The Problem of the Spiteful Spiritualist

by Roberta Rogow

  “Blackmail can be quite vicious,” Mr. Dodgson agreed. “In fact there was a notation in that accounting-book that would confirm your suspicions. But how could Mrs. Hackaby have given Mrs. Cavanaugh a handkerchief? And did she have access to nicotine?”

  “She could have soaked Hackaby’s cigars in water and strained the mess out,” Dr. Doyle said with a shrug. “Nevertheless, I agree with you that the idea of Mrs. Hackaby doing so is faintly ridiculous.”

  “The other part of this farrago,” Mr. Dodgson complained as they mounted the horsecar that would take them back to Bush Villa, “is the timing. Why murder Mrs. Cavanaugh now? Why in such a public manner? One would suppose that the purpose of using poison is to disguise the death to look like a natural or accidental one.”

  “Unless, of course, the poisoner had no idea what the poison would do, or how quickly it would affect the victim,” Dr. Doyle pointed out. “And in that case, why use a poison at all?” Dr. Doyle nodded curtly. “Mr. Dodgson, I have a great feeling of foreboding about this matter. There is an evil mind behind all this.”

  “Of that,” Mr. Dodgson stated, as they emerged from the horsecar to stand in front of Dr. Doyle’s residence, “I have no doubt.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The sun stood high in the clear October sky when Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Doyle descended from the horsecar in front of the Bush Hotel. After the morning chill had worn off, the weather had turned unseasonably warm. In the postage-stamp-sized gardens of the less desirable row houses in Southsea, aged pensioners were trundled out in Bath chairs to take the air, while their well-meaning offspring collected vegetables from the kitchen garden, hung out washing to snap in the breeze, or chatted over the back fences. In the gardens of the grander villas, gardeners and their henchmen struggled with the last of the fall plantings, setting out the bulbs for the following spring. Aboard the ships riding at anchor, the sailors not lucky enough to get shore leave were set to polishing the bright-work and scrubbing the decks. Only a few clouds low in the eastern sky indicated that there was anything but fair weather ahead for the next week.

  Touie and her mother met Dr. Doyle and Mr. Dodgson at the door of Number One Bush Villa.

  “Arthur, you should not have left so suddenly,” Touie chided him. “And carrying Mr. Dodgson off like that, too! Whatever will people think?”

  “It really was important that we get to General Drayson’s house,” Dr. Doyle said, pecking his bride on the cheek. “We found the handkerchief before one of the maids got her hands on it.”

  “Handkerchief?” Touie asked, puzzled, looking from her husband to their guest.

  “The handkerchief Mrs. Cavanaugh was using at that séance last night,” Dr. Doyle explained.

  “Your husband believes that some person soaked this handkerchief in a solution of nicotine, causing whoever handled it to be poisoned,” Mr. Dodgson explained.

  “Then it is just as well you got it out of reach,” Touie said with one of her understanding smiles. “Now, Arthur, you must take some luncheon.”

  “No time, Touie. I want to show Mr. Dodgson some of Old Portsmouth, before the Town Councilors destroy what is left of it to put up some modern barracks.”

  “Oh, Arthur!” Touie smiled indulgently at her husband’s vehemence. “There is a good deal of new building going on in Portsmouth,” she informed Mr. Dodgson. “Some of the old stone houses have been pulled down, but they were very dirty and quite impossible to live in. Mother and I have been to Portsea with charity baskets, and the new tenements are a great improvement on the old cottages, although not as picturesque, to be sure.”

  Dr. Doyle followed his wife into the hall. “Remember, dear, General Drayson has invited us to partake of the Literary Society’s dinner tonight. It’s my understanding that a presentation will be made to us, so put on your wedding-dress.”

  “Oh, dear, I forgot all about it,” Mrs. Hawkins fussed. “And I just got such a nice piece of cod for tonight.”

  “It will keep, Mother,” Touie soothed her parent. “Arthur, if you must, then you go and take Mr. Dodgson to Portsmouth, but be sure to bring him back in time for tea.”

  “I never take luncheon,” Mr. Dodgson murmured, but no one was listening to him. Dr. Doyle dashed into the examining-room off the hallway, emerging with the small black satchel that marked the physician all over England. With this vital source of supplies in hand, they were off again. Dr. Doyle wanted to show his friend Portsmouth, and to Portsmouth they would go!

