A Murderous Malady

by Christine Trent

  Mary no longer had her hand on his arm but was sitting back, that same hand to her chest as she breathed rapidly. “What happened to the poor slave girl?”

  Davies snorted. “The general tossed her back to the Pashtuns, knowing they would kill her, did he. He considered it a worthwhile trade to keep the peace. But he underestimated their anger. In giving the girl back to them in a showy ceremony so that all could witness his supposed diplomacy skills, the officer told the Afghans—in front of many of us—‘I’ve given you this, now you owe it to us to come to heel.’ That was, of course, the moment that our doom was secured.”

  Davies’s retelling of the horrors of Afghanistan was disturbing in many ways. However, I was beginning to see an association here that seemed ominous. Despite my fear of the answer, I had to pose a single question. “Who was this general?”

  He looked at me curiously. “What does it matter? But if you must know, his name was Charles à Court.”

  I blinked several times, finding myself unable to form a response. Did the General have more enemies than I realized?

  * * *

  Mary and I left the Lion. I no longer had need to find Dr. Snow, so we headed straight over on foot to St. Luke’s. I was so disconcerted and agitated that I hardly noticed the day’s heat, nor that heavy-hanging clouds were threatening imminent rain.

  As we walked, I realized I needed to sort out my feelings on what Oswyn Davies had just told us. First, though, I had to offer credit where it was due.

  “Mary, I had no idea you had such persuasion skills,” I said with warmth. “I’m sure a mob with pitchforks couldn’t have pulled out of Mr. Davies what you just did, and it was very valuable—if unexpected—information.”

  “Thank you, Miss Florence,” Mary said, blushing but trying to pretend nonchalance at the compliment. “But you aren’t going to turn Mr. Davies into a suspect, are you?”

  Not just a suspect; he was looming in my mind as the suspect.

  “How could I not consider him such?” I asked.

  She shook her head decisively. “He doesn’t have a motive,” she insisted firmly.

  I sputtered in a most unladylike fashion. “No motive? I can think of several.” I began to tally them on one hand. “Maybe this is purely a case of revenge against a superior officer. After all, Davies has permanent injuries from the flight from Kabul, injuries he might blame on the General.

  “Or perchance Davies hasn’t told us everything about the General. Given the General’s proclivities for the local women, perhaps there was an Afghan woman of whom Davies was fond and the General destroyed the relationship.

  “Maybe”—another thought came to me—“maybe he is worried that the General will go to the Crimea and wreak havoc there, and he wants to prevent that.” I was just warming up.

  “But Miss Florence,” Mary protested. “It was Mrs. Herbert who was attacked in the carriage, not the General.”

  That stopped me, but only for a moment. “Isn’t it possible that the attacker wanted to murder Liz right in front of the General to make him experience maximum suffering? Or that the General was the real target and the attacker missed his intended victim?” There were so many possibilities and motives to assign to Oswyn Davies.

  The strange spire of St. Luke’s loomed before us, a couple of blocks away. I hoped Berenice would be there.

  Mary stopped me before we reached the church. “But revenge is not as great a motivator as jealousy, especially the jealousy of a woman, Miss Florence. I do believe you need to look into this Mrs. Norton. She is part of it all, I am certain.”

  I promised that I would do so, but after I paid a visit to the General. Mary’s expression was one of disapproval, but she remained silent.

  Fortunately, Berenice was at the church. Today she was inside the dimly lit structure, lined up with her daughter for soup. Once they had secured their bowls, I went to where they sat together on top of a bronze grave marker located in the floor in one of the side aisles.

  I gave Berenice the news that I had secured work for her, omitting my commitment to pay her wages if Davies was displeased with her performance. At this point, I was beginning to wonder if I was placing her in the employ of an evildoer. I suspected, though, that the poor woman would accept employment as Lucifer’s parlor maid, sweeping the ashes of the damned, as long as it would provide her with a living that didn’t cause her to resort to the profession of fallen women.

