“She didn’t do any such thing. And if Joan, who is an ignorant, jealous, old spinster, is the one who told you that, you are a fool to have believed her. My wife does not want to see you.”
“But, Richard, I do…very much…want to see Dr. Blair.”
Phoebe Truscott stood on the stairway landing, leaning against Joan, who had her arm around her mistress, holding her up.
Richard Truscott turned and said, his voice softening, “My dear, you don’t know what you are saying. You shouldn’t be up from your bed. You will…”
Seeing the blood drain from Phoebe’s face, Ella pushed past Mr. Truscott to run up to the landing, helping Joan catch the young woman as she collapsed in a dead faint. Ignoring the shouts from Phoebe’s husband, Ella reached into her bag and grabbed her smelling salts, which quickly brought Phoebe to consciousness.
Ella said softly, “Now there, Mrs. Truscott, your husband is correct. We need to get you back to bed.”
Phoebe’s eyes widened, and she reached out, pulling Ella close as she whispered, “Please help me. Come to the back alley at midnight. I must leave this place, before it is the death of me.”
Chapter 29
Sunday afternoon, March 5, 1882
O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse
* * *
“Nate, could you pull the two easy chairs over and put them across from the settee?” Annie said, “And Laura, if you move one of the desk chairs over as well? We should have room for all five of us.”
Then, handing her daughter to Kathleen, Annie thanked her for agreeing to take Abigail down to the kitchen. Normally, Abigail would be due for a nap at this time, but for some reason, she’d fallen asleep right after lunch and was now wide awake.
Annie added, “Laura can answer the door when Miss Sutton and Mitchell arrive. But I do think we could use some tea and some small sandwiches in case they haven’t had time for lunch. So please ask Tilly to bring us some when you get down to the kitchen.”
Leaning over, she gave her daughter a quick kiss on the cheek and said, “There you go, darling. Be good for Kathleen.”
Her daughter waved her hands and grabbed at Kathleen’s ears, which had become one of her favorite parts of the human anatomy to explore. Annie had stopped wearing any earrings this past week, after several painful bouts of tug of war with her very persistent child.
The peal of the bell sent Laura following Kathleen out of the small parlor to the front hallway, and Annie soon heard Mitchell and Caro Sutton’s voices.
Caro came in and said hello to Seth and Nate before coming over to Annie to say quietly that she had asked her driver to wait outside, in case he was needed. Annie thanked her and agreed that was a good idea. She would send Kathleen out when she came up with the tea tray to ask if he wanted her to bring him a hot cup of coffee.
“Good afternoon, Nate, Mrs. Dawson. It’s good to see you again,” Mitchell said. Turning to Laura, he said, “Where’s Seth? Wasn’t he supposed to have Sunday dinner with you? Haven’t sent the man to perdition, have you? I keep telling him that if he keeps his nose in those law books, one of those flashy fraternity boys at the university is going to steal you away.”
Annie felt Caro stiffen beside her at his thoughtless remark. Surely Mitchell knows what happened to Laura and Caro last spring?
Laura only laughed and said, “You’re jealous, Mitchell, that you’re stuck eating those terrible Sunday dinners at your boardinghouse. You and Uncle Frank, the two confirmed old bachelors.”
Once everyone had been seated, and Kathleen and Tilly had brought up the tea tray, Annie said, “I must thank all of you for coming this afternoon. I know you are both busy. However, I felt that I needed advice on how to respond to the letter I got this morning from Dr. Blair.”
Soon after church, Kathleen had come up from the kitchen to say that a newsboy, one of Ian and Jamie’s friends, had appeared at the back door with a letter from Dr. Blair. Annie instructed that he be given something to eat, and as soon as she’d read the letter, she sent Tilly out to dispatch telegrams to both Caro and Mitchell, inviting them to come by the boardinghouse this afternoon. Caro had sent a telegram in reply, telling her she would bring Mitchell with her and would arrive at three.
Laura said, “Well, Annie, don’t leave us in suspense. What’s happened?”
