Antidote to Murder

by Felicity Young

  Pike said nothing, but his eyes searched her face. He retrieved his briefcase from where it rested on the chaise. “True, all I have is supposition,” he said. “But I have to tell you now that we have had some definite luck with the typed accusations.” He handed her a bundle of papers. “Here we have the originals—the lawyer’s office was closed, but Fisher contacted him at home and persuaded him to open up and hand the letters over.” He reached into his case and produced a single sheet of paper which he handed to her. “And this is a sample document from the Paddington Mortuary.” He handed her another paper. “The autopsy report for the Kent child—I noticed the similarities immediately. All the documents show malformed lowercase g’s. The top halves of the uppercase S’s are also noticeably thicker. The typewriting machine has left its fingerprints. These documents were all produced from the same machine.”

  Dody’s stomach contracted painfully. The room was stiflingly hot. “Go on.”

  “It’s a handy point of reference,” he said, taking the documents back from Dody and returning them to his briefcase. “But I have to play this carefully. I can’t trample too much in Fisher’s jurisdiction. I’m hoping my history with him might count for something. I will suggest he interviews the mortuary staff as soon as possible. You said earlier that you had seen Dunn there—that he was seen fleeing with stolen property, in fact. I will make sure that Fisher is supplied with his picture to show around.”

  “The staff?” Dody queried, horrified. “What will Dr. Spilsbury say? He will be furious to have them in any way involved in my case. I have always tried to keep a low profile. I have to if my professional life is to continue. This will destroy everything—I can’t allow—”

  Firm hands gripped her shoulders. “Dody, take a breath, please. Plainclothes officers will question the staff discreetly with as little disruption to the mortuary routine as possible. Through no fault of your own, you are already in the spotlight. The damage has been done and you have to face the fact that your enemy might be someone who works in the mortuary. You don’t want this trial of yours to go ahead, do you?”

  She shook her head and realised then how silly, how hysterical she must have sounded. She put it down to the lingering effects of her illness and sat to collect herself for a moment. From the hall she heard the whirr of the grandfather clock as it prepared to strike the hour.

  When she spoke again, her voice, she was pleased to note, sounded quiet and even. “Of course not, Matthew. Do what you have to do.”

  “I contacted the local police to retrieve the broken-down motorcar, but by the time they arrived to collect it, it was gone—spirited away. Does your colleague Everard own a motorcar? Could he have been the driver I was pursuing?”

  Dody thought carefully. No matter how much she wished to believe Everard was not behind this, she had to remain objective. “I have heard him discussing motorcars with Dr. Spilsbury. He is interested in them, but I have no idea if he owns one or not. I can’t imagine it, though. They are fearfully expensive, and Everard’s salary is not much more than mine.” Despite the fact he is my junior, she thought wryly. “Though, of course, he does work as a private practitioner also.”

  “I will have enquiries made. This is all a good start and will give me more leverage when I question Daniel Dunn. I’ll throw Everard’s name at him and see how he reacts.”

  Dody rose from her chair. “You are going to see him now at St. Thomas’s? I will fetch my hat.”

  Pike took hold of her arm. “Dody, I said I have to question him. You might not like my methods.”

  “As long as you don’t use torture, I don’t really care.”

  Pike relaxed. “All right then.”

  * * *

  They took some time finding Daniel Dunn’s ward, and when they did, the place was a scurry of activity, clanging bedpans, and rattling trolleys. Dody finally managed to grab the attention of a flustered-looking nurse to ask her what was going on.

  “We’ve had a sudden death, ma’am. I’m sorry I can’t help you now,” she said, about to rush off until Dody took hold of her arm.

  “I am a doctor; please tell me the patient’s name,” she said.

  The nurse hesitated—she might never have dealt with a female doctor before.

  “And I am a police officer.” Pike flashed his warrant card.

  The nurse paled. This was an announcement she understood. “We had two that passed in the night, sir.”

