Spider Silk

by A. Wendeberg

I fear, however, that the unguent will soon become ineffective, and that you may need opium to be able to sleep. To prevent injuries to joints of ankle and knee, I recommend you wear a brace in addition to your crutch.

  I take the liberty of including in my letter to you a number of illustrations of the braces, crutches, and chairs manufactured for wealthier patients. The wheeling chairs are of excellent quality and might even be used outside your home should the weather permit.

  Respectfully,

  Dr Bedbrock, Edinburgh Medical School

  The letter sank to the desk. Sévère hadn’t had great expectations. But, that Bedbrock had nothing useful to add to the diagnosis and bleak outlook that Johnston had already given him, was hard to digest.

  Sévère’s gaze touched upon the drawings of the wheeling chairs. Disgusted, he pushed the letter aside.

  A brief knock and his officer, Stripling, stepped into the room. ‘Mr Sévère, the witness statements of—’

  ‘Not now, Stripling.’

  ‘But the witness—’

  Sévère slammed his hand flat on the desk. ‘Not now, Stripling! Close the bloody door!’

  Stripling was about to obey when Olivia squeezed past him. She scanned the desk, Sévère’s face, and said, ‘Coffee or brandy?’

  ‘Both,’ Sévère grumbled.

  ‘You heard him,’ she said to Stripling, smiled, and shut the door in his face.

  ‘He hates you,’ Sévère said.

  ‘Of course he does. A woman stole his respectable position.’ She produced a theatrical shudder.

  ‘You didn’t steal it. I gave it to you.’

  ‘And the question remains: do facts matter when the ego is hurt?’ She sat opposite him and indicated the letter. ‘Is this what upset you so? May I?’

  With an impatient flick of his wrist, he pushed it toward her.

  She leant back and read. The paper in her hand began to quiver. She placed it back on the desk, holding it there for a moment lest it grow bigger and swallow the whole office. ‘Would you like to visit Bedbrock?’

  ‘And buy a chair?’ he said acidly.

  ‘To learn. To know what you should expect, so you can prepare yourself.’

  ‘Not now.’

  She dipped her chin.

  There was a knock at the door. She stood and received the refreshments, placed the tray on the desk, but then thought otherwise and moved the brandy to the mantelpiece. ‘We’ll share a drink later tonight.’

  ‘My merciless wife,’ Sévère muttered, folded his hands over his stomach, and regarded her.

  ‘Now,’ she began, ‘I’ve thought about what Mr Frank said this morning: Johnston appeared healthy when he entered the house to attend to Mrs Frank. Mrs Johnston made the same observation: Her husband appeared in perfect health when he left his home. Then he took a cab, arrived here, and looked like death. Whatever toxin he was exposed to, it acted extraordinarily quickly.’

  She scratched a spot behind her ear. ‘He must have ingested it either at Mr Frank’s, in the cab, or…here. I believe you and I need to split up. I’ll try to find the cabbie, and you talk to Dr Barry. We need to know what poison was used, and how. He must have a theory. Was it a powder? A liquid? When the poison is identified, we’ll know how quickly it acts, and then we’ll know precisely when and where Johnston took it. Sévère, are you all right?’

  He blinked. ‘My apologies. I wasn’t quite…here. Yes, you are correct. Take Stripling with you. He can help to interrogate the driver.’

  She snorted. ‘No, thank you very much. Stripling is of no help whatsoever. Well, except for doing the tedious paperwork. Besides, interrogation is one of my specialities. Will you be…’ She stopped herself. He hated being pitied.

  A hairy face and a nose like a tree stump. Words came twisting around a pipe clamped between teeth. ‘Gentleman with a doctor’s suitcase and half-moon spectacles, you say? Mighta been midnight I seen him. Mighta been later.’

  ‘Did you stop to take another passenger?’

  ‘Nah. Went directly to where he wanted me ter go. Can’t quite recall where.’ The man scratched his stubbly chin, and pushed his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other. ‘Why you askin?’

  ‘He was poisoned. My husband, who is the Coroner, and I need to find out who did it.’

  ‘Poisoned you say? It wasna me!’ He held up both hands.

  She thought that a silly reaction, but narrowed her eyes at him, roasting him with a sharp glance and waiting for his mind to speed up the thinking process.