  She gaped at me when I told her that she and her daughter could report to the Lion Brewery the following morning, then silently reached out, took my hand, and kissed it in open gratitude.

  We then met with Reverend Whitehead in his office. He once again lit candles as I spread out my charts for him. He mumbled and nodded as he looked over what I had done.

  “This is a definite improvement on my own work, Miss Nightingale,” he admitted, finally looking up at me. “Well done. The disease seems to be hovering over this part of Broad Street.” He pointed down to my map.

  “Yes. However, I did meet with Dr. Snow earlier today at Middlesex Hospital.”

  Whitehead sat back in his chair, no longer touching the papers. “Did you? How did you find him?”

  “Very intelligent. He told me he believes the cholera problem to be a digestive one, possibly relating to the Broad Street water pump.”

  Whitehead laughed. “He does indeed. This is why I am so anxious to provide findings to eliminate the likelihood of his supposition as quickly as possible. However, he has asked me to go round and personally interview people along Broad Street to see if there is commonality in what they have ingested. Because I am one of the parish priests, they are more likely to talk to me than some hired clerk. We shall see what they say.”

  I was also interested in this. I thought Snow’s thesis to be far-fetched, but I had also considered old Mrs. Drayton drinking urine to cure her thrush during her stay at the Establishment last year to be far-fetched as well, and certainly that had worked.

  “I might be able to assist you,” I offered. “I am gathering information on the inmates at Middlesex. I will compile it and bring that to you for study as well.”

  He expressed his thanks, and then Mary and I took our leave. It was very late in the day and I wished to return to the Establishment before dark. As we left St. Luke’s, the sky had opened up to perform that irritating method of spitting down rain that was too forceful for us to avoid getting wet but too light and intermittent for pedestrians to be bothered with umbrellas.

  Mary and I walked to the outskirts of the area until we found a cab stand, then rode in relative comfort back to the Establishment.

  Tomorrow I planned to return to Soho to attend Isabel Maddox’s funeral. It would seem I was already abandoning my resolve not to be involved with the poor wretches of Soho. Following the funeral, I would then finally return to Herbert House. The General and I needed to have an extensive conversation.

  CHAPTER 15

  The light drizzle had continued overnight into the following morning and had become full-fledged rain when I went alone to Isabel Maddox’s meager funeral. A cascade of heavenly tears, as the saying goes.

  She was buried in St. Luke’s churchyard. Only George Maddox, his son, a few neighbors—including those from upstairs—and I were in attendance to pay respects, with the clean-shaven priest officiating. No doubt he and Reverend Whitehead were trading funereal duties like this on a daily basis.

  I felt guilty that I was the only one there who actually possessed an umbrella to protect myself from the rain. However, the others didn’t even seem to notice that the weather was any different than on any other day.

  The neighbors drifted off as the priest concluded his reading from his Book of Common Prayer. I remained behind to express condolences to Mr. Maddox, but the man seemed to be almost in a trance as he let the rain sluice over him.

  Arthur Maddox stood unsteadily a few feet away from his father. The lad shivered as his long, uncut hair became plastered to his face and ac
ross his eyes. He needed to be put back to bed; he wasn’t entirely well yet, and now he had endured his mother’s funeral in a saturating rain.

  “Mr. Maddox,” I said, holding my umbrella up to cover us both.

  “Miss Nightingale, good of you to come to see Bella off.” He murmured this politely, with no emotion.

  I offered him my condolences, which he accepted with no more than a nod. It was as if I could see the light fading from his eyes. I hoped he would not soon join his wife.

  Despite my desire to be sensitive to his grief, I felt compelled to ask him about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death. “Sir, pardon my rudeness, but I would like to ask you about yesterday’s … incident.”

  Another vague nod. “Yes?”

  “As Mrs. Maddox lay in my arms, she said, ‘I hated to do it.’ Did she do something to you?”

  He shrugged in apathy. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now.”