  “This last one, then, the one you are in a fluster about,” Pike said.

  “Um, Mr. Daniel Dunn, sir.”

  Dody suppressed a gasp.

  “Where is he now?” Pike asked sharply.

  The startled nurse nodded to a screened-off bed about halfway down the ward.

  Dody and Pike hurried over. “Hello in there,” Dody called.

  “You can’t come in here, ma’am,” a woman’s voice called from behind the screens.

  Dody pushed the screen aside and found a middle-aged nurse putting the final touches to the laying-out of the body of Daniel Dunn. She glimpsed the flesh, caught a brief flash of cherry red skin, before the nurse covered the head with a sheet.

  “I am a Home Office doctor and this is Detective Chief Inspector Pike. We need to examine the body.” Dody attempted to push past the nurse, but the woman remained planted to the ground like an immovable oak.

  Pike said, “Please step aside and give the doctor access. While she examines Mr. Dunn, you can tell me what happened.”

  His tone had the desired effect. The nurse dropped the limp hand she had been washing and tucked it under the sheet. She moved to Pike’s side, straightened her veil, and smoothed down her apron. Dody barely had room to move. She did not wish to examine the body while the nurse was present—who knew what hysterical rumours she might spread—and remained where she was, listening to the exchange.

  “The note in the night nurse’s report indicated that he seemed well enough,” the nurse told Pike. “And his burns didn’t seem to be bothering him too much. She last checked him at about two this morning and found him to be sleeping soundly. Then when she went to take him his morning cup of tea at about seven, she found him dead in his bed. That is all I can tell you, sir.”

  “No one heard him cry out, saw any suspicious persons near his bed?”

  “Apparently it was pandemonium here last night. Several of the patients were taken ill, so their doctors needed to be fetched.”

  “Who was Dunn’s doctor?” Pike asked.

  “Dr. White, but he was not one of those summoned. As far as I know, no one attended Mr. Dunn last night.”

  A tremolo of a voice called out from the other side of the screen. “’E yelled, sir, I ’eard ’im meself.” Dody and Pike stepped out and found themselves being addressed by a prickly faced old man propped up in the neighbouring bed.

  “Please tell us what you heard and saw”—Pike glanced at the name on the bed—“Mr. Bingham.”

  “The nurse ’ere wasn’t wrong when she said it was pandemonium—for a while anyway—more like Charing Cross Station if you ask me, doctors and nurses flying about everywhere.”

  “About what time was all this?” Dody asked.

  “Between about three and four or thereabouts, miss.”

  Well after the nurse last checked on Dunn, she thought.

  “What was Mr. Dunn doing while all this was going on?” Pike asked.

  “Trying to sleep through the racket, I s’pose, like I was. And then one of the doctors came over and said something to ’im. ’E spoke as if he knew ’im and give ’im something ’e said would ’elp ’im sleep. I called out, ‘I’ll ’ave what ’e’s ’avin’,’ but ’e paid me no mind.”

  Which was just as well. Dody had only needed a brief glimpse of the body to decide almost certainly that Mr. Dunn had been poisoned.

  “It can’t have been Dr. White you spoke to,
Mr. Bingham.” The nurse turned to Pike. “I assure you, sir, Mr. Dunn’s doctor was not called into the ward last night.”

  Pike flicked the nurse a tight smile. “Thank you for your help; we’ll call you if we need you.”

  “And please tell Sister that this man’s body must be sent to the Paddington Coroner’s and Mortuary Complex without delay,” Dody added.

  The nurse’s hand went to her throat. “You suspect foul play, Doctor?”

  Dody said nothing, but glanced at Mr. Bingham and then back to the nurse—not in front of the patient. “Oh, yes of course, Doctor,” the nurse said as she scurried off.

  “Did you see what this doctor looked like?” Pike asked the old man.

  “Nah, didn’t really try. ’E was carrying a lamp and I shut me eyes against the light. Just caught a flash of white coat, that’s all.”

