on his feet again. Meanwhile …

  ‘Inspector, while you are here, I intend to go down to Henning St Mary, and investigate the woman who calls herself Joanna Probert. Why is she living there? Henning is the place intimately connected with Jeremy Oakshott, Michael Sanders, and the murdered girl, Vivien West. I will do all I can to probe the mystery of those three.’

  ‘Do you want Sergeant Maxwell to go with you?’

  ‘No. He has enquiries of his own to make, no doubt. I’ll go alone, and rely on my woman’s wit to find out what I want to know.’

  ‘Will you undo these straps?’

  ‘No. You must lie quite still for at least another hour. Contain your soul in patience, Mr Antrobus, while Maxwell goes about his business, and I attempt to unlock the secrets of Henning St Mary.’

  ‘I’m so very pleased to meet you, Miss Jex-Blake,’ said Mrs Daneforth. ‘I know a lot about you, because I was a nurse before my marriage, and so much admired your struggles for women’s talents to be recognized.’

  Well, thought Sophia, tha
t’s a good start. She had been drawn to the Rector’s wife as soon as she had set foot in the rectory. Miriam Daneforth was an attractive, fresh-faced woman, with a friendly manner towards strangers. Sophia had wondered how to introduce herself – how does one introduce a snooper? But Mrs Daneforth had asked no questions, and had ushered her into the pleasant sitting room of the rectory.

  ‘The Rector is out visiting at the moment. Monday morning is always busy for him. There are times when—’

  She was interrupted by the arrival of Mary-Jane and Beth, followed by their protesting nurse maid.

  ‘Oh, ma’am,’ cried Annie, ‘I’m ever so sorry. They wanted to see the lady, and I couldn’t stop them coming in.’

  Sophia Jex-Blake opened her arms.

  ‘Come here, girls,’ she said. ‘Let me see you. What lovely little things you are!’

  The children showed no shyness, and clung to Sophia’s skirts. Beth solemnly placed a rag doll on her lap.

  ‘How old are they, Mrs Daneforth? Five and three? You must both be delighted with such healthy, lively little daughters.’ She cupped little Mary-Jane’s face in her hands, and looked closely at her cheeks and neck. ‘Has this little one suffered from a high fever? I can see the traces of a non-blanching rash on her neck.’

  ‘Oh, yes, ma’am. She was only two and a half, and I was terrified that I might lose her. The doctor gave me some Carswell’s Powders to give to her in warm milk, which I did. But I think I got her better by a lot of cuddles, and bathing her wrists and forehead with cologne. It was summer, so I had her out in the garden a lot. I think fresh air can help cure fevers.’

  The young mother blushed.

  ‘There, I must not tell a doctor what works and what doesn’t.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Sophia, ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. A mother has a right to trust her own instincts where her children are concerned.’

  She gently disengaged the little girls, who were taken out of the room by Annie.

  ‘I have a lovely, quiet house in Edinburgh,’ said Sophia, ‘and I sometimes take patients there to recuperate. It’s a beautiful place, called Bruntsfield Lodge. Well, I was visiting some people once who had a little visitor, a boy of ten, who had fallen ill with a high fever. It was not a household that was used to boys, and the little fellow was left largely to his own devices. I took him away with me to Bruntsfield Lodge, and we looked after him there until he completely recovered. I took him for rides, you know, and generally mothered him. And when it was time for him to go home, guess what he did? He flung his arms around my neck, and kissed me!’ 3

  Sophia Jex-Blake laughed. It was pleasant to recall that little boy after so many years.

  ‘But I must tell you why I have called here to see you. Not so long ago, a friend and patient of mine, Detective Inspector Antrobus, called here to see the Rector—’

  ‘Yes, indeed! My husband told me all about it. How is Mr Antrobus?’

  ‘He’s not very well, I’m afraid. He’s confined to hospital in Chester at the moment. But he apparently had a most interesting conversation with a lady called Miss Probert. She seems to have had a very successful career in the care of lunatics, a subject that interests me greatly. I was hoping that you could tell me where she lives. I am staying at the Anchor in High Street until tomorrow afternoon. Could you furnish me with Miss Probert’s address?’

  Sophia saw a cloud of wariness cross the young mother’s face. What on earth was the mystery surrounding Miss Probert? Everybody seemed intent on shielding her from outside attention. But then, they almost certainly did not realize that she was Margaret Meadows, a woman who had once lived in this town at the time of Vivien West’s murder, and, presumably, lived there still.

  ‘It is so very difficult, Miss Jex-Blake,’ said Mrs Daneforth. ‘Miss Probert was allowed to come here as a special favour to my husband, who had been urged by the Archdeacon of Warwick to offer Mr Antrobus every assistance. Oh dear! She’s—’

  Young Mrs Daneforth seemed suddenly to make up her mind.

  ‘You have been a most welcome visitor to me, Miss Jex-Blake,’ she said, ‘and after all, you are not the police. I will write down the place where you can find Miss Probert, but it’s doubtful whether she will agree to speak to you. She lives about a mile from here at a hamlet called Carter’s Spinney. If you ask at the Anchor, one of the grooms will take you out there in their dog-cart.’

