Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

  Mitchell nodded. “Exactly right. Although the fact that Mrs. Truscott is being treated by Dr. Skerry complicates things because belladonna is definitely used in a number of homeopathic remedies that are supposed to be taken orally.”

  Ella gasped and said, “Really? I have trouble believing homeopaths would prescribe anything that dangerous.”

  Mitchell handed the first book to Caro and took out a second, slightly thicker book. He said, “Here is the copy of one of the popular homeopathic guides. My uncle has a copy because many of his customers will mention some medicine a homeopathic doctor has prescribed, and he likes to be able to look up the drug, see what is in it. Of course, those drugs used by reputable homeopaths would only use belladonna in an extremely diluted form, too diluted to be harmful. What we found was not diluted.”

  Annie said, “How do you know the liquid you got from Joan Carpenter is belladonna if there is no marking on the bottle?”

  Caro pointed to the open page in the textbook she was holding and described how they had followed the textbook’s instructions once they got to the laboratory at Toland Hall.

  She said, “We first had to heat some of the liquid to see if, once it evaporated, it would leave a residue. Once we had the residue, we moistened it with a solution of potassium hydroxide. Just as the textbook said it would, it turned purple!”

  Annie, who had never heard Caro Sutton sound so enthusiastic about anything, said, “And that means it was belladonna? But can you tell if there was enough belladonna in this liquid to prove that someone was poisoning Mrs. Truscott, not just giving her a regular homeopathic drug?”

  Mitchell smiled and said, “Excellent question, Mrs. Dawson. What we did was go out and buy one of the most commonly prescribed homeopathic remedies that included belladonna and tested it to see if any residue would show up.”

  Leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands behind his head in triumph, he said, “And wouldn’t you know? Not a thing showed up. No residue, which isn’t surprising because that’s what you would expect if you evaporated a bottle of water, which is what most homeopathic prescriptions are. This pretty much proves that even if there was belladonna in a regular bottle of homeopathic medicine, there wouldn’t be enough to do anyone any harm. Unlike the liquid in the bottle the maid brought us.”

  Ella said with obvious disgust, “Dr. Mitchell, this isn’t some exam where you have to prove you know the answer. You should have come and told me your findings as soon as you discovered the truth. Someone is poisoning Phoebe Truscott, and we need to tell the police right away to make sure it stops.”

  Caro responded quickly, as if to forestall Mitchell saying anything. “Dr. Blair, please believe me, both of us do take this seriously. But it required all yesterday afternoon to extract the residue in the liquid, and then Dr. Mitchell had to go to work at the hospital. That meant we couldn’t do the actual test until this morning when we could get back into the laboratory. I sent out the telegrams to both of you as soon as we had a result. Dr. Mitchell felt we needed to test the homeopathic medicine before we came to see you, and I agreed. That is why we scheduled the meeting for this afternoon.”

  Quietly, Ella said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped in that way. It’s been frustrating to be tied to the dispensary, knowing that poor Mrs. Truscott might be in danger. Joan said she was trying to oversee everything that her mistress eats and drinks, but she can’t do anything if the poison is in the medicine they are giving Mrs. Truscott. I can’t really leave right now to go see her. In fact, I shouldn’t stay with you much longer. I have one woman who has started labor, and this morning, another woman brought in a four-year-old who is quite ill. I just got him admitted to the children’s ward, and I need to go check on him.”

  Ella turned to Annie and said, “Could you possibly go with Dr. Mitchell and Miss Sutton to the police, to tell them what they discovered, get them to do something?”

  Mitchell leaned forward and said, “I wish we could go to the police, Dr. Blair, but I don’t think it would be wise to do so. Not until we get additional proof.”

  Ella’s voice rose again. “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Because we have no way to prove that the liquid we found in the bottle was actually ingested by Mrs. Truscott. We only have her maid’s word that she exhibited the symptoms that would be associated with taking belladonna, and we only have that maid’s word that she found the bottle in Mrs. Truscott’s room. Even if she could prove that this bottle was in the room, there is every possibility that it is a bottle of a concentrated amount of belladonna that Dr. Skerry uses to make up her own homeopathic remedies…in sufficient dilution to be completely innocent of any ill effect.”