  ‘No, Missus Coroner, I wasna doin it! I swear!’ He wiped his big nose, spotted the snot track on his sleeve, and quickly rubbed it off on his trousers.

  ‘How did he appear to you when he climbed into your cab? And how did he look when he alighted?’

  ‘Looked like a docter. Both times.’

  Olivia wanted to rip off her hat and slap it into the man’s face. How did anyone ever solve a crime when witnesses were generally so unreliable? ‘Was he all right?’ she asked through her teeth. ‘Was he tired? Did he say anything?’

  ‘Said where he wants ter go. Dinna look any way paticlar, and I wasna askin. Mind my own business.’

  Olivia produced a theatrical sigh. ‘My husband won’t be happy with me.’ She shook her head and looked rather downtrodden.

  ‘Warm his bed, lass, and he’ll be all right.’ He patted her shoulder, flashed his teeth in what must have been a smile, and tipped his cap. ‘Must be off now.’ He jumped back onto his cab, clicked his tongue, and winked at her. ‘M’lady.’ The whip flicked the horse’s back, and off he went.

  ‘Cockchafer,’ Olivia muttered, and received a loud snort as an answer. A cabbie who’d been waiting nearby must have heard the exchange.

  ‘Don’t believe him, Missus. He has a head like a colander. Never remembers a thing, so he makes up colourful stories.’

  Olivia looked up at the man. ‘Do you, by any chance, know a cabbie who does not have a head like a colander?’

  He grinned. ‘It’ll cost you something.’

  ‘And how much would that be?’

  ‘Depends what it is that you want.’

  She extracted Sévère’s warrant from her skirts, unfolded it, and read it aloud.

  ‘Ah!’ The man nodded. ‘I just remembered that I have not heard or seen a thing. My apologies, Missus Coroner, but I can’t help you. Most unfortunate.’ He looked straight ahead, chewed his tobacco, than ejected a long string of brownish saliva onto the pavement.

  She stuck her hand into the folds of her skirts and let her coins jingle. At once, the cabbie’s attention was drawn back to where she needed it.

  Interrogation is much like prostitution, Olivia mused.

  Sévère sat at his desk. The morning sun shone through the window behind him, lending his head a halo. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘Why, thank you,’ Olivia answered, snatched up his coffee cup, tipped the cold contents into her mouth, and placed it back on the saucer. She unlaced her boots, kicked them off, and curled up on a chair. ‘I feared you would be sleeping still. I’m glad you aren’t. I hate to barge into your bedroom.’

  Sévère didn’t mention that he, too, had spent the night working. ‘I assume chasing down the cabbie proved difficult.’

  ‘Indeed it did. But at last I found him. He took Johnston directly from the Franks’ to here. No stops. Nothing notable happened, and nothing notable was to be found in the carriage. No powder, bottle, paper or tinfoil. Nothing. It was a simple, everyday ride. A whole night wasted for nothing. What about you?’

  ‘Have you eaten breakfast?’ Sévère asked.

  ‘Let me think… No, not yet. I had a baked potato around midnight, I believe.’

  He stood, called for Netty, and told her to bring a tray with food and tea for his wife.

  ‘And coffee, please,’ Olivia called over her shoulder, a yawn making her voice hollow.

  Sévère took his seat. ‘Dr Barry isn’t convinced that Johnston was poisoned
. He knows of no case similar to what I and Drs Tailor and James, who performed the postmortems, described. Strychnine, arsenic, and cyanide can be excluded with certainty. In a few more days Dr Barry might be able to give us the preliminary results of his extractions. Assuming he’s able to extract anything of interest from the organ samples.’

  For a few moments, Sévère gazed at the cigar that smouldered in the ashtray, and wished his mind were faster, sharper. But exhaustion was taking its toll. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, and said, ‘I have to hold two inquests tomorrow and I don’t feel sufficiently prepared for either.’

  She did not answer. He looked across the desk.

  Olivia’s eyes were shut, and her chest rose and fell slowly.

  He stood, stubbed out the cigar, and quietly let Netty know that breakfast would have to wait, and that they were not to be disturbed. He picked up a blanket from his footstool and gazed at Olivia’s face. The strand of black hair that had come undone, and that now rested on her cheek. The pale bruise around her left eye. The small cut on her upper lip.