“As planned, Dr. Blair went to the Truscotts’ early this morning to see if she could get in to see Phoebe Truscott, evaluate her condition,” Annie said. “However, Mr. Truscott had stayed at home, it appears for the very purpose of making sure no one from the dispensary was allowed to see his wife.”
Laura burst out, “What is he so afraid of? I think it’s terribly suspicious. Don’t you, Nate? What would you say about that kind of behavior if you were in court?”
Before Nate could say anything, Annie continued, “Yes, Laura, and what happened next certainly confirms that impression. As the man was threatening to call the police and have Dr. Blair evicted for trespassing, Phoebe Truscott appeared and told her husband that she wanted to see the doctor. Then she fainted.”
“Oh dear,” Caro said, looking over at Mitchell. “I’m afraid that the woman really might be in great danger. Mrs. Dawson, this morning we pretty much proved that the other bottle held aconite in enough strength to kill the rat we injected with it, and probably in a dose that could kill Phoebe if she was given it in a completely undiluted form.”
Mitchell added, “Even if the dose has been diluted, over time it could really be wreaking havoc with her digestive system.”
“Well, this makes what Dr. Blair is proposing to do even more necessary,” Annie said. “You see, although Richard Truscott prevented her from examining his wife…in fact he physically dragged her away and pushed her out of the house…Phoebe was first able to whisper to Dr. Blair that she feared for her life. She indicated that she would try to sneak out of the house at midnight and hoped that she would be there to help her.”
Annie gave everyone the chance to exclaim, although she noticed that Nate simply frowned, and she anticipated that he was going to be the one who was going to object to what Ella Blair proposed doing.
Once everyone quieted down, she said, “Dr. Blair’s plan is to bring a carriage to the alley behind the Truscotts’ house a little before midnight. Then, if Joan is successful in helping her mistress leave the house, the doctor will bring both of them to the dispensary. She requested that I ask Miss Sutton if she could lend her carriage and driver. She feared that if she hired a complete stranger to drive her, they might take exception to what was going on.”
Caro leaned forward and said eagerly, “That is an excellent idea. My driver Robertson is very trustworthy, but I have sensed he finds driving me to the City and County Hospital and back a rather boring job. I will definitely go up in his estimation if he gets to participate in a midnight rescue. Do you think I should come along?”
“No, I’ll go,” Mitchell said quickly. “I don’t work at the hospital this evening, and the fewer people involved the better. It’s possible that Mrs. Truscott may need to be carried to the carriage, not something Ella…Dr. Blair…can do.”
Laura, in turn, suggested that Mitchell get Seth’s help, saying that it might be better to have two men involved, just in case they had to push their way past Mr. Truscott or a male servant in the household.
Annie looked at her husband and said, “Nate, what do you think? I couldn’t help but wonder if it isn’t time to bring in the police rather than spirit Mrs. Truscott away. There are so many ways this scheme could go wrong.”
Nate looked at her, then around at the expectant faces of the others, and said, “If Miss Sutton and Mitchell hadn’t found traces of poison, I would be completely against this idea. First of all, even if the plan is successful, it leaves the dispensary open to all sorts of charges—including kidnapping—by the husband. The very opposite result from what Annie was hired to achieve.”
Laura said, “But, Nate, the woman is expecting Dr. Blair to be
there. How could she not go?”
“I said if there wasn’t evidence that the poor woman was being poisoned I would be against it. So yes, I do think that Dr. Blair needs to see if she can get the woman out of her house. But I think it would be safer, legally, if they took her somewhere other than the dispensary, like some other hospital.”
Mitchell said, “Nate, I get that you want to keep the dispensary out of this, but there is no way that is going to happen if Ella Blair is involved. Frankly, I’m not sure that if she and I arrived at any of the other hospitals in town in the middle of the night they would let us admit Mrs. Truscott. If they did, they probably wouldn’t let Dr. Blair examine her. If she is suffering from the effects of poison, that could delay treatment, because I don’t see them accepting our word for that being the problem. It seems so far-fetched.”
