A Murderous Malady

by Christine Trent

  I supposed I would be both.

  “I am the superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen During Temporary Illness, in Marylebone.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “You are a distance from your hospital, madam.”

  “Yes. Some of my nurses will be assisting in the work of caring for cholera inmates at Middlesex Hospital, and I—”

  Now it was his turn to interrupt me. “Ah, why didn’t you say so? You’ll want to see my charts, then.” Whitehead stepped between Mary and me toward a door to one side of the church, beckoning us to follow.

  “He has charts?” Mary whispered, sounding worried. “I will never get you out of here.”

  I waved her off, for I was intrigued to know what sort of charts the good reverend had. I was a complete devotee to the idea that charts and statistics could be effectively used to track illness and disease. Had I perhaps just found a kindred spirit?

  Whitehead led us into a cramped room with a single window in it overlooking a sad tree in the churchyard. A thick vine climbed upward, strangling the tree and smothering its life. It seemed an apt depiction of existence in this dismal part of London.

  The priest’s office might have been tiny, but it was immaculate. A bookcase on one wall contained various theological tomes, all methodically arranged. A neatly made camp bed had been placed in front of the bookcase. His desk contained nothing but an inkwell and pen, plus a stack of stationery emblazoned with St. Luke’s return address. It was all in total contradiction to what was outside the door in the main part of the sanctuary.

  Whitehead must have noticed my surprised countenance, for he explained, “This is my oasis from the troubled world beyond. I must have order in my private space so that I can pray and meditate in peace before giving of myself to those poor tortured souls out there.”

  He pulled two boxes out from inside his desk—a long wood box and a shorter metal one. He slid back the lid on the wood box to reveal a large cache of candles, from which he removed two, and returning to another desk drawer, he retrieved two iron holders and placed the candles in them. The metal box contained matches, and the garlicky odor of phosphorous filled the air as he struck one and lit both candles.

  We now had decent light in the room, but the obvious question begged to be asked. “Reverend, why do you not use some of your candles to illuminate the sanctuary?”

  Whitehead slid back the lid onto the candle box and put it back inside the desk drawer. “You must understand, my parishioners can eat, weep, and pray in the darkness. However, I cannot write letters begging for money in the dark. Thus, I must reserve them for the critical work that benefits them.” His expression reflected the despair in his words. “Alas, my pleas frequently fall on ears deafened by years of callowness and disregard.”

  He placed the box of matches next to the candle box, firmly pushed the drawer in, and said, “Now on top of it all, I am begging for help with this hellish disease. I’m afraid our government doesn’t care as much about this epidemic as it should. Posting signs about where to get help is all well and good, but that isn’t much assistance to those of us providing the help, is it? I’ve tried in every way possible to get their attention, from letters”—he touched his pile of stationery—“to haunting the doors of any official I can think of. There is little concern for it, because everyone knows that cholera eventually burns itself out as quickly as it arrives. Thus, why bother to help a few hundred, or thousand, slum-dwelling unfortunates who will otherwise simply end up in a workhouse or existing on charity?”

  The reverend’s gentle, cheerful manner was quickly being replaced with indignation. “Nothing I’ve done has even raised an eyebrow, neither at Whitehall nor at Buckingham Palace. The devil take them all.”

  Whitehead took a deep breath and smiled once again, although it seemed forced this time. He pushed aside his desk chair and changed the subject. “I apologize that my meager quarters do not permit for comfortable accommodation of guests. If either of you would like to sit here—” He tapped the old wood corner chair. At one time it must have been beautiful, but now the needlepoint seat done in tiny black-and-cream chickadees against a solid salmon-colored background was faded. It was as shabby as the rest of the church.

  Now a genuine smile reached his eyes, the corners of which crinkled as he said, “You are doubtless wondering how I came into possession of such a fine piece in my limited priestly circumstances. One of my parishioners found it next to a rubbish bin. Some wealthy matron tossing out her antiques made popular in George the Third’s time and now replacing it with what our good queen finds fashionable, eh?”

  My mother was very conscious of maintaining current styles, no matter how far in the country we lived. Our own circumstances, while far from poverty, would not have permitted her to randomly toss away perfectly good furniture. Mother would have handled it all by recovering, rewallpapering, and redraping. However, whoever had disposed of this chair had unwittingly done a good deed.

  Mary gratefully accepted use of the chair, and Whitehead brought it around for her. “Now, you are interested in my cholera charts, correct?”

  He returned to the other side of the desk and once more dove into another drawer. He retrieved several sheets of paper without a single crinkle or curled edge to them and separated them out on the tabletop. They were full of notes taken in a careful hand, plus street map sketches and lists of names of infected people, along with data such as sex, age, address, and whether the person had died or survived. His approach was a little rough, but I immediately saw the value in it.

  I picked up the list of names, wondering if I could quickly assess any links among the shared characteristics of the victims Whitehead had thus far been able to track. Unfortunately, the information wasn’t arranged in logical tables, so it was difficult to draw conclusions just at a glance.

  I pointed to the map. “What do the red circles represent?”

