Beloved Poison

by E. S. Thomson

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I heard that.’

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Catchpole killed him. She loved him. Obsessively, it would appear. Obsession is closer to madness than it is to sanity. You saw her that night at Mrs Roseplucker’s. And at Dr Bain’s funeral. She was capable of anything. Her actions might be motivated by love, certainly, but they were rendered murderous by obsession.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘But your explanation also tells us why that was not what happened. A jealous rage, especially one that borders on madness, is a spontaneous eruption of feeling and action, as violent and passionate as it is unexpected. But there’s nothing violent or unexpected about poisoning. It’s an act that must be coldly calculated and meticulously planned. Oh no, Will, Mrs Catchpole didn’t murder Dr Bain, though it’s quite possible that she knows who did. Did you notice that the grass outside the laboratory window was trampled?’

  ‘No. Was it?’

  ‘It was quite clear. Someone had been standing there. And more than one person, judging by the way the weeds were crushed. Joe Silks said there was a man, outside the window, while we were inside with Dr Bain examining the coffins, d’you remember? That was long before Mrs Catchpole appeared. And according to Gabriel a man was there again at midnight. At that time Dr Bain was still alive to answer the door and send Gabriel on his way. Unfortunately I could not make out the shape of his footprints, as the ground was too hard for the mark of a man’s heels.’ We turned out of Wicke Street. On either side, the houses grew more and more dilapidated, though it was nothing compared to where we were headed.

  ‘But a lady’s heels are smaller and sharper,’ I continued. ‘I could see indentations in the ground beneath Dr Bain’s window that I dare say would match the heel marks left by a fashionable button-sided ladies’ boot, not unlike those habitually worn by Mrs Catchpole.’

  ‘So we can be certain where she stood and looked in,’ said Will. ‘But if a woman was with Dr Bain that evening, is it not logical to assume that it was Mrs Catchpole?’

  ‘And yet the facts suggest quite the opposite.’

  Will looked puzzled. He removed his tall hat and wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief of the kind favoured by Joe Silks. ‘But she had walked all the way from Wicke Street to find him,’ he said. ‘She may well have been at large in the city for hours after her escape from Mrs Roseplucker’s. Surely she would go inside.’

  ‘But if she had gone inside she would have discovered that Dr Bain was dead,’ I said. ‘When she barged into Dr Bain’s funeral she said that he was “only sleeping”. Unless she was simply raving – there is always that possibility – my feeling is that she spoke the truth, as she saw it when she looked through the window. She thought he was sleeping. If she had gone in, she would have known that he was not.’ I smiled, pleased by my own perspicacity. ‘It’s quite clear that Mrs Catchpole was not the lady visitor, and did not go into Dr Bain’s house. In fact I’ll wager she didn’t even knock on the door.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Think, Will! What might she have seen that ensured she did not – would not – knock on her lover’s door? Despite her desperation, despite her hours spent in search of him across London?’

  Will stared at me, his expression blank. ‘Ah!’ Comprehension flooded his face. ‘She didn’t knock because she saw that there was already someone in there.’

  ‘Yes! But who?’

  ‘The woman,’ said Will, his cheeks turning pink with excitement. ‘The woman who sat in the chair before the fire. The woman Dr Bain moved his books for. Dr Bain’s lady visitor. We must ask Mrs Catchpole who—’

  I shook my head. ‘But if it were a lady, would Mrs Catchpole not barge in and demand an explanation? She has already attempted to flush Dr Bain out of a brothel. She has wandered about the city for hours, and now she finds him with yet another woman? Would she really just creep away again? She was only prevented from breaking down his bedroom door at Wicke Street because her husband arrived and carried her off.’

  Will began to look exasperated. ‘A man then?’

  But I was determined to make him find his own way to the truth. ‘One she is too frightened to confront? Earlier that evening she had rendered the doorkeeper of a whore house completely unconscious with one blow from her husband’s walking stick. One can only wonder what sort of a man might so frighten Mrs Catchpole as to stop her from knocking on her lover’s front door.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know!’ cried Will. ‘If it was not a woman, and not a man, I can’t begin to imagine who else might be left. Neither? Both? Who do you think it was?’

