The Formula for Murder

by Carol McCleary

  It was probably the slow, passive nature of his family-oriented practice that kept him from fully loving the profession he had studied so hard to obtain.

  Thinking about the cryptic message he had received, he decided the visitors would provide an intriguing interlude for what had been a rather dull afternoon. While he was on holiday from his medical practice, he did have an occasional request for his medical services in Buckfastleigh from acquaintances.

  Death and the black beast had to enliven a day in which the most exciting moment had been an elderly patient telling him that he had finally unplugged this morning after eating a large number of prunes.

  44

  No police are waiting for us at Buckfastleigh. Neither is a taxi.

  We are told a taxi only comes to the station when it has been requested in advance. Buckfastleigh is a small town, a market town larger than Linleigh-on-the-moors, but still too small to host many city amenities.

  We get instructions for Old Bridge House where Conan Doyle is staying. Since it is only a half mile walk, not terribly far since neither of us has a large piece of luggage, though Wells’s is more than twice the size of my valise, we set out on foot instead of by taxi.

  “Wells, I hate to admit it, but my limited knowledge about Conan Doyle is from what Oscar told me—that his first name is Arthur, but he prefers to be called Conan. And I have a confession to make.”

  “Really … this should be interesting.”

  “I haven’t read any of Mr. Doyle’s books.”

  “But you said—”

  “A little white lie. I, uh, glanced at it in a bookstore. I meant to read it someday.”

  “What is the purpose of this confession?”

  “I was just thinking that, since you’ve read his detective stories, you’d be so kind as to tell me the plots so I could be courteous and pretend I had read them.”

  To my surprise he refuses. “That’s not polite. It’s a fraud. Besides, it’s very easy to get tripped up.”

  “I’ve done it many times and never had a problem.”

  “Why don’t you just read the books?”

  “Because, Mr. Wells,” I say tartly, “I am quite too busy climbing mountains, crossing rivers, and storming castles to have my head constantly stuck in a book. As I have pointed out to help you improve your opportunities in life, you spend too much time reading instead of doing.”

  “You are absolutely right, Miss Bly. In fact, I have been counting my blessings since you brought action rather than just words into my life. To date, I am wanted by the police, stalked by a killer, and in the hands of a woman who was committed to a madhouse after being examined by three psychiatrists. One has to wonder how you managed to pull off being hopelessly insane so well. I’m sure you’ve heard that expression—where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”19

  So he knows about my insanity caper. I shut my mouth and grit my teeth. Sometimes the man is insufferable.

  On occasion I have also found Wells mulish with his attitudes and I drop the subject knowing we will just end up in petty squabbling. While I admire his fine mind, cold logic and reason can be the enemy of invention.

  * * *

  OLD BRIDGE HOUSE sits next to a narrow stone bridge that looks ancient enough to have been used by Celtic farmers to herd sheep across and then by Roman legions marching to conquest. In the distance upriver there is a modern railroad span of steel girders that time and man will turn into a pile of rusty dust while the stone edifice built by hand will still be feeling the foot and wheels of mankind.

  I would feel quite at home in the house next to the bridge. If houses have a spirit, I would say this one was a tranquil old soul.

  “What a charming house,” I tell Wells. It’s another moor-stone granite, but larger than any we saw in Linleigh-on-the-moors, with four chimneys, and a large stone archway over the entrance to the property big enough for a carriage to pass through. Thatch, moss, and clinging vines cover the roof and top of the arch.

  The bell at the front door reminds me of the one we had at the house my dad built for my mother—smooth gray metal that appears almost liquid and a little handle that looks like a fish tail to ring the bell with.

  “Miss Bly and Mr. Wells … welcome.” Conan Doyle greets us after I clang the bell. “Please, come in.”

  My instant impression of the author is that he appears to be in the medical professional he is—or even a counterjumper, I think, because Dr. Doyle looks a bit like H. G. Wells, with a similar thick, dark mustache, though he is a larger man.