  “But…”

  Caro spoke up here. “I can understand your impatience, Dr. Blair. But Dr. Mitchell and I have discussed this thoroughly. And I must say I agree with him. I once moved too quickly on suspicions about someone’s culpability, and the results were tragic.”

  Hearing the anguish in Caro’s voice, Annie touched Ella’s arm and said, “Dr. Blair, I know this is hard, but my husband cautioned me that we should not take anything to the police until we had definitive proof. Otherwise we really do open up the dispensary to charges of slander.”

  “But how do we get that kind of proof?”

  Mitchell said quickly, “First of all, we test the liquid in the second bottle. If I’m right about its contents, we might have stronger proof that someone was trying to poison Mrs. Truscott.”

  Annie said, “The second bottle didn’t have belladonna in it?”

  Caro answered. “No, Dr. Mitchell insisted we test both, and no residue showed up.”

  Ella frowned and said, “So does that mean it could have held the diluted belladonna?” She sighed. “I guess I could see how that would simply make it even harder to convince anyone that anything more serious than a mix-up between the two bottles had occurred.”

  “But, Mitchell, weren’t you suggesting that the other bottle did hold a poison, just one that was different from the belladonna?” Annie asked.

  “Yes, Mrs. Dawson. I got the idea from the other symptoms you said the maid described—the vomiting, dizziness, and the tingling sensations. While there are a number of substances that could cause the gastric distress, most of them would have obvious matriculates suspended in the liquid in the bottle. However, there is one substance that is colorless and readily dissolved in water—and produces all three of those symptoms. That’s aconitum Napellus, which is from a plant that is called wolfsbane.”

  Caro added, “Unfortunately, this plant is used in even more homeopathic remedies than belladonna. If this guide we got from Dr. Mitchell’s uncle is accurate, homeopaths seem to use it—of course in diluted form—to cure everything from emotional disturbances to stomach ailments to difficult or infrequent menses.”

  “Good heavens,” Annie blurted out. “I’m having a hard time believing that reputable doctors would ever prescribe medicines based on plants with such awful names as deadly nightshade and wolfsbane, no matter how diluted their tonics are.”

  Mitchell said, “Well, unfortunately, many regular doctors prescribed medicines containing equally toxic substances, often doing great harm. At least with homeopaths, their nostrums, when properly diluted, are generally innocuous. The problem is that neither are they at all effective, say, in curing diseased ovaries or raging infections.”

  Ella got up impatiently. “Dr. Mitchell, didn’t you say that if you could prove this bottle did hold aconite—and yes, I have heard of it—and this would prove that it was being used to poison Mrs. Truscott?”

  Mitchell said, “Yes, Dr. Blair, that’s what I said.”

  He made a shushing motion when Ella was about to respond and continued, “Unlike belladonna, there isn’t any chemical test that could prove that the liquid contains aconite. However, we tracked down Professor Shurtleff, and he said that what he would propose we do is inject a mouse or rat with the liquid. If the injection causes the
rodent to exhibit the same symptoms that Mrs. Truscott exhibited, eventually killing the rodent, this would prove that whatever was in the liquid was poisonous and that it was most likely aconite.”

  Annie shuddered at the image of a dead animal, and she said, “Are you proposing to go out and catch some poor mouse?”

  Caro took off her glasses and polished them, and as she put them back on, she said, “Actually, we don’t need to do that, because Shurtleff has designed traps that capture but don’t kill rodents. Evidently the mice population in the basement of Toland Hall provides enough specimens so that the medical students can use them to practice dissection techniques and observe the effects of introducing various chemicals into the poor animals.”