  Miriam Daneforth sat at a desk and wrote rapidly on a sheet of note paper.

  ‘There you are, Miss Jex-Blake,’ she said. ‘I do hope that we can meet again. Let me see you out. I can hear the girls gambolling in the hall. They’ve escaped from Annie again.’

  ‘It has been a pleasure to see you and your dear children, Mrs Daneforth,’ said Sophia. ‘Please give your husband my compliments when he returns.’

  It was only when she had regained the road fronting the rectory that she opened the sheet of paper, and read the address written on it.

  Sanctuary of Our Lady of Refuge

  St Mary’s House, Carter’s Spinney, Herefordshire.

  The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Refuge proved to be a large sandstone house standing in secluded grounds on the skirts of a straggling hamlet. The man driving the dog-cart drew up at the gates.

  ‘There it is, mum,’ he said. ‘I’m not allowed to drive through the gates, but it’s only a short walk to the house. A man called Mullins guards those nuns with his life. Very protective of them, he is.’

  ‘Would you say that it’s a nursing home?’

  ‘Well, it’s by way of being a home for lady loonies, mum. They’re very brave, those nuns. Although they’re Catholics, they take all sorts in there.’

  ‘I shan’t be more than an hour in there, I expect,’ said Sophia. ‘I saw an ale-house in that little hamlet as we passed through. Here’s a three-penny bit. Go and refresh yourself until I return.’

  ‘We call this a house of refuge,’ said the Mother Superior, ‘because the women we look after are incurable, and no other institution will offer them sanctuary. They are deeply afflicted mentally, and many are also physically ill. The woman known as Miss Probert is one of them.’

  The Mother Superior wore the black habit and deep starched wimple of the Canonesses of St Augustine, an ancient nursing order. She was a woman in her fifties, with a no-nonsense air about her that appealed to Sophia Jex-Blake.

  ‘We are all trained nurses – I received my training at University College Hospital – and I can assure you that all the sisters here know about your valiant work for the recognition of women as fit subjects for medical training. Now, Doctor, what do you want of me?’

  ‘I want you to tell me about Miss Probert’s mental state. I could prompt you, Reverend Mother, but that would be self-defeating.’

  ‘Miss Probert – when she is Miss Probert – is an upright and law-abiding member of society. Miss Probert is taken into town – into Henning, you know – by Mullins, our general factotum, where she visits the circulating library, takes tea in one of the cafés, and joins one or other of the coteries of gossiping women for the day.’

  The Mother Superior stopped for a moment, and glanced round the soberly furnished room that was her office. It was part study, part dispensary. Apart from a crucifix on one wall, there was nothing to suggest that the Sanctuary was a religious house.

  ‘And then there are times when Probert is somebody else. A weak, fearful woman, racked by a guilty conscience, recalling dreadful crimes that she may or may not have committed. On those occasions, she is quite unfit to leave the house – indeed, she would be terrified to do so. I have listened to what most people would call her “ravings”, and feel very strongly that at one time she had assumed an identity belonging to someone else.’

  ‘When she is in that persona, Mother, does she call herself Margaret Meadows?’

  ‘Ah, I see you know a lot about this poor woman. Yes, she becomes Margaret Meadows. And yet … We have a resident physician here, of course, and he t
hinks that Margaret Meadows contains the shadow of a third entity – these are his words, you understand. When she describes how she cut the throat of a young girl in Henning many years ago, Dr Freud believes that she has absorbed the deeds of another person into her own psyche.’

  ‘Your doctor sounds more like an alienist than a physician.’

  ‘Well, he is, I suppose. He is visiting from Austria, and staying with us for a few months. He is very interested in our patients. But of course, he is a trained physician, and is well able to administer treatment to our patients when necessary.’

  ‘What treatments do you give to your patients when they become frantic?’

  ‘We use kindness, reassurance, human things of that nature. We sit for hours with a disturbed patient, talking, reading Scripture, or poetry, or even singing. One of my colleagues, Sister Margaret, has a beautiful soprano voice, and she will sing gentle, soothing airs, accompanying herself on the harpsichord. No lithium, Doctor, no galvanic invasion. Just practical love. We are these women’s last hope.

  ‘And now I’ll tell you something else about Miss Probert. She is suffering from a terminal disease – a physical disease, and both Dr Freud, and the London specialist whom I called in to examine her, tell me that she has only a few weeks to live. You visited the Rector of Henning, Mr Daneforth, I expect? Well, he too knows that Miss Probert’s days are numbered. She has quite rightly been the subject of police interest. But I devoutly hope that she will now be left to see out her days here in peace. Whatever crimes she may have committed, it will be for Providence to mete out judgement.’

  Sophia Jex-Blake rose from her chair, and shook hands with the Mother Superior.

  ‘I thank you for receiving me today, Mother,’ she said. ‘I agree with you that this demented woman must not be further disturbed. Whatever her secrets, they can remain here with her. I am both friend and physician to Inspector Antrobus, and I know that, at my instigation, he will now dismiss Margaret Meadows from his investigation.’

  At the far end of Henning High Street, and reached down a narrow lane bordered with drooping willows, lay the ancient and picturesque buildings of Corbet’s Almshouses.