  The house and its furnishings are old and venerable, as seems Conan Doyle. Though Wells told me earlier that the man is only in his early thirties and while his features are that of a young man, he impresses me as an old soul as he observes me with a grave expression and large, gray eyes that radiate intelligent curiosity.

  “I read about your exploits when you passed through London on your race,” Dr. Doyle says to me. “I was less amazed at your accomplishment in timing transportation than the raw courage it took to travel around the world when there is danger everywhere. Oscar told me that you even refused to carry the pistol that a friend offered.”

  “The problem with relying upon guns is that it encourages others to get bigger ones or more of them to fight you with. Thank you for the compliment, but I must say the honor of our meeting is all mine, Dr. Doyle. I so love your Sherlock Holmes stories.”

  “Thank you. Which one did you find most entertaining?”

  “Oh…” I chirp and gesture to Wells as I am sinking beyond despair. Why didn’t I read the books? “All of them.”

  “She enjoyed both A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four,” Wells says, “as did I. I’ve written a few modest scientific articles, but hope someday to break into writing fiction.”

  “A word of advice: Write because you desire to, not for the money or fame—that may take longer than you think or never come. Now shall we go into the parlor?”

  Wells gives me an “I told you so” glare as Dr. Doyle leads us to the parlor.

  We settle into some charming overstuffed chairs and partake of tea and cake while we chat.

  “I don’t want to discourage you from writing fiction,” Dr. Doyle tells Wells, “that isn’t my intent. But it can be, as it was for me, a bumpy, depressing road before even modest success. Taking up the pen can be like taking a wolf by the ear.

  “Miss Bly…” Mr. Doyle looks me.

  “Yes?” I silently cross my fingers hoping he won’t ask me something specific about his books.

  “Please, tell me what pitfalls you must encounter reporting crime stories, especially being a woman, which I’m very impressed by. Oscar is right when he said you are one of a kind.”

  “Thank you.” For a moment I look down at my napkin. I’m really not used to compliments, especially from men. “The biggest difficulty is getting the newspaper to believe a woman is capable of such a task. They believe a woman’s place is in the home.” I give him a brief rundown of wrongs I have exposed, from the miserable conditions at a madhouse to the treatment of domestics and the terrible life prostitutes endure.

  I get chuckles when I share with them Jules Verne’s agitation over the refusal of the French Academy to make him a member because they prefer what he calls “comedies of manners” over his bestselling adventure stories.

  Very quickly the small talk and “war stories” are over and we face the task of explaining why I have journeyed several thousand miles and teamed up with Wells. I’m not sure how Wells feels about me giving the writer a rather whitewashed version of events, but from the way he is looking down at the floor a jury would easily peg him as guilt stricken.

  The most significant details I omitted are the interest that New York police have in Hailey’s handling of the New York murder case, because I didn’t want to take away any sympathy Dr. Doyle would have for her, and that Wells and I are presently sought for questioning by the British police.

  The fact we are probably on a
wanted list would most likely get us escorted to the nearest constable by the respectable doctor-writer.

  Dr. Doyle shows keen interest in the conversation I overheard regarding the child, Emma, at the spa. He stops me from going further with my tale and asks me to repeat everything I know about Emma and her prostitute mother, scoffing when I say the child died suddenly of “brain fever.”

  “The deuce you say!” Dr. Doyle rubs his jaw. “Brain fever. What bunk! The use of a child at the spa for any purpose is completely outrageous. The authorities in Bath are obviously overlooking the situation because the spa attracts a wealthy and influential clientele. And you, H. G., in dealing with Dr. Lacroix you’ve never heard of children being used in his experiments?”

  “No, children were not experimented upon, as far as I know, nor did I hear anything about children in regard to his university difficulties. But I only did research for him for a short time, so he may have had children involved at some point and I just wasn’t privy to the experiments.”

