The Formula for Murder

by Carol McCleary

  “How long did they keep her before she, uh, passed—”

  “They told me that the brain fever had taken her the previous night when I came to pick her up. She was dead, my sweet baby was pale like a ghost, sleeping and I couldn’t wake her up.”

  “Did they tell you what caused her condition?”

  “They said children die all the time from fevers.”

  That is true, but they usually don’t have an illness that goes from perfectly healthy to terminal overnight.

  “If Emma wasn’t sick,” I ask, “when you took her to the spa, what was the reason for her being treated there?”

  “My baby wasn’t being treated, she was helping others.”

  “Come again?”

  “The doctor said she was so young and healthy, that she could help sick old people get well.”

  “How did she help sick people get well?”

  “She was a good girl.”

  “But what exactly did she do to help the sick?”

  “She was healthy. The doctor said she was young and healthy and could help.”

  “Was it Dr. Lacroix or Dr. Radic who told you Emma could help others?”

  “The younger one. Dr. Lacroix.”

  Her eyes are clouding over. She appears not to have any notion of what went on at the spa. And neither do I. A child goes in … for what? And is dead the next morning.

  Could something macabre or satanic have occurred? Or is it a medical treatment that went radically wrong? Just as another one did.

  “Have you ever heard of Lady Winsworth?” I ask Sarah.

  She shakes her head.

  “Did Lacroix say anything about little Emma helping a particular person?”

  Another shake.

  She looks as if she is having difficulty focusing and I am feeling a bit queasy myself. Talking to a street woman about the mysterious fate of a small child is getting me nauseated. I need to get away from her and try to make some sense of what she told me.

  I pay her and flee as fast as my feet can take me, my head once again swirling with facts that don’t add up and information that I can’t digest.

  What in God’s name could Dr. Lacroix and Dr. Radic and their snake oil salespeople have been doing at the fashionable spa with a small child? Did they have her sit next to old people in hopes that the sight of her would make them younger—a macabre thought no doubt generated in my head by Oscar’s tale of a painting that grew old while its subject stayed young?

  Did they have her bathe in the spring waters so some youthful essence washed off her and into the waters others bathed in—or drank?

  All the scenarios I could think of sound bizarre, but I remind myself that the health claims of the spa are pretty fantastic.

  I wish Oscar was here to help me. He has an incredible mind and in matters of beauty and what people would do, well, he might have some ideas. Maybe I’ll telegram him my findings.

  First I need to eat to help settle my stomach.

  I find a pub that serves pasties, a favorite of mine—they’re meat and potato pies used by Cornish miners as a compact, handheld meal. The miners brought them to American mining towns. The pasty and hot tea work perfectly. The food not only settles my stomach, but the baked smell of the meat, potatoes, and dough brings nice memories that help wash away the pain in Sarah’s face.

  Something my mother always says when she sees someone who has suffered the bad life of this world comes to mind: There, but for the grace of God, go any of us.

  Checking back at my hotel, there are telegrams from both Chief Inspector Bradley and Lady Chilcott—both will see me.

  Good. As Oscar’s friend Arthur Conan Doyle would say, “The game’s afoot.”

  25

  Chief Inspector Bradley is about forty, younger than Inspector Abberline; also thinner and taller, with bushy prematurely gray hair retreating from the front of his head. He has a solid, almost stern cast to his features while Abberline has a little room for humor in his.

  Stiff upper lip type, that very British exercise of self-restraint in the expression of emotion, is how I peg him.

  His office is small, not a cubbyhole because he is a chief inspector, but it shows few personal effects. His desk is a library table heaped high with stacks of papers with chairs drawn up to it.

  I imagine his officers gather around his desk to discuss cases. There are ashtrays the size of plates scattered about and I would bet I’d spot a spittoon or two if I took a peek under the table.

  “Have a good trip across the pond?” he asks as he leans back in his swivel chair and prepares a pipe.

  From the look he is giving me I suspect that preparing a pipe helps him kill time as he sizes me up.

  “Atlantic storm put me at the rail a good bit of the way. I love the sea but hate the way it bounces great ships around with me on them like they were toys.”

  He chuckles and eyes me as he sends up a cloud of aromatic pipe tobacco smoke that has a hint of blackberry.

  I know this will not be as comfortable as dealing with Inspector Abberline. The look I am getting from the chief inspector is one of caution. Bath is a small community compared to London and has an overabundance of the wealthy and titled, drawn here because of the spas. That no doubt draws considerably more attention on the police than in a large metropolitan area.

  “Never cared for the sea myself.” Another cloud of smoke and then he moves his first piece in the game of policeman versus reporter. “Doing a story on the death of Lady Winsworth?” he asks.

  “Actually, I’m doing a story on the spa and the marvelous cures they claim, but yes, it would be hard to do a story about the facility and not mention that someone died from the treatment.”

  “Now, there’s no evidence of that. The coroner’s investigation is still open as to the cause of death. We still have other avenues to investigate before a verdict will be rendered.”

  “I guess I was misinformed. My understanding is that her ladyship died after receiving treatment at the spa.”

