by Eric Flint
Lewis had one last resort. Back in 1997, the high school had been the recipient of an extraordinary gift, a $300,000 atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The gift had come about because one of the high school teachers had led a statewide high school science club trip to Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, and had run into some LaFarge executives there.
As the name suggested, the AAS atomized a sample and then analyzed its ability to absorb light of different wavelengths. It should be able to detect arsenic at a level of just one part per million. Perhaps less.
"It's been a month since Pietro died, Dottore," Ferdinand said. He and Lewis were sitting in Ferdinand's laboratory, a corner of which had been appropriated by Lewis. "Can this wondrous AAS of yours still find the poison?"
"That's the good thing about an elemental poison, like arsenic, or thallium, your Grace. The body can kick it out, but it can't decompose as it can, oh, snake venom. Within an hour or two of ingestion, the arsenic is distributed all over the body, even in the hair roots. Within a few days, it can be detected in the hair above the skin. And if the victim died with arsenic there, it will be still be there a month, a year, a decade, even a century later. The arsenic atoms stick very well to the sulfur atoms in the hair."
"A century, are you sure?".
"That's right. In the nineteenth century of the old time line, there was an emperor of France named Napoleon. He got defeated by the Brits and sent into exile on an island. He died there, and some people thought he had been poisoned. Over a century after his death, someone took a lock of hair that Napoleon had given to one of his aides, and had it tested with modern equipment for arsenic.
"Sure enough, he had way more than normal levels of arsenic."
"Wow!" said Marina, who had been invited to look at Ferdinand's chamber of curiosities. "Napoleon was poisoned!"
"Well, not necessarily deliberately," Lewis admitted. "There was a green wallpaper used at that time, which contained an arsenical dye. They didn't know that it could be decomposed by bacteria to release arsine gas, which is really nasty stuff."
"A hundred years…" muttered Ferdinand.
"I beg your pardon, Your Grace. What did you say?"
"Never mind that for now. You already know that he was poisoned, from the contents of his stomach, so why look at his hair?"
"Because the hair would chronicle his arsenic exposure. Hair grows from the root outward, at a rate of a centimeter a month. So if his hair were twelve centimeters long, we could cut into sections and know when he ingested arsenic over the past year or so."
"Marvelous. And so you could eliminate any suspects who were absent when he had an arsenic peak," said Ferdinand.
"Exactly."
"Would you know the very days of each poisoning attempt?"
"I wish. To narrow down the time, you need to test shorter segments of hair, and there is more of a chance of contamination of the segment with arsenic from other sources. And that one centimeter a month is an average, it varies from person to person, and even from one part of the head to another. But we should be able to pin it down to a particular month, maybe even a particular fortnight.
"While I'm at it, Your Grace, I would like to send Grantville some additional hair samples for testing. My hair, Marina's, Cosimo's and your own, perhaps. We'll make sure that no one is putting arsenic in your soup, that way, and the rest of us will act as controls."
"See to it. Tomorrow morning I will have a courier take it to Venice. It can be there in two days, and then catch the next flight to Grantville. And your colleagues can radio the results to Venice to save time. All I ask is that the communications not reveal anyone's names."
"I wouldn't want them to. I will number the hair samples, so the testers won't be influenced in any way."
***
"These results… are very strange."
"How so?" asked Marina.
"Okay. Look at the report. Sample 1 is your hair, that was the main control."
"Why not your hair?"
"Well, since I've been in Italy for a few months, and I have made few enemies, I couldn't be sure that no one was poisoning me."
"Oh."
"Anyway, your levels are low. About one part per million. So are mine, and Cosimo's, and even the grand duke's, for that matter. All under five parts per million. But now look at Sample 5."
Marina stared at the graph. "That's weird. They're up and down, on a regular basis. But… the peaks get higher and higher. And then the last peak is way up. So what does it mean?"
"First of all, these peaks are way above what a seventeenth-century Italian would naturally be exposed to. So Pietro was being poisoned all right."
"Which I thought we knew already, from the Marsh test on his tummy-wummy."
"Yes, Marina, but it was nice to get that confirmed by a more sensitive test.
"Second, Pietro suffered both chronic and acute arsenic poisoning. Which means that either our poisoner kept notching up the dose, and finally got impatient for some reason and hit him with the chemical equivalent of a two by four…"
Marina finished his thought. "Or we have two poisoners, working independently."
***
"Cosimo, I need to construct a plan of the house," Lewis said.
"What good will that do?"
"When a general is planning a battle, he consults a map of the terrain, does he not? When a detective investigates a crime in a house, he needs a house plan."
Cosimo shrugged. "All right, that makes sense. Perhaps I can borrow an assistant from one of the grand duke's architects; he'll do a better job than we could."
"Fine, Cosimo, but I need exact dimensions, not just a general layout. I want the length and height of every wall measured, and every corner checked to make sure that it's a right angle. I want to know the apparent thickness of every wall, beginning to end."
"You're looking for secret rooms?"
"Yes, like the priest's holes the Catholics in England have. Or even just a little hiding place."
***
"There, Cosimo, just as I thought. The dimensions of the study aren't right. This wall should be a foot further away from the windows, to match the next room over."