  “I’m not familiar with Dr. Lacroix,” Dr. Doyle says, “though I’ve heard of the spa. Does he strike you as even capable of doing experiments that could harm a child?” His question is directed to Wells.

  Wells chews on it for a moment. “I don’t find Lacroix to be an evil person in the sense that anyone would look upon him as capable of doing deliberate harm or acts of a criminal nature. I find it difficult to believe that he would intentionally harm a child. However, there is no question he becomes quite fanatical in terms of his medical research. I have no direct evidence to support this, just my impression from observing him, but I strongly suspect that he could consider experiments on a child that he believes are being done for the greater good of mankind, no different than experimenting on an adult or even an animal.”

  “Ah, yes, like Jenner and the smallpox researchers.” Dr. Doyle taps tobacco down in his pipe and lights it before he continues. “As you both may recall, during the closing years of the past century Jenner was a small-town doctor in Gloucestershire. He was an inquisitive sort, enjoyed experimenting with medical remedies. Smallpox epidemics were frequent in those days, killing tens of millions around the world and leaving many more millions scarred and blind. But he had observed that one group of workers never seemed to come down with the disease—milkmaids who had gotten cowpox, a disease similar to but much less lethal and damaging than smallpox.

  “Jenner ultimately came up with a procedure that he called vaccination, from the Latin word for cow, vacca, where he injects people with a small amount of cowpox. As you know, it does protect most people from coming down with smallpox, so the benefit to mankind is enormous.

  “However, during that era when Jenner and other physicians were trying to discover the cure, it was not an uncommon practice to conduct dangerous experiments on people, especially prisoners and small children. Some of those experimented upon naturally died or otherwise suffered the horrible consequences of smallpox or other foul diseases before the ultimate cure was reached. Medical science was crude, cruel, and ignorant at the time and some of these ghastly experiments really fell more under the auspices of alchemy than true scientific research.”

  “I can see why they would use prisoners,” I interject. “Prisoners have less to lose and can be rewarded with money and their freedom, but what was the attraction of the experimenters to use children?”

  “Availability and lack of resistance to whatever is done to them. I should have qualified that statement to say poor children. The children were obtainable for a price, as was the prostitute’s daughter.”

  “If you dug up the researchers from their graves,” Wells says, “and ask them if buying poor children for their experiments was cruel, no doubt they would point out that most of the children would never have lived to reach adulthood anyway.”

  “Regretfully, that was true then and still is,” I point out.

  Doyle leans back with his pipe, blowing smoke up. “As I was saying, there were experiments conducted with children, and that included infecting them with pus from smallpox sores. The end result of this era’s experiments was a vaccine for smallpox and a great benefit for mankind, but that provided small comfort for the many children who suffered horrible deaths to pave the way. And from what you have told me about Dr. Lacroix, his experiments are for the benefit of mankind at any cost. And it seems he also has a bit of the alchemist in him. No doubt his aims are for the better good of all, but his vision is twisted. I shall write a letter to the Royal Coroner in Bath pointing out that a review should be made of the child’s death.”

  Another puff of smoke and Dr. Doyle invites me to continue my tale.

  I stall with a sip of tea to get my thoughts in order. We are now on dangerous ground and I need to use various shades of white lies to avoid telling Doyle about the murder of the artist. Wells and I had argued over this point on the walk from the train station because he wants to relate the entire matter to Dr. Doyle, insisting that the man would hold us in utter contempt later when the inevitable happens and he discovers we lied to him. While I would enjoy the respect of Dr. Doyle, if lying is the best way to handle the situation, then I shall not falter in doing so.

  “We witnessed a murder yesterday.”

  That came from Wells.

  So much for being clever.

  The startled expression on Arthur Conan Doyle’s features makes me wonder if we are about to wear out our welcome at Old Bridge House.

  I give a little sigh, set down my teacup, fold my hands in my lap, and give Wells a small, gentle smile despite my inclination to poke out one of his eyes for having uttered the naked truth.