“That’s why I wouldn’t advise we go to the police at this point, either,” said Nate. “I would be afraid that if I went to them with the evidence you have, even have Dr. Blair swear that Mrs. Truscott said she was being poisoned, the most that would happen is that tomorrow they would go to the house and ask to interview Mrs. Truscott. This would alert Mr. Truscott to his wife’s plans, and if he is involved, this could in fact be her death sentence.”
Annie watched everyone’s face fall, but she could see Nate was still thinking about options, so she put her hand on his arm and squeezed gently. He looked up at her and smiled.
He said, “All right, I do have a suggestion. Mitchell, I will go with you and Dr. Blair. I will have drafted a document for Mrs. Truscott to sign, witnessed by Caro’s driver, that states that she has left the house voluntarily and that she has asked to be taken to the dispensary.”
Annie said, “Are you sure this will protect the Pacific Dispensary, Nate?”
“I can’t guarantee that. What it will at least do is prevent the police, if they are called in by the husband, from doing anything precipitate, like drag her back to her home or put any of us in jail. I will also go and speak to Sergeant Thompson first thing in the morning, show him the document, and explain our reasons for our actions.”
“Would it help if Mitchell and Miss Sutton wrote up their findings about the poisons they found?” Annie asked.
Nate shrugged. “As I’ve said, since there is no proof that the bottles aren’t simply part of Dr. Skerry’s medical supplies, or that Mrs. Truscott ingested any of it, it wouldn’t really be admissible evidence in court. However, I sincerely hope that none of this goes to court. So yes, a document describing how they got the liquid, the tests they ran, and the conclusions they came to might help me convince the police that the actions we took were a reasonable precaution.”
Mitchell drained his tea and said briskly, “Miss Sutton, whenever you are ready, let’s go to the dispensary and see Dr. Blair. Make arrangements, and you can make sure your driver is going to be all right with the evening’s adventure. Then I suggest we work on this document that Nate wants.”
He turned to Nate and said, “Given that you live much closer to the Truscotts’ house, why don’t I go and pick up Dr. Blair first then come by here, say, around 11:30? Better to be early in case Mrs. Truscott tries to leave before then. Poor woman. I just hope we aren’t too late to save her from the long-term effects of being poisoned.”
Chapter 30
Saturday, near midnight, March 5, 1882
Truscott’s house, Western Addition
* * *
Ella stood briefly on the dispensary porch and examined her surroundings. The night was cloudless and the moon nearly full, illuminating the street in front of the Pacific Dispensary, glinting off the bits of silver on the harnesses of the two carriage horses. The driver, sitting on his tall perch, touched his top hat with the stock of his whip in greeting. His name was Robertson, and this afternoon Miss Sutton told her that he knew all about the purpose of this strange midnight ride across town.
She wasn’t surprised that Miss Sutton had agreed to lend her carriage; what had surprised her was that Martin Mitchell had offered to come with her. Maybe he was angling to get in Miss Sutton’s good graces. She’d heard rumors last fall, among some of the other medical students, that he’d been making up to some wealthy Irish girl attending the university over in Berkeley but that nothing had come of it. Obviously, Miss Sutton was a woman of means. Perhaps that was why he’d agreed to come along, to impress her.
When he and Miss Sutton stopped by this afternoon to tell her about their additional discovery of aconite in the other bottle, Ella tried to persuade them to take this information directly to the Truscotts and demand to see Phoebe. If that failed, they should contact the police. But Miss Sutton finally convinced her that this wasn’t the best idea, telling her about Mr. Dawson’s concerns that a direct confrontation might actually make things worse. She’d felt reassured when Miss Sutton told her that Mr. Dawson promised to go to the police as soon as they had gotten Mrs. Truscott safely out of the house.
Mitchell had stood silently by during this discussion, stroking his ginger mustache and looking impatient. He had only got engaged when she agreed to proceed with the plan to go to the Truscotts tonight, which was when he announced that he would be joining her. Like most men she’d encountered in her life, he acted as if her opinions meant nothing and that she should be grateful that he had decided to take charge.