  He spread the blanket over her and got back to work.

  Chemistry

  The two inquests Sévère had held today left him unusually tired. Despite the luxury of a few hours of undisturbed sleep. Despite his leg feeling better, the pain being less pronounced than on previous days. But the fatigue that was tugging at his every limb…

  He tried to recall his boyhood, when paralysis had first struck him down. Had tiredness been one of the symptoms? He couldn’t say. He’d spent most of his time in bed. There’d been no opportunity to be tired of anything much but boredom, pain, loneliness, and the bedpan.

  The clock on the mantlepiece told him it was twenty minutes past two. Time was flying, and work was piling up faster than he and Olivia could get it done. His stomach grumbled, and he put his hand there, wondering if he’d had breakfast. He couldn’t recall that, either.

  With effort, he stood and reached for the bell rope. Netty arrived a moment later, took his order for “whatever cook has simmering on the stove,” and delivered it swiftly.

  As he ate, he went through notes on recent cases, ignoring the stack of papers on Johnston’s death. If he touched that case now, he wouldn’t be able to put it aside for the remainder of the day. And that, he couldn’t afford.

  Four inquests were scheduled for the following week, and several witness statements were incomplete. The jury for two inquests had not been fully appointed. He made a list of tasks for himself and Stripling, and pulled out the postmortem reports. He swallowed. Johnston had performed them.

  A knock startled him.

  ‘Enter,’ he said gruffly, but Olivia had already opened the door. She carried a sandwich in one hand, a bowl in the other, and a notebook clamped under her arm. She sat down across from him, and began to shovel food into her mouth.

  ‘That smells delicious. What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Goulash.’ She held a spoonful across his desk. He closed his mouth around the offering, and was struck by the familiarity between them. Had this grown, or had it suddenly happened? Had she allowed it, or had he?

  ‘All I got was broth.’ He glanced into the now empty plate. ‘No one mentioned goulash to me.’

  ‘Cook lets me taste dinner before it’s served. All you need to do is go down to the kitchen, say ohhh! and ahhh! and then you ask what smells so delicious, and if you might have a taste.’ She shrugged and tipped the last puddle of goulash into her mouth. ‘So,’ she said and plopped the bowl onto the desk. ‘I went to every single chemist in a two-mile radius around Johnston’s home. Which reminds me…’

  She bent down and unlaced her shoes, pulled them off and massaged her feet. ‘Thank goddess. My toes were suffering a slow death.’

  She wiggled her feet, curled her toes, and sat up straight, then snapped open her notebook and leafed though the first pages. ‘I’ll begin with the negatives. None of Johnston’s servants are known to have purchased toxic substances from chemists in the area. Except for a bottle of cough syrup. But Johnston wasn’t killed with opium, so that’s irrelevant. I even enquired at the fashion boutique across from Johnston’s home. They employ a dye chemist who regularly works with thousands of grains of arsenic. But that’s irrelevant to us, because arsenic wasn’t what killed Johnston.’

  She tapped her index finger against paper. ‘And then there’s Mrs Baker — the char woman who is the only servant not living with the Johnstons, and who comes to their house once a week. She has not purchased anything suspicious. Not at the chemists in the area, nor at any of the chemists in East End, where she resides. However,’ Olivia paused to take a bite of her sandwich and brush the crumbs off her notes. ‘Mrs Frank was purchasing medicine for her weak heart, medicine that can be used to poison people at high-enough dosages.’

  ‘Digitalis,’ Sévère said.

  ‘Yes. Mrs Frank has been taking it for the past eight or nine years, as prescribed by Dr Johnston. He told her to take three drops, three times a day. Their chemist told me that twenty to thirty drops taken at once are lethal. The bottle of digitalis tincture you found on her night stand was almost full. I measured how much fit in the dropper — thirty drops. Then, judging from the loss of volume when taking out one full dropper, I estimated how much might have been taken from the bottle before you confiscated it. Assuming the bottle was full to the brim, one and a half droppers full of digitalis tincture are missing. More than enough to kill Johnston.’

  Sévère nodded and picked at his notes. ‘Mrs Appleton had the opportunity and the means to poison Johnston. But did she have a motive?’ He cocked his head.