  45

  I take center stage from Wells in the hope of salvaging some of the cooperation I was anticipating the writer-doctor would give us.

  “We were innocent bystanders, of course,” I offer Dr. Doyle.

  “That goes without saying. But,” he smiles, “after meeting the two of you, I have to wonder which of the two of you, or the three of us for that matter, is the most innocent in the ways of the world.”

  Wells and Doyle enjoy a male chuckle at my expense and Wells raises his hand as if he had been asked a question in school.

  “I confess, Dr. Doyle, our world traveler is much more versed on the world than I, who has stayed warm before the hearth, with my feet in slippers and my head in a book.”

  “If you gentlemen are finished poking fun at me, I shall go on.”

  “Please do,” Dr. Doyle says, “and don’t take our little slings and arrows too seriously. I am certain that Wells and I have the same opinion of you as has much of the world—you are a woman of great determination and talent.”

  “Thank you.” Glowing, I go on. “We need to start a bit before the events of last night. What drew us to Dartmoor was a painting I saw when I visited Lady Chilcott, a wealthy middle-aged matron in Bath who takes the cure at the spa and who is a supporter and admirer of Dr. Lacroix. My impression is that her admiration may also be of a romantic nature.”

  “Not a surprising reaction,” Dr. Doyle says, “to a doctor you describe as both attractive to women and who offers them eternal youth and beauty.”

  I relate how I saw the painting of the bog that is the source of the peat moss used at the spa and how I was told by Lady Chilcott that the painting had been commissioned by Dr. Lacroix and presented to her as a gift for assisting in financing his research.

  “Research into what you call magic mud,” Dr. Doyle says.

  I shrug and shake my head. “I know peat moss preserves bodies but so does ice and formaldehyde. Perhaps they should have people at the spa also bathe in chilled embalming fluid.”

  “But you see, Nellie, to Lacroix a tiny glimmer of hope that a substance in peat moss can be isolated to rejuvenate skin bursts like an exploding star in his head. He sees a benefit to mankind and scientific immortality for himself as its discoverer.”

  I explain how we tracked the artist to Linleigh-on-the-moors, a village Doyle says he’d
seen on maps but had not traveled to. After I told him about the ice pick and the cowboy boots on the Bath spa thug, Dr. Doyle also immediately made a connection with the Whitechapel gang in London. After I tell him about the death of Weekes and the “avoidance” of the police by Wells and myself in Exeter, he is red faced and I know we are in trouble.

  “You must go to the police immediately! This spa and its villains must be put behind bars before they hurt others.”

  Even Wells realizes it is time to backpedal or we will shortly be in the hands of the police—literally. He resorts to the truth again, telling Dr. Doyle that going to the police would mean an abrupt stop in our investigation and a return to New York for me without finding out what had happened to Hailey.

  “We’re not withholding any evidence vital to a police pursuit of the Linleigh murderer,” he tells Doyle. “We saw nothing of the killer while others at the pub did, including the barmaid who served him. As for the connection between the spa in Bath and the killing in the village, it’s a real reach to connect a man with cowboy boots at the spa with an ice pick killer in Linleigh via a notorious gang in London—”

  “You’re right,” Dr. Doyle cuts in. “The connection is obvious to us because you have experienced the incidents firsthand and three of us are people of imagination, but there isn’t a policeman in Dartmoor or probably London for that matter who wouldn’t find the connection far-fetched. That doesn’t excuse you from evading the police, but,” he rubs his jaw, “if you can’t identify the killer, there’s no harm done, is there? You can just proclaim your ignorance of police matters.”

  We could if Wells doesn’t get an irresistible impulse to confess our charade at the Exeter train station. But I am much relieved by the doctor’s analysis and the fact he doesn’t appear ready to turn us over to the nearest constable.

  “Another problem,” I add, “of convincing the police of the connection between the crimes is that cowboy boots are not just worn by the Whitechapel gang. Oscar says they are a fashion item in London.”