Antidote To Murder (21 page)

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

T
hat 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.

“Yes?”

“What does it feel like to . . . I mean, what do I do about these feelings I have for Pike?”

“My advice is to have nothing to do with men at all. They are only trouble and grief.” The twinkle in Florence’s eye belied her serious tone.

“You can’t generalise like that. You can’t compare Bobby Stratford to Pike, surely.” Stratford was the married man who had nearly ruined Florence when she was just seventeen years old. “They are poles apart, barely of the same species.”

“I agree. Pike is very straightlaced.”

“And Bobby had no laces at all!”

“He was a poet, an artist—people like him must not be confined by society’s ridiculous restrictions.”

The defensive tone surprised Dody. She thought Florence had recovered from her attachment to that wretch. “Indeed,” she countered, “his sort turn promiscuity into an art form.”

“But it still stands to reason that Bobby behaved like he did. It was just unfortunate for me that I did not understand it at the time.”

“You were lied to. And you were seventeen. I am thirty. I have made no such mistakes to learn from.”

Florence put her hand out to Dody. “I understand your curiosity, and I am hardly in a position to judge. It must be hard for you with most of the men you have ever touched lying before you cold on the slab. Follow your instincts. I think you can trust Pike. In fact, I am sure you can.”

* * *

D
ody was overly aware of the rustle of her dress, the beating of her heart, and the pinch of her shoes and corset—she had felt less self-conscious at her university admissions interview. When Pike rose from his chair, she found herself dropping her eyes like a nervous debutante.

“You both look delightful,” he said, kissing first Florence’s hand, then lingering a second longer over Dody’s. She made every effort to banish her childish insecurities. This would not do. Dr. Dody McCleland, Britain’s first female autopsy surgeon, was not going to allow herself to turn to jelly over one man’s appreciative gaze. She forced herself to meet his eyes. How dashing he looked in his cream brocade waistcoat, matching bow tie, and black tailcoat.

He poured them a sherry.

“So, Pike,
distasteful
as it obviously was to you,” Florence said teasingly, “your infiltration into Mata Hari’s troupe was worth it. Your success is being bandied all over the evening newspapers.”

“On the contrary, Florence, not distasteful at all.”

Florence’s eyes flashed. “Typical. Men!”

“Quite. In my case, conducting a full orchestra was a new experience and most educational.”

Florence took breath as if for a stinging retort, noticed Dody’s smile, and relaxed into easy laughter. “I suppose I deserved that,” she said.

They toasted Pike’s success. Dody was glad to see he had managed to put the morning’s disquiet behind him.

“Klassen is fortunate we’re not at war with Germany,” Pike said. “If we were, he would have been taken to the Tower and shot. As it is, he faces a lengthy prison sentence.”

“And Mata Hari?” Florence asked.

“She will be deported back to Holland,” he said. “Though I expect she will be brought back to testify further down the track.”

Annie called them in to the dining room. Over dinner Dody joined in with Florence’s accounts of what it had been like to grow up in a family of Fabians. They told Pike of the artists and literary guests who frequented their parents’ homes and the high regard the artistic community had for their literary critic mother. They also told him of their father’s insistence that every guest participate in a Fabian hockey match before enjoying the family’s hospitality—an endurance test of sorts—to see if they were worthy company.

“Somehow I don’t think I would make the grade,” Pike said with a fleeting smile.

“Nonsense, Pike,” Florence said. “If you think your knee will prevent you from playing, all you have to do is stand in the paddock as an obstacle. Poppa’s rules are very flexible.”

Dody doubted that was what Pike had meant. As Florence continued to explain the conventions of Fabian hockey to Pike, it struck Dody that her parents, who accepted most people with open arms, might possibly not allow Pike through their front gate, let alone into their house. His distant gaze while Florence talked on indicated to Dody that he was probably aware of the situation, too.

It wasn’t his class that would be the problem—her parents were constantly battling the absurd British class system—it was his status as a policeman that would cause them the greatest unease, a problem increased tenfold now that Pike was with Special Branch. Special Branch officers had spied on her family when they had first settled back into England from Moscow, certain they were out to spread subversion and revolution. Dowdy little men had stared at them through binoculars for hours from the shrubbery, stolen their letters, and pumped their servants for information. The experience had left the McClelands with a bitter taste for the English police.

But perhaps she was jumping ahead of herself on this issue. There was still a lot more territory to explore before taking Pike home to meet her parents.

They dined on soup, saddle of lamb, and trifle. Fletcher wore his chauffeur’s uniform while he helped Annie wait at table. They had no need for a butler or a footman in their small, unconventional household.