  ‘Oh, perhaps it’s all just conjecture.’ I rubbed my eyes wearily. ‘Is it deduction, or is it simply guess work? I’m not sure I can tell the difference any more.’ I sighed. The steps we had followed were logical, based solely on the facts we had before us. And yet there was something about it all that didn’t seem right. Was there a dimension to the problem that I was not seeing? Some part of the puzzle I had missed? Common sense told me who it was that Mrs Catchpole had seen through Dr Bain’s window, and I was certain I was right. But was that person really Dr Bain’s murderer? It was possible. But was it also probable?

  Will seized me by the arm and pulled me to a halt. ‘Who did she see? Who stopped her from going in? It was a man, wasn’t it? You said it wasn’t a woman but you didn’t say it wasn’t a man.’

  ‘Think, Will,’ I said. ‘Who is the only man who could make a deranged wife hesitate about entering her lover’s front room?’

  He stared at me. And then all at once his look of irritated perplexity vanished. ‘Of course!’ he cried. ‘Why, it has to be – oh, well done, Mr Flockhart.’ He seized me by the hand. ‘Well done!’

  ‘D’you see?’ I said.

  ‘It’s obvious!’

  ‘We don’t know who Dr Bain’s late-night lady visitor was, but we do know who Mrs Catchpole saw. It could be none other—’

  ‘—than Dr Catchpole.’

  Where was Joe Silks? I had not seen him outside the infirmary that morning. If he had gone to ground, hiding somewhere in the great rotting hulks that made up the rookeries to the east of St Saviour’s, then we would never find him. Still, we had to try. We turned out of Fishbait Lane into St Saviour’s Street. The sun was warm now. The vapours were putrid, and there was no breeze to drive them away. I began to wonder whether Will’s utopia of sewers and drains might well be beneficial to the outlook and disposition of the city. I could feel my mood darken as the atmosphere thickened.

  The stretch of wall above the gratings where Joe Silks and his gang usually sat was unoccupied. No doubt the ragged children were somewhere about the city, picking pockets or sliding their skinny arms through pantry windows. But I knew where Joe Silks lived when he was not on the grating. We would look for him there, though the fact that he preferred to spend his nights shivering beneath a pile of sacks outside the hospital said much about the place he came from.

  The streets leading in the direction of Prior’s Rents grew narrower and darker the further we walked from the infirmary. The houses were ramshackle, crooked tenements thrown up to house the poor. Over time they had been divided and subdivided to accommodate more and more people, until it seemed as though the fabric of the buildings themselves was shored up with humanity. Men loitered in doorways, pipes in their mouths and bottles in their hands; women squatted on steps, babies half forgotten in their laps. Packs of children ran in and out of the filthy refuse-choked alleys. The usual flotsam of straw, manure, dog shit and vegetable matter littered the ground. We skirted a pool of brown, lumpy water, and turned into a dismal court.

  The sun seemed to vanish as we entered the place. Windows without glass punctuated the black edifices that reared on either side of us – some boarded over, others bearing a fluttering pennant of ragged grey curtain. Flies hummed in the air. Voices – a crying baby, a shouting drunkard, a pair of women arguing – were audible, and below this, a constant underlying clamour. No one who was not a resident had an
y business amongst those foul, narrow streets, and I felt eyes – hostile and predatory – staring at us from windows and doors. I glanced from side to side at the slimy black walls. Were the shadows creeping closer?

  ‘We’re being followed,’ said Will.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Since we left Wicke Street.’

  ‘Do you think it’s time to find out who he is?’

  ‘He? Are you certain?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ I took Will’s arm and bundled him into a doorway.

  For a moment, we could see nothing at all. The place stank like a sewer – indeed, it may well have been used as such for beneath our feet the ground was sticky and gave off a fearful stench. Our footsteps echoed off black walls, iridescent with moisture. I stopped. Will slithered to a halt beside me. His face was visible in the darkness like a painted mask, his features set into an expression of such mingled alarm and disgust that I almost laughed. Behind us, further up the passage and somewhere out of sight, there came the sound of grunting and rustling.

  We stood, side by side, just beyond the reach of the light at the passage entrance. All at once a shadow appeared. For a moment it stood there, outlined against the light, a tall hooded figure. And then it was gone.