  Olivia waited.

  After a moment of consideration, Sévère continued, ‘I am certain that no chemist would know if Molly Johnston was in the possession of poison. She would not be stupid enough to purchase it if she wished to kill her husband. She would simply take it from him.’ He frowned and reached toward a cigar stump, struck a match and lit it.

  ‘We may further assume that an intelligent murderer would not purchase a poison near his home.’

  ‘He might not even purchase the whole dose at once,’ Olivia mused. ‘Sales of arsenic to individuals are limited. A chemist isn’t allowed to sell more than a grain to any customer without special authority.’

  ‘Which leaves us with half of London as suspects. Let us focus on the persons who had access to Johnston on the night in question — Molly Johnston and her servants, as well as Mr Frank and his servants. And me. Not to forget Netty.’

  ‘Let’s exclude you, shall we?’ Olivia said. ‘Let’s exclude Netty and anyone from the Johnston household as well. For now. What I find remarkable about Mr Frank is that he seemed ill. His wife was ill, he was ill, and Johnston was ill too. Until he died. Mrs Appleton — the housekeeper — was not ill. The maid and the cook weren’t ill either, and they had already retired to their rooms, according to Mr Frank and Mrs Appleton. You had their statements confirmed by the servants. Now I wonder…’

  ‘I sent samples of the Franks’ dinner leftovers to Dr Barry. And of the Johnstons’ dinner.’

  ‘Oh,’ Olivia waved a hand at Sévère, ‘I’m sure you did. What I find unusual is that Mrs Frank’s illness did not prevent her from dressing in her finery. Why is that?’

  ‘Isn’t that what women do? Dress fashionably, even though it makes them quite uncomfortable?’

  ‘In the middle of the night? When they feel deathly ill? Are you jesting?’

  He shrugged. ‘It must have been before your time, so perhaps you don’t realise that ladies once wore ball dresses that help up to a thousand grains of arsenic, knowing full well that the fashionable green dye was killing them.’

  Olivia sucked air through her teeth. She’d read about the killing dresses. And she had to admit that Sévère had a point.

  ‘Nevertheless, you are correct, Olivia. It is odd and worth investigating. I talked to Dr Barry this morning and he said that it might be possible for Johnston
to have ingested vegetable alkaloids. Digitalis, for example. Johnston’s last words were, “You are hurting my arm.” I was supporting his left arm with my right. Pain in the left arm is a common symptom of heart failure.’

  ‘When is his burial?’ Olivia asked softly.

  ‘In two days.’ Sévère pushed the case notes aside and extinguished the cigar. ‘Now to our special case. I agree with you that we should not use a young girl to bait Frost. We will, instead, bribe a seductress.’ His eyes flickered.

  Exhaling, Olivia leant back. ‘You are thinking of Mrs Gretchen.’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  She shook her head. ‘After she abducted me, she kept me for a few months, and then sold me. That’s more than six years ago. I believe she is moving from boarding house to boarding house, to minimise the risk of being discovered. But I do know who—’

  The door was pushed open and Netty stepped through, Inspector Height and two more policemen entering directly behind her.

  Sévère stood. ‘Gentlemen, may I ask why you burst into my office without the common courtesy of announcing yourselves?’

  ‘Coroner Sévère,’ Height began, ‘the case has been fully considered. You were heard to have had an argument with Dr Johnston, upon which he cried, “You are hurting me.” Only moments later, he was thrown down the stairs by you. Preliminary results of the toxicological analysis indicate the use of a vegetable alkaloid. Furthermore, we have found proof that you purchased aconite — a highly toxic vegetable alkaloid. The amount of aconite you purchased was sufficient to poison the victim ten times over. Coroner Sévère, it has been decided to charge you with causing the death of Dr Peter Johnston, in your own home, on July the second, 1881. You are required to hand over all aconite in your possession, so that Dr Barry can compare it with the poison found in Dr Johnston’s organs. I will now take you into custody.’

  Sévère sank back onto his chair. ‘An unexpected turn of events.’ He looked up at Height. ‘Inspector, I do hope you know what you are doing.’

  ‘I do, Coroner. The Home Secretary will be notified and a replacement for your office will be assigned.’ Height unclipped a pair of manacles from his belt.