"So what does that mean?"
"A false wall, and something behind it." Lewis put his ear against the wall, and tapped it.
He then did the same for one of the other walls.
"I believe the far wall is hollow. You try it."
Cosimo did just that. "I guess we need to go get some axes," he said cheerfully. The thought of a little authorized mayhem, even directed against the inanimate, was apparently pleasing to his martial spirit.
Lewis rubbed his chin. "Let's not be hasty. If the secret compartment, or whatever, was accessed frequently, his lordship certainly wasn't bashing in the wall each time. Start feeling around for a hidden panel."
They found it eventually, just below the ceiling. It had been superbly designed; it was no wonder they hadn't found it the first time they searched the house. The compartment it concealed wasn't that big, but it was big enough to hold some oddly marked vials, and a journal. Lewis handed them down to Cosimo, then stepped off the chair.
One of the vials contained a white powder. Lewis pointed to it, and Cosimo handed it over. Lewis pulled out the cork, and waved his hand over the top, wafting the released air toward him. "I'll have to test it, but I think it's arsenic. I wonder what the book says."
Cosimo had already started leafing through it. "Makes no sense to me."
"Here, let me. After reading the Latin mumbo-jumbo the alchemists write, I am pretty good at understanding esoterica. Not to mention reading really bad handwriting."
Cosimo handed the book over, with a slight smile.
"Why are you smirking, Captain? Oh." The text was clearly encyrypted. "I guess I'll save that for later."
***
Lewis had taken the first steps to solving the secret text. First, he tabulated all the symbols used on the first few pages. There were 26 dif
ferent ones, which implied that each stood for a letter of the Renaissance Latin alphabet. It was just what Sherlock Holmes had done in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men."
However, Lewis couldn't be sure whether the cipher was in Latin or Italian, and in any event, Lewis didn't have frequency tables for either language. That problem was easy enough to solve; he gave Cosimo and Marina a few texts in each language, and had them compile tables for him.
In the meantime, he made a frequency table for the cipher. He was relieved to discover that it seemed to have the characteristic look, in terms of variation in frequency among the letters, of a monoalphabetic substitution cipher. That is, one in which each letter of the plaintext was replaced with a single cipher letter, and always that letter. Lewis had read that polyalphabetics had been invented in the fifteenth century, and wasn't at all sure that his deciphering skills were up to tackling one.
"Here you go," said Marina. "I hope this is based on enough data. I'll go blind if I look at any more Latin gobbledegook today."
Lewis looked it over. From most to least, it ran E A I T U… English would be E T A O N… Fortunately, with so much cipher text to work from, it would be easier to solve than even a newspaper cryptogram. Assuming that Lewis hadn't made any mistakes in converting the symbols into letters, and that Pietro, or whoever, hadn't thrown in too many nulls, abbreviations, code names or mistakes.
Marina looked over her shoulder. "I can tell you what it says. 'Dear Diary'…"
"You're right, Maria, it is a diary. Although each entry begins with a date. So I will decipher the first few entries, and then switch to the last ones."
"Fine. I am going out."
"Okay, you know the drill. Summon the coach, have them wait for you, don't go off with any strange men. Actually, with any men."
"Yeah, yeah." She gave him a vague wave and went looking for a footman.
Lewis went back to work. He was still working when she returned, late in the evening. But he was able to tell her something important. The text wasn't a diary, exactly. It was a journal. An experimental journal.
The next morning, when Cosimo arrived at the door, Lewis was waiting for him. "Cosimo, we need to visit a few apothecaries," said Lewis. "Oh, tell Carlo and Rocco I would like them to dress as servants, not soldiers. We are going to collect information, not to make arrests. I'll explain along the way."
***
"I understand you have solved the mystery," the grand duke declared.
"I think so, Your Grace. Pietro poisoned himself."
"Suicide? That is a serious charge-"
Lewis held up his hand. "Forgive the interruption, but while the poisoning was deliberate, the result was accidental."
"Explain."
"You will recall the testimony of the Lady Silvia that Pietro thought that someone was poisoning him. He questioned and fired a few servants, but of course he then had to hire new ones, who he soon suspected in turn. In desperation, he began his experiments."
"Oho," said Leopold, "he emulated Mithradates."
"Who's Mithradates?" asked Marina. "The name sounds Greek, not Italian."
Leopold smiled at her. "Mithradates of Pontus. He fought three wars with Rome. He was afraid of assassination, and he protected himself from poisoners by taking tiny doses of many different poisons. Then when he was about to be captured by the Romans, he tried to poison himself, without success. Had to ask a friend to run him through with a sword. See, brother, I wasn't sleeping during my history lessons."
Ferdinand pretended to yawn. "That's what you did at least once a lesson, and you sure looked like you were sleeping. I guess you came awake if you heard the words 'poison' or 'sword.'"
"The infamous 'auditory echo,'" Marina muttered.
Lewis coughed, and Ferdinand motioned for him to continue. "Pietro took arsenic in small doses. Probably every other month, which is why the arsenic level in his hair fluctuated the same way. And he kept increasing the dose, as his tolerance increased, which is why the peaks got higher and higher."