  ‘Quickly!’ I bounded back towards the main thoroughfare, my feet skittering on the muddy cobbles. He couldn’t have gone far. I sprang over the fly-blown corpse of a dead tom-cat and plunged down the street.

  ‘Where is he?’ Will was at my side. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Look!’ I pointed. Moving swiftly along in the deep shadows on the north side of the street, a cloaked figure was gliding away from us.

  I tore after him, Will close behind. Clouds of furious flies rose about us. ‘Faster!’ I said. ‘We mustn’t lose him!’

  We were heading into unfamiliar territory now, moving further away from the reassuring noise of St Saviour’s Street and deep into the twisting maze of slums. Even Dr Bain, with all his familiarity with the area, his fearlessness and audacity, had not ventured down these streets. Would we be able to find our way out again? The figure ahead had a long and confident stride. Behind me, I could hear Will panting.

  ‘Jem,’ he said. ‘D’you know where we are going? D’you know the way back? Jem!’ He sounded worried and afraid. I knew he would follow me wherever I went, that he would not let me head off alone into such evil streets, no matter how anxious he was. But I would not ask that much of him. I would not have to – we were sure to catch the man at any moment. I ran faster, my arms pumping.

  Ahead of us, the street narrowed, the houses on either side tall and black, leaning towards one another as if eventually, one day, they would slump together, and the thin strip of sky would be blotted out completely.

  ‘Come on!’ I cried. ‘We almost have him!’

  Our quarry turned right, sprinting up a flight of steps and beneath a crumbling archway of blackened bricks. I followed, heading deeper into that dark, uncharted labyrinth of streets and courts. All at once we emerged onto the crumbling edge of a narrow waterway, a filthy canal tributary, no wider than a barge. It was barricaded at one end by a giant wooden lock-gate, its sheer walls some twenty feet deep, brick-lined and coated with green and black slime. The filthy waters at its foot had a thick, lumpy texture, like boiled mince. Here and there the bloated flank of a dead animal broke the surface. The smell was intolerable.

  Hardly visible in the shadows, the cloaked figure raced along the slippery stones of the canal bank, heading towards a single narrow plank that traversed the chasm in a makeshift bridge. He dashed across, and plunged towards the warren of tenements on the opposite bank. And yet if we were quick, if we ran that bit faster – I bounded after him. The plank bridge was barely wider than the sole of my boot. I felt it bow beneath my weight, but I did not hesitate and was across in an instant.

  Behind me, I heard Will cry out. I muttered a curse and turned to urge him on. If he could just keep up—

  Will was standing, motionless, in the centre of the slimy plank. His arms were outstretched, his knees bent, his gaze fixed in terror on the stretch of brown water some twenty feet below. ‘Jem!’ he screamed, his arms windmilling. I stopped. Up ahead, the figure in the cloak stopped too, and looked back. For a moment, he stood there, watching us, his face hidden in the shadows. He knew, as I did, that the chase was over. Who was he? I had to know. I took a step towards him.

  ‘Jem!’ Will screamed again. I could see the plank rocking beneath his feet, no more than two inches of rotten wood balanced on the lip of the canal-side. When I looked back, our quarry had vanished. We had lost the game – for the moment, at least.

  I stood on the great stone slabs at the edge of the canal and held out my hand, trying not to look down at that yawning pit and the ribbon of effluent at its foot. ‘Take my hand, Will,’ I said. ‘Two steps and you’ll be safe.’

  ‘I can’t,’ whispered Will. The plank rocked violently as his knees trembled. ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘Stop looking down,’ I said. ‘Looking down makes it worse.’ He looked up at me. His face was frozen in terror, his eyes staring, his breathing shallow. I held out my hand. ‘Now,’ I said, gently this time. ‘Just walk forward. Two steps.’

  And then I realised that he was not looking at me at all. Instead, he was looking at something over my shoulder.

  Behind me, where the buildings throttled the street into a narrow passageway, two dark figures had appeared. They were short, wiry men with dirty caps and ragged greasy coats. Between them, a scrofulous, one-eyed dog bristled and growled. One of them pulled an iron bar from behind his back and held it like a cudgel in his hand. The other swung his arms, ape-like.

  I turned back to Will, still poised and trembling on that rotten plank above the stinking stretch of effluent. ‘Go back,’ I said. ‘I’ll follow.’