  “Of course,” I said. I felt instant contrition for having intruded on his grief. I couldn’t bear to ask him another question about his wife, who was not yet cold in her grave. I turned to take my leave, but Maddox stopped me by offering an explanation.

  “I—I told her that I had gotten a job as a supervisor at the brewery. I thought she’d be happy. Instead, she—she—turned on me. I don’t understand why it was wrong. It was steady work.” He gazed at me miserably, as though somehow I might explain it for him.

  I couldn’t explain it, but I had to offer him some sort of hope and comfort. “Sir, your wife was simply exhausted from her illness. Think of how we say frightful things when we are in the heat of anger. How much worse is it when someone is in pain and failing health?”

  He nodded but appeared thoroughly unconvinced. “I had even stopped talking about my novel, too. She was still bitter with me. I suppose I was never very satisfactory as a husband. Maybe she was expressing regret at her anger. Now it’s just me and the boy, except …” He trailed off and looked away.

  “Except what, sir?” I prodded him.

  “Mr. Davies offered me free lodgings in the brewery’s attic, so I can leave my other place behind. But I never told Mr. Davies about Arthur, so there’s no job there for him. Don’t think I can ask about it now; I’ll look like a charity case. Arthur’s a small boy. I could probably get him placed as a chimney sweep somewhere.”

  I thought the man’s pride was preventing him from understanding that he did require a little charity in his situation. However, Mr. Davies had not been very accommodating about my idea of Berenice and her daughter coming to work at the Lion, even without lodgings. I could understand Mr. Maddox’s reticence to ask that the man accommodate Arthur, too.

  However, Maddox had essentially lost every single thing in his life except his son. I might not be able to help every poor soul down here, but I could at least help one.

  I had an idea.

  “Mr. Maddox, might I propose that you permit Arthur to come and stay at the Establishment for a while? Until you feel steady and secure again? Your son also needs more recovery time.”

  My suggestion broke him out of his languor. “What? You want my son to be bedded down in a women’s hospital?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. You see, we have another boy who lives there. He runs errands and does other odd jobs. He has his own quarters, and Arthur could share them. He would have nourishing food to eat, and there are many people to watch out for him. Our manservant, Charlie Lewis, could teach Arthur valuable skills as well.”

  Maddox frowned with indecision. “I don’t know …” He glanced over at his son. “Arthur, come here. Miss Nightingale would like to ask you something.”

  The drenched boy trudged over to us in abject weariness and looked up at me, blinking. “Yes ma’am?” His voice was so low and ragged I could hardly hear him.

  I bent to one knee. It was immediately soaked through and I knew my dress would require cleaning. “I know you believe you have met me only once. But some of my other nurses and I tended to you and your mother while you were sick. We would like to tend to you a while longer, while your father gets settled into his new job. He will eventually have enough money to move you somewhere better.”

  “Where do you live?” he asked. I wondered if he had ever been more than a half mile from his lodgings.

  “Actually, I live inside a women’s hospital,” I said.

  Arthur looked at me doubtfully. “A hospital? Don’t people go there to die?”

  The boy’s pallid countenance somehow tugged at an emotion deep inside me. I smiled gently at him. “Arthur, you have bravely survived a difficult illness all by yourself. I don’t think you have anything to worry about at the hospital. Besides, there is another boy there you can meet. His name is John Wesley, and he has a pet squirrel named Dash.”

  The Maddox boy tilted his head in curiosity. “A squirrel? Is that like a dog? I never had a pet before.”

  “Not quite. But John Welsey’s squirrel knows tricks, and I imagine he would let you take Dash through his set of them.”

  Arthur’s interest was clearly piqued by now. He turned to his father. “Papa?”

  Maddox exhaled a breath full of pain and anxiety. “Do you want to do it? I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”

  Arthur considered me for several moments, staring intently at me through his plastered locks. “Yes, I’ll go.”