  “And then what?”

  “Not long after that, Mr. Dunn cried out. I ’eard the squeaking of the bedsprings as if ’e were thrashing around, and then ’e fell silent. I thought ’e must’ve ’ad a bad dream or somefink. Didn’t think much more about it till morning when I found out ’e’d clapped ’is clogs.”

  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Bingham,” Pike said. He and Dody returned to the body and drew the screens around themselves.

  Each raised an eyebrow, releasing a simultaneous breath.

  Before she examined the corpse, Dody paused for a moment as she always did. She had not cared for Dunn in life, but in death he took a different aspect. It was the same with every corpse she examined, as if the very emptiness of the vessel somehow proved the existence of something beyond it. It was a privilege to sense this—so many of her colleagues viewed a corpse as just one more slab of meat—and all she had left of a Christian upbringing. She prayed scientific rationalism would erode no further the remnants of her once solid belief.

  She took her light reflector from her bag and slipped it over her head, drew back the sheet, and opened the dead man’s mouth with a wooden spatula to expose a jagged row of tobacco-stained teeth. She inhaled. Somewhere, mingled in with the other foul odours of the dead man’s mouth, she caught the whiff of almonds. And then something lodged in one of the man’s back molars caught her eye.

  “Pass me my forceps, please, Pike.”

  Pike rummaged about in her bag for a moment, then handed her the instruments. It took some jiggling to dislodge the gelatinous object, which she held up between the teeth of the forceps for Pike to see.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It looks like the remains of a gelatine capsule,” she said as she dropped it in a specimen jar from her bag. “It needs to be tested, but—”

  “You have an idea what it might have contained,” Pike finished for her.

  “Yes. Cyanide,” she all but whispered.

  “What makes you think cyanide?” Pike asked. She heard his footsteps, felt his presence directly behind her.

  “The colour of his skin, the rapid nature of his death, the slight odour of almonds about his mouth.”

  “He said he would be dead whether he received treatment or not. He knew he was in danger, that someone would stop him from talking,” Pike said. “That someone must have had quite a hold on him. You sensed that yesterday, didn’t you? That’s why you tried to entice him to tell the truth with the laudanum.”

  Dody nodded. “There was something about his twitchiness, the sores on his skin.”

  Pike said no more; he had no need to. He took hold of Dunn’s unburned arm and turned it over. The red discolouration of the skin did little to hide the puncture marks.

  “A morphinomaniac,” Dody confirmed. “So corrupted he would have been easy to control and manipulate. This adds credibility to your theory that some kind of organised gang might be behind all this.”

  “Yes. The abortions, the abortifacients—I fear they were just the sideline of a much bigger business, one whose foot soldiers are controlled by powerful nostrums.”

  “Everard surely has nothing to do with this.” A doctor, so far from the profession’s true path?

  Sensing her despondency, Pike placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “We don’t yet know whether Everard is involved or not. But I assure you, we will soon find out.”

  “Thank you, Matthew.” The warmth of Pike’s hands and his reassuring words brought comfort, though they could not remain in such proximity. What if an observer noticed the position of their feet beneath the screens? Under different circumstances, this might have been amusing. But now it was time to be businesslike again.

  Reluctantly she stepped away from Pike, folded down the sheet, and exposed the top half of Dunn’s body. “As you can see, the cherry red colour has spread to the whole body. The cyanide shuts down the ability of the red blood cells to carry oxygen and they rise to the surface. He must have been given a large dose for it to have taken effect so quickly.”

  “Would Everard have access to the drug and be capable of using it?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “‘When a doctor goes wrong, he is the first of criminals,’” Pike murmured. Much as she did not wish to hear them, Conan Doyle’s words did hold more than a modicum of truth.

  “And you’re sure it’s cyanide?” he asked.