  Annie winced, thinking that Caro sounded entirely too sanguine about this gruesome fact. She guessed if you were determined to get a medical degree, which meant that at some point you would not just observe autopsies but also do dissections on real dead human beings, then cutting up a few rodents would not be all that off-putting.

  Ella interrupted that thought, and Annie could hear the exasperation in her voice as she said, “But even if you prove the liquid holds aconite, don’t you have the exact same problem as you had with the belladonna? How do we prove it was actually given to Mrs. Truscott?”

  Mitchell said, “That’s where you come in, Ella…Dr. Blair. You need to figure out a way to contact this maid, tell her the next time her mistress has one of these spells that she should collect a sample of the vomit and get it to you as quickly as possible. We can then extract the residue from this sample and inject another rodent. If it dies, this is much stronger proof that Mrs. Truscott is being deliberately poisoned. That would be something you could take to the police.”

  Chapter 28

  Sunday morning, March 5, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  It was only a little past seven in the morning when Ella stood in the doorway to Hilda Putki’s room, watching the young girl sleep. For once, Hilda hadn’t awakened in the night with a bad dream, but her face looked thin and drawn in the pale early morning light, and she jerked restlessly.

  Dr. Granger’s son had come by last evening, as requested, to give his opinion on Hilda’s status. He had found the girl’s rapid pulse troubling, although there was no fever to indicate any infection. He agreed with Ella that, despite the girl’s low weight, she could be only a few weeks away from term. He didn’t have any other suggestions on treatment besides trying to get the girl to eat more, build up her strength, and make sure the nurses were checking in on her routinely, especially at night.

  He also stopped by to observe the woman in the next room who was in labor, simply nodding when Ella reported the steps she and the nurses had taken to turn the baby who had been presenting as a breech birth. She assumed that was a nod of approval, since he didn’t actually say anything before taking off. In any event, the woman had successfully delivered a very healthy girl near midnight, so Ella had actually gotten a fairly decent night’s sleep.

  Thank goodness, since she wanted to be at her sharpest this morning when she went back to the Truscotts to try one more time to see Phoebe. Last Thursday, when Joan had stopped by with the bottles, she told Ella that Mr. Truscott and his aunt normally attended a nine o’clock Sunday service, which was why they interrupted Ella’s visit last week when she thought they would be off attending church at eleven. Ella told Joan she would try again today but that she would come to the house a little after nine. Joan said she would be in the front hall to let her in, in order to avoid alerting the parlor maid, who had strict instructions not to let anyone but Dr. Skerry in to see Mrs. Truscott.

  She’d been so surprised when Mrs. Dawson and Caro Sutton had shown up with Martin Mitchell. If asked, she would have said the man thought women shouldn’t become doctors, much less run a dispensary. He’d been his usual condescending self—when he wasn’t treating everything like it was some kind of joke—just like he’d been in the clinical classes she’d taken with him last year.

  Yet he appeared to be working quite willingly with Miss Sutton. Maybe it wasn’t women in medicine in general he didn’t like, but that he didn’t like her specifically.

  On the other hand, Miss Sutton was quite pleasant, and she had been more helpful in their discussion of what Ella should do today. She was the one who recommended that Ella have a note prepared ahead of time to give to Joan, so she could hand it over to her mistress in case Ella was prevented from entering the house. The note could express Ella’s concern over Phoebe Truscott’s health and urge her to seek outside help from a regular doctor—even if it meant going to someone completely unconnected with the dispensary. This couldn’t be too damaging if it fell in the hands of someone other than Joan or her mistress.

  What Ella feared the most was that she would discover that Phoebe’s health had deteriorated further since Thursday, although Joan had told her she would find a way to send a message to the dispensary if her mistress had another bad spell.

  Mrs. Dawson felt that it was possible that—if someone was intentionally giving Mrs. Truscott poison—the purpose was not to kill her but keep her sick. That didn’t ease her fears much, given that Mrs. Truscott’s overall health was already relatively fragile from the cysts and the operation.