  “Better to take the horsecar,” Dr. Doyle told his mentor, as once again they mounted the steps of the odiferous transport. “I usually walk into town, but it’s five miles, and the wind is freshening.”

  “I often walk more than that in Oxford,” Mr. Dodgson protested. “And we are hardly moving faster than a good stride now.”

  Dr. Doyle had to admit this was true. The horses that hauled the heavy cars were of the ancient breed that once held knights in full armor, bred not for speed, but for stamina. The car itself was positioned on a set of rails that held it steady while men in sack suits or workmen’s clothes and women in full skirts and shawls crowded into the car. At the last moment, two more men swung onto the back end of the car: a tall, fair man in a Captain’s cap, and his smaller, darker sidekick. The conductor collected the fares, and the car made its way along King’s Road, which turned into St. George’s Road as it became Portsmouth.

  The difference between the two was marked by a general increase in the age of the surroundings. The macadamized pavement gave way to bricks and then cobbles. Instead of well-built three-story brick structures, the road was lined with buildings that dated to Georgean, Stuart, or even Tudor reigns.

  Dr. Doyle enthusiastically pointed out various landmarks: the Regency row of Portman Terrace, the looming Square and Round Towers, and the far-off masts of Nelson’s ship, the Victory, which was preserved in dry dock for public viewing. Mr. Dodgson dutifully peered through the windows of the horsecar, which was becoming more and more crowded with the lower orders of society. Dr. Doyle seemed to take in stride being jostled by women managing large baskets of produce or men with fish in string bags. Mr. Dodgson shrank into his seat, reminding himself that all this was going to end by the next day at the very latest, and that he would be back in Oxford by the time term began.

  “Here we are!” Dr. Doyle thrust Mr. Dodgson ahead of him, and landed both of them in the heart of the old town, where the horsecars stopped at High Street. Here the buildings were of an era that predated the House of Hanover. The air was salty, with a tang of tar in it, flavored with the pungent odors of fish wafting up from the boats lined up at the Camber Docks, and the gusts of stale beer and frying fish from the taverns and eating-shops that lined High Street to cater to the rough-and-ready trade from the docks.

  Dr. Doyle swung his bag in one hand as he strode down High Street toward Broad Street and the docks. Mr. Dodgson hustled along beside him, while Dr. Doyle discoursed on the antiquity of Portsmouth and its unique historical importance in British history.

  “Sir Walter Raleigh imported potatoes and tobacco from America to this very spot,” Dr. Doyle announced. “And here is the niche, with the bust of King Charles the First.” He waved at the looming walls of the Square Tower. Mr. Dodgson craned his head to observe the famous landmark. They continued along High Street until they could go no farther, then turned onto Broad Street, where the bobbing masts from the Camber Docks seemed to beckon them onward.

  “It was here that the Duke of Monmouth landed,” Dr. Doyle went on, as he turned away from Broad Street and ducked into an alleyway that had been nearly obscured by the shadow of the Square Tower.

  “A most adventurous time,” Mr. Dodgson said, edging around a puddle in the middle of the street.

  “Indeed it was,” Dr. Doyle agreed. “I was hoping to use Monmouth’s Rebellion as the basis for a novel, in the manner of Sir Walter Scott. I have always admired Scott’s style—”

  “’Ullo, Dr. Doyle!” Literary affair
s were put aside, as Dr. Doyle greeted a grizzled man wearing a dungaree jacket and trousers over a much-patched blue shirt, topped with a red bandanna worn in lieu of cravat, sitting on a stool in front of the door to one of the small stone houses that lined the alley.

  “Ah, Markham!” Dr. Doyle turned to Mr. Dodgson, and said in an undertone, “A good fellow, Markham. A bit of a gossip, full of grand stories, like most old sailors. How is the cough?” he asked his patient.

  “Gettin’ on, sir, gettin’ on. Me old woman swears by her grannie’s posset.” The old sailor hacked and spat, politely missing Mr. Dodgson’s shoes by several inches.

  “I thought I left you a bottle of my own special mixture,” Dr. Doyle admonished him.

  “Aye, sir, but I di’n’t want to waste it.” The old sailor tried to look repentant and only succeeded in looking sly.

  “No matter. I wanted to take a look at that chest of yours,” Dr. Doyle insisted. “May we step in?”

  “If yer wish,” Markahm said, leading the way into the shadowy apartment, where a shriveled woman in a checked dress and stained apron crouched over a miniscule fire that barely cut the chill of the autumnal wind that whistled through the walls as if they were not even there.