"But the big peak at the end-surely that was something different? A poisoner got through his defenses?"
"That's what I thought, at first. And I suppose I can't rule it out, completely. But his secret journal records where he bought his arsenic. On those mysterious solitary trips in disguise that Cosimo told us, I believe. Pietro usually went to Cinelli's. But this last bottle, he got it from Rossi. I'm not sure why; perhaps Cinelli was out of town."
"What difference would that have made?"
"A crime was committed all right, but it wasn't murder. I made tests on the arsenic in the secret compartment, and also bought arsenic from both Cinelli and Rossi directly.
"Rossi's arsenic was fine. Cinelli's, on the other hand, was, excuse my French, crap. I think Cinelli was adulterating his arsenic all these years, and Pietro never realized it. Rossi, on the other hand, was an honest man. When Pietro bought arsenic from him, it was pure stuff. Consequently, Pietro received a much greater dose than he was expecting."
"Deliberate, yet accidental," murmured Ferdinand.
"Exactly."
"Captain Cosimo, see to it that Cinelli is arrested for criminal adulteration. I will tell Silvia that she and her son are now free of suspicion, and there will be no interference with the disposition of the estate."
Cosimo saluted, and left the room.
"Oh, Dottore Bartolli. I am most gratified with your work on this matter. But please, while you are welcome to mention your Marsh test in your lectures, please say nothing about the ability of this atomic absorption spectrophotometer in Grantville to detect arsenic in even a hundred-year-old corpse. At least, not to anyone other than a member of my family."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"There is going to be a party at the palace, I hope you and your sister can come," said Ferdinand.
"Yes, please come, Marina," said Leopold. "You can tell me more about Grantville. Do you know how to dance the gagliarda?"
"No, but I can teach the macarena."
Sometime later, on a flight from Venice to Magdeburg…
"It sounds like you had a most interesting visit to Florence," said Archduchess Claudia de Medici.
"Indeed I did, Your Grace," said Marina. "But, why didn't your nephew Ferdinand want Lewis to talk about the AAS. Wouldn't he want to discourage future would-be poisoners from practicing their art in his realm?"
Claudia laughed. "Oh, yes. But it's the past he was worried about."
Marina looked blank.
The archduchess leaned over, and whispered her explanation. "You haven't heard the story? In 1587, my Uncle Francesco and Step -Aunt Bianca"-she carefully enunciated the "step"-"both suffered a sudden illness. Francesco was the grand duke at the time, Papa being his younger brother. Fortunately, Papa had arrived at the villa a few days earlier. He took charge, seeing to it they had the best possible care.
"Alas, they died eleven days later. The grand duke's death was, according to Papa and his physicians, because of Francesco's terrible eating habits. And Bianca's grief was too great for any mortal to bear, so she died the same day. From the stress of watching Francesco's decline, no doubt. The autopsies confirmed that the deaths were completely natural, and Papa bowed to the inevitable and became the next grand duke. Ferdinando the First. His first son was my older brother Cosimo, who fathered Ferdinando the Second.
"Anyway, certain rash and unprincipled people have nonetheless suggested that the deaths came at a too convenient time for Papa, Bianca having been maneuvering to have her bastard Don Antonio declared the heir. The word 'poison' was trotted out. It is really annoying, the way people think 'poison' as soon as you say 'Medici.' We aren't the Borgias, after all.
"It is possible that someone unhappy with my brother's rule might agitate for this AAS test to be performed on the bodies of Francesco and Bianca. If the results were anything but unambiguously negative, then they could be used to question the legitimacy of Ferdinando's rule."
"But wouldn't your ne
phew want to know whether they were poisoned?"
"God knows already, dear Marina. Just God. And it's better that it stay that way."
The Irish Sitter Sings
Terry Howard
Late January 1635
Near the City of Nijmegen, Netherlands
"Innkeeper, we need a wet nurse."
One of Henrich's company-probably his daughter, the timing was right and she looked just like him-had a fever. The stout lass was down and likely would not be getting up. She had been no help with loading the mules for three days and then, unable to walk, she had to be carried the last half day to the inn. Now she was out of her head with fever and out of milk for her child. When she got pregnant Henrich cursed himself as a soft-headed/soft-hearted fool. He never should have taken her on as hostler help. But she had gone ahead loading and unloading the mules through it all with nary a word of complaint or a hint of expecting things to be different. Indeed, when someone started to help her out when her belly was at its biggest, she cursed the lad roundly. Then she gave birth in the night after having done her full share of the work the evening before and she did her full share the morning after. Her boy was now a toddler and could have been weaned already but the mother thought breast-feeding would keep her from getting pregnant. They tried giving him solid food, but he would not eat and now he would not stop crying.
"Yes, there is a wet nurse." The innkeeper named a price.
"I want milk for a bastard," Henrich said. "I don't need a gold-plated tit." They haggled half-heartedly and settled.
The company sat for two days while Henrich's daughter finished dying.
"Innkeeper, can we leave the child with the nurse?"
"No!" The innkeeper was adamant. "But you can take the nurse with the child!" he added quickly.