  “There’s no question she drank some of those concoctions they charge an arm and a leg for at the place, but so have hundreds of other people. And still do. First thing the medical examiner did was look for poison and he found none.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “Now, that’s a question that falls in the bailiwick of the medical examiner and his boss, the coroner. But I can tell you this—they just don’t know yet. Could be something she ate or drank, but as I said, she consumed what others did.”

  “What does Dr. Lacroix say happened?”

  “Now, Miss, you do know the questions to ask that I don’t have answers for. The doctor left for the continent soon after Lady Winsworth died and we haven’t been able to talk to him.”

  “Rather convenient?”

  He shrugs. “To some it plays that way, but we were shown proof that the trip was planned well before her ladyship passed. We have questioned Lacroix’s partner, Dr. Radic, and he gave a list of what she had ingested. Basically the same as everyone else.” He eyed me some more through the smoke. “You understand that this matter is being given very special attention, not ignored.”

  I nod. “Lord Winsworth is a very important man.”

  “Quite so, but there are also plenty of other high-muckety-mucks who swear by the spa and believe what they drink and bathe in there relieves their aching old bones or will turn them young and beautiful again.”

  “Which means from the standpoint of the coroner’s office, it’s a hot potato and no decision will be made until the medical examiner is absolutely certain.”

  More blank stares through the smoke screen tell me that I have gotten all I am going to get from him about the death of the woman, so I change tacks.

  I ask, “Is it possible to see the coroner’s report on the death of a child at the spa, a little girl named Emma? I don’t know the last name.”

  “Another customer died at the spa?”

  “She wasn’t a customer. She had
apparently been used at the spa for some reason, her youthfulness rubbing off on people, maybe, I’m not exactly certain. Her mother is an, uh, underprivileged woman.”

  “Meaning a prostitute, I take it. How did the child’s youthfulness rub off on people?”

  “It’s a puzzle to me, but that’s what I was told by the mother. Dr. Radic told her that the child died of brain fever while at the spa.”

  “She received medical attention before she passed?”

  “Yes, I suppose—”

  “Then there wouldn’t be a coroner’s inquiry or any reason for the medical examiner to make an examination because there is a known cause of death certified by a medical doctor.”

  “I found it rather strange, a child at the spa, brain fever—”

  “Miss Bly, you are a newspaper reporter looking for a story, the more sensational the better. I have to deal with not just the sensational but the mundane. Look around you. All of these papers deal with crimes, some with murder most foul. If I investigated even one tenth of the deaths of the mudlarks on the streets, I would spend my entire time at it. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “One more question, please. Did Hailey McGuire, one of our reporters, contact you about the Winsworth matter?”

  “No.”

  The answer is snapped at me and I snap back. “Are spas like Aqua Vitae so important to the economy of Bath that the local officials look the other way rather than probing too deeply into their operations?”

  “Madam, you have overstayed your welcome.”

  26

  I leave the chief inspector knowing little more than when I arrived except for one important fact: Hailey had not contacted him.

  I find that strange and mull it over as I slowly make my way back to my hotel.

  Contacting the police to get as much information as possible is usually the beginning and end of a reporter’s duties in researching a crime story. Since Hailey considered this story to be very big, interviewing others concerned would be also be in order, but again, the police would most often be the starting point to gather as many facts as possible before approaching others.

  Hailey was an experienced crime reporter. In fact, almost all of her experience was hanging around the courthouse, talking to police, prosecutors, and witnesses.

  So why didn’t she contact the police immediately upon arriving in Bath? That she didn’t was so out of character, it left me puzzled.

  The only other significant information I got from the chief inspector was that he isn’t convinced that Lady Winsworth’s death is suspicious. It is out of the realm of possibilities that he would look the other way if the death is suspicious—besides ethics, and I’m certain the man has high standards, while spas may be an important source of revenue for the city, Lord Winsworth is rich and powerful. For sure, he is exercising pressure on the police and coroner to solve his wife’s death.

  I arrive back at my hotel to freshen up and check for messages before I go for my “audience” with Lady Chilcott.

  The stuffy clerk at the front desk gives me a stiff frown as I approach.

  “A person inquired about you earlier.”

  He left out the word “undesirable” but his tone implied it.

  “What person inquired about me?”

  “A woman of the streets.”

  Ah, Sarah, Emma’s mother. Terrific. “Did she leave a message?”

  “She was asked to leave by the manager. The presence of that sort of woman in our establishment would create the wrong impression.”

  “Did she say anything before she was ushered out?”

  “She said she would be at the Albert Bridge trolley stop tonight at eight.”

  “Is that all?”

  “We do not permit—”

  “Yes, I got that. Thank you.”

  * * *

  LADY CHILCOTT’S BATH ESTATE is a redbrick Georgian manor house with white window trim and black shutters. I have the cabbie stop at a florist on the way to purchase a bouquet of flowers as a “thank you” for seeing me and inviting me to tea. It’s the sort of expenditure that the Draconian cashier at The World will refuse to reimburse me for when I submit my expenses.