  Mr. Dodgson shivered involuntarily. Dr. Doyle ignored the cold and sat his patient down at the battered table, while the woman produced a liquid from the kettle that she said was tea.

  “I hear you been talking out o’turn,” Markham wheezed. “Sal, put a drop in for the gentleman.”

  “No … I really could not deprive you …” Mr. Dodgson protested, as Sal produced a black bottle that smelled strongly of rum.

  “If you mean my statements at the inquest yesterday,” Dr. Doyle said, “I only gave my opinion. Now, Markham, if you would be so kind …” He produced his stethoscope, while Markham unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a scrawny chest covered with sparse gray hairs.

  “Was my opinion asked, you was prob’ly right,” Markham said with another wheezing laugh. “If ever a man needed killin’, that man was Arkwright.”

  “Dear me,” Mr. Dodgson said. “Did you sail under him, then?”

  “Once, and that were enough.” Markham buttoned his shirt and tucked his scarf into his collar again. “A devil he were, and no mistake!”

  “Rough on his men, was he?” Dr. Doyle scrabbled in his bag for a bottle of his favorite cough mixture, a combination of ingredients guaranteed to produce a night’s sleep, if nothing else.

  “I will be fair,” Markham said. “The Cap’n didn’t ask nothing of his men he wouldn’t do hisself, but he would do ‘most anything, and that’s a fact! I can see him now, in the middle of a storm, them black eyes of his a-blazin’, the Federals after him, a load of cotton takin’ on water, and all he says is, There’s ten thousand pound in that hold, and it goes to Liverpool or to Hell!’”

  “I take it he got it to Liverpool?” Mr. Dodgson asked, fascinated.

  “Leastways to Bermuda, where it got loaded for England.” Markham eyed Dr. Doyle’s bottle of physic distrustfully. Mr. Dodgson surmised that his wife’s grandmother’s potion would do as much good, and probably less harm.

  “Bermuda,” Mr. Dodgson mused. “Was that not where Captain Arkwright’s wife and children stayed?”

  “And a sweet child she was, that little Miss Amelia,” Markham said. “Mind, I don’t hold with babies on board, nor women, neither. Me and Sal got on cause she stayed home!” He grinned at his wife, who grinned toothlessly back before turning back to the fireplace. “But Mrs. Arkwright, now, she was a one! Come from quality, they said. Poor lady, she were ill fer a whiles, and died, they say, of a fever. I were on the Eastern Star by then, and never seen Arkwright till he fetched up here in Portsmouth.”

  “Not the sort to look up old acquaintances, I take it,” Mr. Dodgson commented.

  Markham wheezed again. “Cap’n don’t take notice of foremast hands. That’s Cavanaugh’s job. Now, there was another’ un! Peas in a pod, Arkwright and Cavanaugh. Don’t know which was wuss, the Cap’n or the Mate.”

  “That should set you right.” Dr. Doyle snapped his bag closed and accepted a coin from Sal. Mr. Dodgson politely looked away from this indication that his host was actually involved in trade.

  Markham accompanied his two visitors to the door, grateful to get back into the sunlight. “Mind,” he warned Dr. Doyle, “I don’t say old Arkwright were pizened, like you said. If he’d been down on the docks, now, maybe there’s some as ’ud take a marlinspike to ’im. But once ’e swallered the anchor, ’e kept to Southsea, and let Cavanaugh do the dirty work for ’im.”

  “Captain Cavanaugh?” Mr. Dodgson asked.

  “Aye, and ’e’d never ’ave ’is papers were it not fer Cap’n Arkwright,” Markham told them. “Two of a kind, they was, only Arkwright ’ad the luck to marry well.” Markham let out another of his wheezing laughs. Then he stopped and fixed Dr. Doyle with one red-rimmed eye. “I hear you was there when Emma Cavanaugh was took.”

  “If you mean, when she died, yes, I was,” Dr. Doyle admitted.

  “Then it’s good riddance, I say. A troublemaker, she was, though you’d never think it to look at ’er. Butter wouldn’t melt in ’er mouth!” Markham spat for emphasis.

  “Mrs. Cavanaugh seemed to think she could contact the spirit of Captain Arkwright,” Mr. Dodgson said.

  “Spirits? Emma Cavanaugh?” Markham’s wheeze deepened into a deep and hacking cough that left him clutching the walls of the fetid alleyway.