Once she learned that Mr. Dawson had decided to accompany her, she had been tempted to tell Mitchell not to bother coming. But she knew she shouldn’t let her personal dislike of the man get in the way of making sure this mission was successful. Also, having two men with her certainly did relieve a few of her fears.
With some irritation, she saw that Mitchell was standing next to the carriage, grinning as if this whole thing were a grand lark. She simply nodded to him as she tossed her medical bag onto the floor of the carriage and grabbed her skirt so she could mount the steps unencumbered. She gasped in surprise when she felt his hand on her elbow. He practically thrust her into the carriage, where she tripped over the bag and had to flail awkwardly to keep from falling on the floor. Fortunately, she was able to twist quickly so that she landed on the seat facing the back of the carriage. She quickly settled her skirts and pulled the medical bag up beside her, feeling a hot blush on her cheeks.
Thank goodness, the interior of the carriage was dark, so she didn’t have to see if Mitchell was laughing at her as he climbed in and took the opposite seat. As her heart slowed, her eyes began to adjust, so she could take in her surroundings. She surreptitiously ran her gloved hands along the soft leather upholstery as she noted the existence of interior lights, a clever pocket on the side of the carriage door that could hold a wet umbrella, and the decorative shades, which were currently rolled up so she could see the glow of the lamps along Market. As the carriage began to move forward, she tried to come up with something to break the silence, but before she found a suitable topic, she felt the carriage slow then stop.
Mitchell scooted over on his seat as a man, who introduced himself as Nate Dawson, entered the carriage and sat down. He took off his hat, like a gentleman, and said, “My wife sent her best, Dr. Blair.”
As Mr. Dawson turned and said something quietly to Mitchell, Ella examined his face, noting the sweep of dark hair, the clean-shaven profile, chiseled cheeks, and beak-like nose. As if feeling her scrutiny, he looked over at her and smiled, turning what, at first glance, appeared a rather harsh visage into a handsome one.
He said, “It is my understanding that Mrs. Truscott said to come to the alley behind the Truscotts’ house. Mitchell has instructed the driver to stop the carriage on Franklin near the entrance to the alley.”
“But won’t Joan and Mrs. Truscott be on the watch for a carriage? How will they know we’ve come?”
“The problem is that we don’t know who might be looking. It’s possible that Richard Truscott, or more likely a servant, might have been tasked with keeping watch on the back of the house. A strange carriage traveling down tha
t alley would be very conspicuous at this time of night.”
“If someone is watching the back alley, doesn’t that mean it would be impossible for Mrs. Truscott to get out of the house that way?”
Mitchell nodded brusquely and said, “Yes, but I think what Nate is getting at is we don’t want to walk headlong into a trap. If her husband has discovered her plan, there really isn’t anything we can do tonight about that. But what we can try to do is not get caught, which wouldn’t help Mrs. Truscott or the dispensary.”
Mr. Dawson said, more gently, “What I propose is that you and Mitchell walk quietly down the alley and find some dark place behind the house to stand and wait. The moon is so bright tonight that if anyone comes from the house and into the alley, you should be able to see if they are the maid and her mistress. Then you can step out of the shadow so they can see you are there. Mitchell can carry Mrs. Truscott to the carriage if necessary, and we can be on our way.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Ella said. Yet, internally, her mind was cataloging every possible thing that could go wrong, and her heart began to pound so hard that surely the two men in the carriage with her must hear it.
Mitchell pulled down the window next to him and craned his head out so that he could signal the driver when it was time to stop. Ella welcomed the coolness of the night air that brushed her cheeks. She felt the carriage turn. They must have left O’Farrell for Franklin, which meant they were only two blocks away.
In a moment, Mitchell pounded on the ceiling, and the carriage came to a stop. Nate said, peering at a pocket watch, “It’s quarter to midnight. I will stand at the end of the alley, so I will be able to see if you are on your way back to the carriage. I would suggest that, if no one appears within three-quarters of an hour, the two of you return and assume Mrs. Truscott was not able to escape.”
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