  “Locations where I have seen or heard of at least three cases in a single household. I’m trying to track the direction in which the miasmas might be traveling. Thus far, I believe it to be lingering along Broad Street, and there are also quite a few cases slightly to the northeast on St. Anne’s Court.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Do you think so?” he asked, perking up at me. “Dr. Snow thinks I am chasing my tail on this.”

  Dr. Snow’s name was listed on the cholera sign as one of the doctors who was treating cholera victims. “Why is that?”

  “He believes it has nothing to do with naturally occurring miasmas. I’m hoping my research here in the thick of things, so to speak, will prove him wrong.”

  I was fascinated by his work. Mary sighed loudly from her chair, but I ignored her.

  “As I said, I am offering help to Middlesex Hospital beginning tomorrow. How can I be of help to you?” My mind was already whirling with the sort of analysis I might perform on Reverend Whitehead’s existing data, if he would let me take it with me overnight.

  “Well, I should like to know where any new cases come from and who they are. I can provide you with a sample of how I record data—”

  I shook my head. “You may rely upon me to give you detailed information, sir. In fact, I should probably return here daily with whatever I learn, so that facts can be quickly compiled.”

  I ignored another pointedly long sigh from Mary’s direction.

  “Excellent. Your assistance will enable me to continue my work with the downtrodden here in the parish without making constant trips out. You would be surprised to learn how dispirited and demoralized even the healthy become during times when Death surveys his dominion and begins plucking people out with cruel swiftness. It is even worse in an area like this, which is already disheartened by the scanty living conditions.”

  I smiled grimly in the candlelight. His hypocrisy did not surprise me at all. “I have heard that you are one of the men responsible for such scanty living conditions,” I said in challenge to him.

&nb
sp; “Me?” he said in some surprise.

  “Do you not own one or more of the squalid buildings in Soho?” I demanded.

  He stared at me for several long moments. “What a strange thought. Of course this is not true. I live almost as meagerly as anyone down here, as you can see.” He spread a hand to indicate his surroundings.

  Now I was indeed confused. Hadn’t Mr. Reeve insisted that Whitehead was part of the tenement problem?

  “I have it on good authority that this is true,” I protested.

  Whitehead shook his head. “There are other men who take advantage of the poor in such an ungodly way. I assure you it is not my own manner of behavior. In fact, there is a man of the cloth at St. Helen’s by the name of Whitewood. Perhaps I have been confused with him.”

  That was certainly possible, given Reeves’s state of mind when I met him. Well, for the moment it didn’t have anything to do with the cholera problem. I let it drop.

  Whitehead seemed to take no offense.

  “Now that I’m thinking about it,” he started, pulling a piece of stationery from his stack, then flipping open the inkwell and dipping his pen in. “It would greatly interest Dr. Snow to realize that you are assisting me with quickly gathering information from Middlesex.” He wrote slowly on the page in a precise script. “Would you be so kind as to meet with him and explain? I am writing a note of introduction now.”

  Ah, good fortune had provided me a bargaining chip. “I can certainly do that. It might be helpful for my preparation to assist you if I could take your papers with me—just overnight—to examine them.”

  Whitehead silently signed the letter and folded it, and I could see he was debating whether he trusted me enough to do it. Finally, he conceded, “Overnight, then.”

  As I gathered up his papers and the folded letter, I realized that I had been so carried away by the thought of helping out in this dangerous outbreak that I hadn’t even brought up anything to do with the Herbert carriage attack.

  “With regard to cholera sufferers you have met,” I began, “I am wondering about someone specific whom you may have encountered.”

  “A friend of yours?” Whitehead’s expression suggested he didn’t believe I would associate with anyone who frequented St. Luke’s.

  “Not exactly. Someone who was in the employ of a friend of mine. His name was Fenton.”

  Whitehead slowly crossed his arms in front of him. The crinkles around his eyes had become furrows in his brow. “And you believe he contracted cholera?” His tone was cautious.

  “He most certainly did contract cholera,” I stated. “In fact, I witnessed his unfortunate demise. He had recently spent some time here in Soho, so I thought perhaps he had passed through the doors of your church.”

  Whitehead remained still, his arms still crossed and his face still pensive. “Not everyone who lives here deigns to set foot in God’s house, madam. What makes you think this Fenton did?”

  “Fenton was the manservant to Sidney Herbert.”

  Whitehead blinked. “Herbert?” was all he said.

  “Yes, the secretary at war.”

  Whitehead’s jaw dropped, sending his beard a little further down his chest. “And why would Mr. Herbert’s manservant, who presumably had snug quarters inside his master’s home, be roaming about in Old Street?”

  “He was investigating the recent attack on Mrs. Herbert’s carriage. Perhaps you heard about it?”

  He shut his mouth and stroked the upper part of his beard with his right hand. “I do recall something about that,” he said cautiously. “She was traveling through on her way to a charity dinner or some such thing?”

  “She and her father were on their way to the British Museum and she was attacked by a madman. In the chaos that followed, her coachman was killed.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that,” the priest said quietly. “It is always distressing to hear of a soul being lost. I presume the madman was found?”