  ‘Go back?’ cried Will. He was looking down again now, trying to turn, slowly inching his feet around. The slimy wood beneath his feet bowed and rocked as he moved. His arms flailed. All at once he was crouching down, holding onto the rotten timber with both hands. ‘I can’t!’ he screamed. ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘Will,’ I said. ‘You have to.’ The dog was barking now, the men coming closer. They might kill us and rob us and fling our bodies into the canal and no one would ever know. I took one look at them, and stepped onto the plank.

  ‘You have to move, Will,’ I said. I tried to sound calm, as though we were merely standing on a pavement having a conversation. ‘Stand up. Keep your eyes on the other bank, and walk over to it.’

  What happened next is fixed in my mind like a series of random photographs. I can remember Will’s terrified face, and the yawning pit at our feet. More clearly than anything, I can recall the strip of blue sky visible between the black, crooked rooftops, bright and hopeful, like a child’s ribbon fluttering overhead. I know there was movement – a footstep, a stumble – and then Will was across and I close behind him. And then I slipped, and the world dropped away beneath my feet.

  I remember rushing air, a shriek, the clawing of hands as I fell . . . I flailed my arms, trying to grip something – anything – and then I was hanging there, my fingers scrabbling to hold on, my feet scraping impotently against the slimy bricks of the canal wall. The smell of shit and decay was all about me, the metallic taste of blood on my lips was the taste of fear. I dangled there, clinging to an iron ring fixed into the canal-side, my legs kicking, the air about me echoing with the bark of a dog and the shouts of men. I looked down. Beneath me, far below, the plank was already sinking out of sight beneath the reeking brown sludge. I heard screaming, and with the ragged pain in my throat realised it was my own voice. And then Will was gripping my hand, his fingers clamped about my wrist as he hauled me upward.

  We lay there for a moment, side by side on the greasy refuse-strewn paving slabs beside the canal. I could taste blood from where I had bitten my own tongue. My arm felt as though it had been almost torn from its roots, my knuckles we
re bloody where I had grazed them, and my coat was smeared all over with black slime. Will’s arms were around me, his grip still tight as though he feared I might slip out of it. I could hear his heart racing, thudding wildly against his ribs in counterpoint to my own. But we were in no place to linger. We had run deep into the rookeries and I hoped we could find our way back out again. Without a word to one another, we got to our feet and began to retrace our steps. To the left, I heard a low whistle. Up ahead, another answered. I looked back. The two men and the hideous dog had walked along the canal and were making their way across the lock-gates at its head. They would soon be upon us, and from the sound of it there were others just like them lurking all around.

  ‘Keep walking,’ I hissed.

  ‘Look!’ Will bent down. He plucked something from the thick layer of slimy refuse that covered the ground, and held it up.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Did he drop it? The man we were following?’

  ‘He must have,’ said Will. ‘It’s clearly been on the ground for only a moment.’

  ‘What is it?’ I said again. I could not make it out. ‘Let me see.’

  Will didn’t answer. He looked at me strangely, and then held out his hand. On his palm was a small piece of lump sugar.

  We ran back towards Prior’s Rents. I felt no shame in it – far better to be thought scared and get away from the place, than to be foolhardy enough to stroll homewards, and be murdered into the bargain.

  Joe’s building was a corner tenement, dark and derelict. It was quite possible that Joe would not be there, though there was some comfort in the knowledge that if we could not find him then it was unlikely that anyone else would. There were any number of places he might be hiding in that great ants’ nest of tumbledown buildings.

  There was no door, just a flight of stone steps leading up into the groaning darkness. Here and there a mound of rags told where a human being lay – dead, perhaps, or insensible, brains and organs poisoned beyond redemption by cheap gin. Higher and higher we climbed, at length passing a window, the shattered panes sharp against the mocking blue of the sky. In the light it threw onto the stair a pair of sunken-cheeked children sat, their faces black with dirt. They looked up at us with exhausted indifference. One of them stuck out a hand. I continued on. What use was a coin to such as they? They would only use it to buy gin. Or the coin would be extorted from them by violent family members, reluctantly exchanged for a bloody nose and another broken tooth. Behind me I heard Will stop. I turned, and saw him pressing a shilling into the grubby outstretched hand.