  The first thing I would do was ensure the boy had a bath and a good meal, and then he could disappear into John Wesley’s world. I suspected it would do him an abundance of good. Of course, John Wesley might teach Arthur a little too much, but that could be dealt with later.

  * * *

  I took Arthur back to the Establishment with me, where the nurses immediately began doting on the little waif, much to the boy’s astonishment. He soon found himself wrapped in a cocoon of hugs, soup, and soap down in the kitchens.

  Nurse Hughes offered to sew him some clothes, while Nurse Harris took a comb and pair of scissors to Arthur’s hair. He submitted to the haircut in stunned silence. Or perhaps the boy’s full stomach made him pliant.

  Charlie Lewis found John Wesley down the street rolling hoops with some other boys and brought him back to meet Arthur. John Wesley’s intelligent gaze took in everything—the freshly scrubbed and smiling Arthur, the cooing nurses, the aroma of freshly baked cake—and immediately recognized that he had a rival in the building.

  John Wesley bristled visibly, but Nurse Harris bent over and spoke quietly in his ear. He nodded several times and then just as visibly relaxed.

  Lewis gazed longingly at Nurse Harris as she calmed and cajoled John Wesley. Lewis had held a long-standing affection for her, an affection that she did not return, largely because she was still a married woman. Harris had escaped a terrible marriage and had effectively gone into hiding at the Establishment, and in a beneficial turn of events had proved herself to be a competent nurse.

  “Mr. Lewis, might I talk with you for a moment?” I said.

  He reluctantly gave up his adoration and followed me up to my study. I drew out Fenton’s dice to show him. “Do you know what these are?”

  He bent down over my hand, careful not to touch me. “Sure, M-M-Miss Nightingale. They are gambling dice.”

  I had him hold out his hand, and I dropped the three cubes into it. “Look at the carving above the crown on each one. What would you say they represent?”

  Mr. Lewis picked each die up individually and looked at it. “I don’t know, m-m-m-miss.”

  Why was it that every military man I talked to claimed to have no knowledge of what the carvings meant, but a priest working in a church in a poor section of London did?

  “Is it possible that they refer to a military unit inscription?” I asked.

  “Well, s-s-s-sure.” He looked at me blankly.

  I bit back my impatience. “And do you have a guess what that might be? Or how I might figure it out?”

  He frowned at them again. “I think these m-m-m-might be fo
r an army unit. But I was a tar; I wouldn’t know what this refers to, m-m-m-miss.”

  “I see.” This made me doubly angry; clearly, then, the General would have known what the symbols on the dice meant but had pretended total ignorance of them. Why? It seemed an extraordinary idea, but could they have anything to do with Afghanistan? If so, this meant that Oswyn Davies had likely also lied to me when he looked at the dice.

  I thanked Mr. Lewis for his time, and fortunately he did not question why I was asking about the dice.

  By the time I had changed my dirty dress and left for Herbert House, Arthur and John Wesley were already fast friends, bound together by a mutual affection for Dash. The two boys were plying the young squirrel with vegetable scraps from the kitchen. The animal gently took a carrot top in its teeth from John Wesley, then sat on its haunches and nibbled away in enjoyment, the carrot scrap now held securely in its front paws.

  The simple joy of it momentarily stole my breath, and I was glad for it.

  * * *

  I slipped out of the Establishment quietly, again without taking Mary with me. She would be hurt by my apparent abandonment of her, but at this point she was so wedded to the idea that the completely unknown Caroline Norton must be responsible for the carriage attack that I wasn’t certain I could have a dispassionate interview at Herbert House in her presence.

  The rain had stopped but the heat had not, leaving the city in a state of oppressive clamminess. The taxi dropped me off at the Belgrave Square cab stand. As I walked down the block toward the Herbert residence, I noticed there was a quality, highly polished landau sitting about a block beyond Herbert House. It stood out to me because the carriage’s coachman was sitting on the driver’s box, as if waiting for his passengers, yet there was a glamorous woman sitting in the open carriage, patiently watching the house.