  “Actually, no, not yet. I am—”

  “Do you suspect this Fenton of having done it?” Whitehead asked. “It wouldn’t be the first time a servant turned on his master.”

  His answer stopped me short. “Well, no. He was investigating the attack on his master’s behalf.”

  “Ah.” Whitehead said. “So you have no suspects for the attack, then?”

  “Not yet,” I replied. Was it my imagination, or did the priest’s shoulders sag in relief? “I was wondering if he might have come here, seeing as this is a focal point for the Soho community. He may have asked you questions, or, more importantly, told you something. He was in his late twenties, tall with a thin chest but already carrying a bit of a paunch.”

  Whitehead shook his head. “Those features could describe any number of men.”

  “He also had very thick lips. He was well groomed and attired, of course, as Mr. Herbert’s manservant.” I slipped my hand into my dress pocket to make sure I still had possession of the dice, which were the object of a dying man’s last words.

  Whitehead slowly shook his head once more. “I cannot specifically recall meeting someone named Fenton. However, you must understand, Miss Nightingale, that even had I met with such a man, I could not break the seal of the confession.”

  I jumped upon this. “He confessed something to you?” Was this why the priest had asked me if Fenton had turned on his master?

  Whatever sense of reticence I had perceived in this man was gone now. He smiled and shook his head at me in a chiding manner. “Miss Nightingale, you are clever, but assuredly there have been craftier men and women who have tried to smuggle an admission out of me. But let me set your mind at rest. I have taken no confession from anyone who presented himself to me as Fenton.”

  Was that genuine or merely a contrived answer?

  “Thank you. But perhaps you might know something about these?” I withdrew the dice from my pocket and held out my closed fist.

  Whitehead naturally opened his own palm, and I dropped the three cubes into it. He then picked up a candlestick to illuminate them more clearly. He rolled them in his palm with his fingers to look at all the sides. “The vice of dice,” he said. “Did these belong to your Mr. Fenton?”

  “Yes. Have you seen a set such as these before?”

  “Certainly. Many a man down on his luck has reached his nadir through the use of them. Typically, I see old sailors with them.”

  To my great surprise, he set down two of the dice, then held one of them over the candle flame.

  “Sir, what are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, brushing my entreaty aside. After a few moments, he put down the candle, then picked up his pen and touched the metal nib to the die. Nothing happened.

  “They’re real ivory,” he pronounced. “If they were bone, the metal would have left a scorch mark. I’d say the owner of the dice is a sailor who has probably spent time in ports like China, India, and the like, in order to obtain the ivory. Or at least learned how to carve from someone else who gave him the ivory. I’m guessing they are made from walrus tusks, which I understand is what is most commonly used for small objects.”

  That was actually helpful. “How do you know this?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “You would be surprised the sorts of things people share with a priest.” He put down his pen, picked up the other two dice, and made to hand them back to me, but I held up a hand to stop him.

  “But you are certain you haven’t seen this particular set of dice? Note the tiny engravings above the crown on each die.”

  Whitehead once more held the candlestick over the dice in his other hand, rolling them around with his thumb until they were all crown side up. “G. Five. D. Well, they aren’t the initials of the carver, are they?”

  “No. I’ve been told that the personalizations on dice can sometimes be nonsensical.” I hoped he could confirm whether that was true.

  He shook his head. “I do not fashion myself an expert in gambling dice, Miss Nightingale, despit
e the little I know about how they’re made. However, any symbolic carving of numbers, letters, and the like would most certainly have meaning to the carver.”

  He continued to move the dice around with his thumb, putting them in different orders. Finally, he reared back in discovery. “Oh! It is so simple.”

  He held the dice back out for my own inspection. He had put them in the order of “5,” “D,” and “G.” “I believe these to be some sort of military unit description,” he said. “The fifth something or other.” Having felt that he had divined all that was possible from the dice, he held them out to give back to me.

  I was dumbstruck as I took the dice back and put them back in my pocket, thanking him for his assistance.

  Both Oswyn Davies and General à Court were military men, and neither one could identify them as such? Or had they simply refused to do so? Regardless, which man should I confront first?

  That answer came to me easily. Davies had no vested interest in the carriage attacker being found. À Court, however, should have been most stimulated to see justice done. If what Reverend Whitehead had suggested was true, the General should have immediately recognized the dice for what they were and offered the information to me as a clue. Why had he pretended otherwise?

  Moreover, why would Fenton have these dice on his person? He had never been in the Navy, so unless he had won them somehow, there seemed no logical explanation for why he would have had them.

  I heard Mary in her chair busily scratching out notes, for which I was glad. There would be much to puzzle out later.

  CHAPTER 12

  As we departed the church, I saw that the beggar woman and her child were still sitting in the recess of the building. I decided that this time I would not merely press a coin into the young girl’s hand. She and I would help each other.

  I knelt down next to the woman. “How long have you been here?” I asked, for lack of any other discussion point.

  She looked at me suspiciously. “Two months. I’ll not go ta Cleveland Street,” she said resolutely.