  My appointment with her is for two o’clock which I know from my travels around the world on British ships means we will have low tea rather than high tea. The names arose from the difference between the height of the tables and food served: Low tea, also called afternoon tea, is often served on a low table, like a coffee table in a living room, and is accompanied by cake and the cookies and flat bread the British call biscuits, while high tea, or “meat tea,” is served later, in the dining room around five to seven with heartier foods such as cold cuts, boiled eggs, or sandwiches.

  I am escorted by the butler to the garden where her ladyship is clipping roses while she waits for me.

  I have never really comprehended the British designation of what the title “Lady” means, even though Oscar has explained it in great detail to me. All that seems to stick in my mind is that the woman’s husband or father is most likely a knight or nobleman.

  We sit in comfortably padded wrought-iron lawn chairs as tea and cookies are served on a low glass-topped table.

  The butler supervises a maid who serves us tea in an exquisite pink porcelain tea set that has delicate flowers hand-painted on it. The cups are almost as small as a doll tea set—so petite are the cups, I will have to be very careful picking mine up, out of fear of breaking something that probably cost more than my month’s salary.

  Lady Chilcott is about forty years old, a bit on the sagging side, with treated blond hair. She wears jewelry and brightly colored clothing that convey to me a woman who is trying to subtract years from her chronological age by directing attention to things other than her own features. All in all, definitely a “patient” for the spa.

  I thank her for seeing me and comment about the nice weather the afternoon has brought before we chat a moment about Oscar.

  “Such a wonderfully irreverent gentleman,” Lady Chilcott says. “He keeps us all amused by his wit and scandals—unless one is the target of his sharp tongue, of course.”

  I dodge the bullet as she tries to pump me about Oscar’s current dilemma on the grounds I’m not familiar with the people involved and ask her about the spa.

  “Marvelous place and Anthony—Dr. Lacroix is a genius. I understand that Dr. Radic is as competent, but I find his foreign manners less appealing than Anthony’s.”

  “What does Dr. Lacroix look like?”

  “Tall, a fine figure of a man, well-spoken, midthirties. Some women find him charming. Of course, the only thing of importance about him is his medical knowledge.”

  Uh huh.

  “Frankly,” she says, “when it comes to one’s health and preserving one’s vitality, Dr. Lacroix’s treatments are considered the Fountain of Youth.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You’ve been to the spa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re familiar with the peat bog preservation treatment that Dr. Lacroix developed.”

  “I was under the impression that Dr. Radic had developed the treatment.”

  “Dr. Radic had done work with peat moss at a spa on the continent before partnering with Dr. Lacroix here in Bath, but it’s peat moss from a bog source Dr. Lacroix obtains in Dartmoor that is considered the most effective in the world. I suppose if the foul stuff can preserve a dinosaur for a million years, it can help keep us women from prematurely aging, wouldn’t you say?”

  I join her in a small laugh.

  “You see the painting over there?”

  She indicates a framed oil painting on an easel.

  “That’s a painting Dr. Lacroix commissioned the famous Dartmoor artist Isaac Weekes to do of the bog in the moors where he obtains the peat moss for the treatments at the spa. The location of the bog is a secret, but he had the painting done for me in appreciation.”

  She explains that she had the frame repainted b
ecause she didn’t care for the color and had it placed on the easel to dry in the sun. She doesn’t say what “appreciation” meant but I’m sure it means she gave him money for his “medical” research.

  “Is Dr. Lacroix from Dartmoor?”

  “Actually, my dear, I don’t think anyone that matters is from that wild, isolated place. I’ve been told all of Dartmoor is of volcanic origin, and on many tors one can see the awful stabs which are inflicted on the still unhardened rock by the swords of subterranean fires. They say one almost feels like they have stepped onto the moon. Scattered throughout are nothing but gorse and blackthorns.”

  “Gorse?”

  “Oh, it’s a spiny, yellow-flowered shrub. Quite ugly, as are the blackthorns. Nothing like my roses.”

  “They are beautiful.” And I mean it. Her rose garden is gorgeous—reds, pinks, whites, yellows. And the scent they give is heavenly.

  “Thank you,” she says, obviously pleased by my admiration of her roses. “I’ve won awards. Anyway, where were we … oh yes, Dr. Lacroix. He is of French descent on his father’s side, but his mother was English and he was raised here.”

  “I’ve always wanted to visit the moors and see the bogs and tors and such.”

  “Why? They are gloomy, silent, desolate—nothing pretty about them and nothing to do.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard the moors can be quite beautiful—in a mysterious, unique way. Do you know what area his bog is in?”

  “No, my dear, I haven’t the foggiest. But Oscar said you are doing a story about the spa. I would hope it isn’t a scandal piece about the Lady Winsworth incident.”

  I give her a smile that is meant to reassure her that I wasn’t a scandal monger.

  “I’m doing a piece on the rejuvenation effects of spa treatments, but frankly it’s not possible to do without mentioning the incident.”

  “Your American readers must love tittle-tattle. Another young woman asked about the incident.”

  That gives me a jolt. “Hailey … Hailey McGuire.”

  “Yes, that might have been the name. Appeared rather young to be a newspaper reporter—as you do, my dear, although I’ve been told you’re an accomplished one. Though I won’t ask why a woman of any age would wish to do a man’s job.”