  “Better get inside and take your mixture,” Dr. Doyle counseled his patient. “I’ll be around in a day or two to see how you are getting on.”

  “Thank’ee, sir. It’s good of you to come by.” Markham touched a finger to his forehead in a sketchy salute. “But as fer Emma Cavanaugh … if she’s with Cap’n Arkwright, they’re both a deal warmer than we are!”

  The old sailor doubled up laughing, while Dr. Doyle and Mr. Dodgson continued down the alley. They turned a corner to find another alleyway, this one lined with small houses, each topped with a tile roof dating roughly to the days of Monmouth’s landing.

  “Dr. Doyle,” Mr. Dodgson said softly, “is this p-part of P-Portsmouth usually so p-populous?”

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Doyle checked his supplies once again.

  “Only that there have been two men following us since we left the horsecars. While we were in the crowd I did not take any notice of them, but they seem to be lurking behind us now. One is a tall man, wearing a cap with braid, indicating some sort of rank, I believe. The other is smaller and darker, with a plain cap. Do you suppose they may be the ones who robbed Miss Arkwright’s house last night?”

  Dr. Doyle stopped in midstride and scrabbled in his bag again. This time he lifted out a blue bottle, rubbed it on his coat-sleeve, and held it up, as if to demonstrate some of its properties to his companion. Two figures, reflected in the blue glass, jumped into an aperture in the alleyway.

  “I believe you are correct, Mr. Dodgson. We may have found our burglars.”

  “You mean, they may have found us. I suggest we remove ourselves to a street more frequented than this one.”

  “Follow me!” Dr. Doyle plunged ahead, leading Mr. Dodgson toward the waterfront, seen at the end of the alley. The street was slightly wider here, but no less noisome, and Mr. Dodgson had to step carefully around puddles and piles of offal. The two men drew closer, lengthening their strides to match those of their quarry.

  The narrow byway gave onto Broad Street, where the fishing-boats bobbed at the quayside, and the catch was being hawked from barrows. Here the crowd was dense. Thrifty servants and housewives picked carefully over the scaly contents of the barrows, eager to find the best selection for the evening meal. Men in corduroy trousers covered with much-stained and odiferous aprons oversaw the loading of crates of fresh seafood onto waiting carts, to be hauled off to fish-mongeries in nearby towns. There were even a few supercilious gentlemen bargaining for the right to transport th
e fish to the fine restaurants of London. In this crowd it was easy to get lost, and Dr. Doyle darted here and there, dragging Mr. Dodgson with him, while the two pursuers looked vainly for them.

  Mr. Dodgson maneuvered around a cart loaded with shellfish, and its owner, a small boy in tattered trousers and a large jacket with brass buttons that had once belonged to the Royal Navy. Dr. Doyle touched his hat to a large woman in a straw bonnet and checked dress, sidestepped yet another boy wheeling a barrow-load of fish, and crossed another alleyway, leaving the two men behind them confused and angry.

  “I’ve another patient in here,” he explained, as he led Mr. Dodgson to a ramshackle building that took up most of one corner of the docks. “Big Bertha’s a talkative old trout, and there’s little that goes on in Portsmouth that she doesn’t get to hear, sooner or later.”

  “One does not like to listen to servants’ gossip,” Mr. Dodgson said primly.

  “Perhaps in polite Society, but if you want to know what’s going on, you ask the cook,” Dr. Doyle observed. “Or, in this case, the daily charwoman. They all come to Big Bertha’s for a dram and a bite to eat. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Mrs. Cavanaugh had her sources of information here, too.”

  He ducked his head to avoid bumping it on the low beam of the door to the eating-house. Inside, oil lamps lit a cellarlike expanse of flagged floor, plain board tables, backless benches, and a settle against one wall, all filled with humanity engaged in the most important function of the working day. A vast female form hovered over a stove at the back of the room, separated from the waiting customers by a high shelf, where she ranged bowls of steaming hot chowder, mugs of beer, and thick slabs of bread. Dockworkers sat at the tables and lined up at the bar for their midday meal of soup, fresh-baked bread, and ale, paying for them with battered coins dropped into a crockery pot.

  The proprietress of the establishment, a woman of ample girth and height who well deserved her nickname, noticed her physician before he could greet her. “Eh, Dr. Doyle!” The woman waved a ladle at him. “Come for your luncheon?”