  “Almost. Not everyone can smell the marzipan odour of cyanide. I am one of the lucky ones who can. Dr. Spilsbury can’t and usually summons me when he suspects it. “

  Pike clenched his jaw at the mention of Spilsbury’s name. There was no love lost between the policeman and the pathologist. The two men had been thrown together during the Dr. Crippen investigation the previous year and the resultant hanging of the doctor for the murder of his wife. Pike had always been suspicious of the forensic evidence that had led to Crippen’s conviction, believing Crippen to be innocent of the crime. Dody and Pike had had numerous arguments on the matter with Dody refusing to entertain the idea that her mentor might have been mistaken.

  She had always thought Pike’s animosity was more than just professional rivalry, that he suspected some kind of romantic involvement between herself and the eminent pathologist. Perhaps it was time to put that assumption to rest, to show Pike that he was in the wrong.

  And as for her former conviction that there was not enough room in her life for a career and romance, well, perhaps this time it was she who had been in the wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  That evening Pike accepted Dody’s invitation to dinner. For a change Dody made a special effort with her dress, picking out a gown of emerald green silk with a daring low bodice softened by a fine net underblouse ending at her elbows.

  Annie was at last permitted to do Dody’s hair and spoon her into a corset. The stays manipulated her top half into the fashionable S-bend that forced its devotees to adopt a forwards gait when walking, which was the reason Dody tended to avoid it whenever possible. Admiring herself in her dressing room mirror, she dashed away concerns about how bad it was for her spine. Just for once she wanted to surprise Pike and remind him that a woman did not have to sacrifice her femininity to do a man’s job.

  She sat at her dressing table and dabbed scent on her wrists and behind her ears. She was attempting to screw in place some glittering Fabergé earrings when Florence entered the bedroom with barely a knock, her burgundy gown whispering around her ankles, her dark hair piled high and decorated with tiny ribbons.

  “You look exquisite,” Dody said, glancing in the mirror at her sister before returning to do battle with her earrings. Her hands shook; fixing them was proving an impossible task.

  “As do you. Pike will not recognise you. And he is here, by the way, waiting in the drawing room.”

  Dody felt a shiver of excitement. “Already?”

  “He must be keen.”

  Dody caught Florence’s smile in the mirror and dropped her earring on the
glass-topped dressing table. “Oh, bother, I can’t do this.”

  Florence retrieved the earring. “Here, let me,” she offered, and attended to both ears in a matter of seconds.

  “Thank you. I’m afraid the last week has left me in a state,” Dody said, holding out her shaking fingers for her sister to see before pulling on her gloves.

  “Well, it’s almost over now. Pike told me he will be visiting the mortuary personally on Monday to see how the interviews are going—he’ll sort everything out, I’m sure. Now, turn to the light,” Florence ordered. “I need to apply just a tinge of powder under your eyes to hide the dark circles.” Dody reluctantly obeyed. She did not wear powder often, but in this instance she could see that needs must.

  Florence pinched her cheeks. “That’s better; you’re not so pale now. Tomorrow is another day. Let us not spoil the evening with talk of trials and hideous death. Let us talk of good things, such as how glad I am that you and Pike have made up.”

  Dody smiled. “I’m glad, too.”

  “So, you do have feelings for him?” The daring question gave them both pause.

  “Whatever feelings I have, I have never felt like this before. Certainly not for Rupert.”

  Rupert had been paying court to Dody the previous year. Flattered at first, she had accepted his attention and chaste kisses, but he had certainly not stirred her as Pike did. Until meeting Pike, she was not even aware that she’d had passion to stir. Was she falling in love with him? Perhaps she was. The very thought suffused her body with a warm glow.

  “Thank goodness. Rupert was only interested in using Mother’s influence to better his career,” Florence said.

  “And his plays were quite awful.”

  When their laughter had died, Dody began, “Florence . . .” and then stopped. There were things she wanted to ask her more experienced younger sister, but had no idea how to go about it. Love was one of the few topics that Florence knew more about than she did.