Pike entertained them with stories of the regimental reviews he’d had the dubious honour of accompanying with piano at various postings in India, the Sudan, and South Africa.

She would have liked to hear about his war experiences, how he had injured his knee, but dared not ask. She suspected that that part of his life was closed to her and anyone else who had not been there.

“Buttercup had only been on stage for about five minutes,” Pike went on, “when he shifted his position and ended up falling through the rotting timbers of the bolted trapdoor. The crowd loved it, of course.”

“I imagine they did,” Dody said, laughing.

Soon after dessert, Florence surprised them both by jumping to her feet. “It’s been a delightful evening, but I’m afraid I have to go out now.”

Pike stood.

“Where on earth are you going at this hour?” Dody asked.

Florence glanced at Pike then back to Dody. “Oh, you know . . .”

“Not more plotting, surely?” Dody asked.

Pike put his hands over his ears. “I hear nothing.”

“I’m just visiting Daphne; we have a few things to sort out,” Florence said. “It’s all right, Pike; we are not planning anything illegal. But I will be home late and will use my key to get in. Dody, tell the servants not to wait up.”

And with a slide of burgundy silk, she was gone.

Pike sat down again. Dody found herself staring at him through the candlelight. The more she got to know Pike, she realised, the more attractive he became.

“Well?” he asked softly.

“Well?” Dody repeated. “Shall we take our coffee in the morning room?”

* * *

T
he servants had been sent to bed. Dody and Pike stood in the morning room by the light of the standard lamp. Side by side, arms brushing, they examined with feigned interest the photograph of an elderly relative on the mantelpiece.

Pike took the photograph from Dody’s hand and put it back on the mantel. He put his arms around her and drew her close. She did not resist.

He kissed her gently at first and she did not hesitate to return the kiss, pressing her body against his in a response that felt like hunger. He pulled her down onto the chaise and she felt the beat of his heart—a
beating
heart—through the silk of her dress and the stiff barrier of his shirt.

She longed to feel the smooth warmth of his skin, imagined herself undoing his tie, the studs of his shirt, and waistcoat buttons—so many buttons—and slipping her palm into the gap.

She could not go to her grave untouched by a man. She wanted, she needed, to give herself to Pike. Below his starched bib she found a button. She hooked her finger beneath it and felt a small patch of skin.

He covered her hand with his and gently held it back from further exploration. With a groan, he buried his face in her neck. “We can’t go any further with this, not here, not now,” he murmured.

What did he mean?

“Because of our work? We could be discreet. No one need know,” she said as she rubbed her hand against the taut muscles of his neck, spreading her fingers into the soft damp of his hair.

He took a deep breath and straightened beside her on the chaise, winged collar askew, pulse beating wildly at the base of his throat. “No, not that.”

What then? She lowered her head. With a burning feeling of shame, she busied herself with adjusting the crooked bodice of her dress. What had happened? What had gone wrong? What kind of fool had she made of herself?

“I understand,” she whispered. “I have gone too far and you no longer desire me.”

“Good God, woman, of course I desire you,” he all but choked. He leaned towards her and cupped her face in his hands. “I love and desire you more than any woman in the world. But I also respect you and I will not take advantage of you. You are a rebel, yes, but not in matters like this. If we were to do as we want now, you might hate me for it later and I could not stand that. There will be plenty of time to fulfil our desires, if”—he hesitated, as if unsure whether to go on—“if we are married.”

Her own heart seemed to stop beating. “Married?” she whispered. This was a proposal? Marriage to Pike was something that had not crossed her mind. Lovers, yes, she had fantasised that. But marriage?

She got up from the chaise, moved to the newly repaired window, pulled back the curtain, and strained to see past the shadows of Cartwright Gardens.

He approached her from behind and encircled her with his arms. She watched his reflection in the window through eyes blurry with tears.

“I don’t know, Matthew,” she said truthfully.

“We wouldn’t want a stiff Victorian marriage. Ours would be a union of equals—I love and respect you too much for it to be anything else. You could continue your work at the Clinic if you wished. I would never stand in your way.”

“And the Home Office?”

He paused. His silence told her this was another story. She wondered if he had given any thought at all to having a wife who, for the better part of the week, reeked of death.

“I do not have much to offer you, and we could not live as you are accustomed on a policeman’s wage. But you would never be short of love. Please tell me that you love me and that what I desire is what you desire, too.”

She turned in his arms to face him. “I don’t know what to say.”

He brushed his finger across her lips. “Just tell me that you love me.”