  Ella also had penned a separate note for Joan, detailing what they had found from the bottle and telling her what steps she should take if her mistress did have another spell of vomiting—in order to counteract the effects of any poisoning. She also asked her to collect a sample of Phoebe’s vomit to test. This would be the note that she absolutely had to keep out of anyone else’s hands, entertaining the absurd vision of eating it if confronted. Ella shook her head at how fantastic the whole idea was—that someone might be poisoning poor Phoebe Truscott on purpose.

  Mrs. Dawson said she would accompany Ella this morning if she wanted her to, and Miss Sutton had been so nice to say that she would have her carriage come by to take her to the Truscotts. But Ella was afraid to take either of them up on their offers in case she’d not be able to leave the dispensary this morning.

  She would be so relieved when Dr. Brown and Dr. Wanzer were back in town and she didn’t feel she was shouldering all these burdens alone. At least on Monday, when Mrs. Dawson had her meeting with Mrs. Stone and Dr. Bucknell, they would take over responsibility for figuring out what to do next in terms of the finances. Truth be told, Ella hoped that Mrs. Stone, who was quite wealthy, might just offer to write a check to cover the outstanding pharmacy bill and the next month’s rent.

  But that wouldn’t solve all the problems, particularly if there was a campaign to ruin the dispensary’s reputation. And what if the attempt to poison Mrs. Truscott was part of that campaign and the poor woman died as a result?

  Ella had used some of her own savings to pay for the hansom cab that took her to the Truscotts’ home in the Western Addition. She arrived right at nine. If she made it into the house and past the vigilant parlor maid, this should give her plenty of time to see Phoebe.

  As planned, Joan was there to open the door, even before she pulled on the bell.

  Joan put her finger up to her lips then leaned close to Ella and whispered, “My mistress really wants to see you, but the master stayed behind. He’s in his study down here, so we have to be very quiet.”

  Ella took the two envelopes out of her medical bag, which she had brought in the expectation of examining Mrs. Truscott. Handing them to the maid, she said as quietly as she could, “Take these right now, just in case something happens. One is for your mistress; the other is addressed to you. Please don’t let anyone see the one I have written to you.”

  Joan nodded, tucking the envelopes in a pocket under her apron. Then she turned to lead Ella up the stairs.

  A harsh voice stopped them in their tracks.

  “How dare you try to slip into this house in this underhanded fashion, Dr. Blair? Do I need to call the police and h
ave you charged with trespass?”

  Richard Truscott stood in the doorway of a book-lined room, his voice suffused with a kind of triumphant anger. He then pointed dramatically to Joan and said, “Aunt Ruby told me not to trust you. Go upstairs to your mistress, immediately, and I will deal with you once I’ve removed this charlatan of a doctor from my home.”

  Joan glared at Mr. Truscott, but then she quickly went up the stairs.

  Ella feared if she spoke her voice would tremble, she was shaking so badly. Please, God, don’t let me cry! Ella took a deep breath and told herself that Richard Truscott was a bully…just like her brothers. If she’d been able to stand up to them as a child, she could stand up to him, now, as an adult. Let him make threats. She had done nothing wrong.

  Let him call the police and hear Joan’s charges.

  Lifting up her chin and holding her medical bag in front of her as if it were a shield, she said, “Mr. Truscott, your wife had her maid ask me to come, and you have no right to keep me from her if she would like to see me. It seems to me that we should call the police, since you seem determined to keep your wife prisoner in her own home, depriving her of medical advice from a regular doctor.”

  Truscott’s face turned red, and he shouted, “That’s ridiculous! Aunt Ruby and I are only doing what is best for her. Dr. Skerry said you would try to blame my wife’s illness on her. Why would the state give her a certificate to practice medicine if she wasn’t a doctor? A damned-sight better doctor than you butchers at the dispensary—cutting up a woman, depriving her of the ability to have children.”

  Ella shook her head, appalled at the nonsense he was spouting. “You are badly informed if you think that is the case. And I don’t believe that your wife agrees with you. Must I again remind you that I have come because she requested that I come?”