Antidote To Murder (24 page)

Florence hated doing nothing and felt she had to help in some way. What a boost it would be to Dody if they identified the manufacturer of the lead tablets. Dody had said the tablets were more than likely distributed in the local public houses. But it was still worth investigating the drug dispensaries as well, and this was surely the most effective way. Florence looked at the apothecary’s across the road, Zimmerman’s—the man she had wanted to investigate days earlier when Daphne had been waylaid by Lady Harriet Frobisher’s tea party. She indicated to Daphne that they should enter.

The apothecary was like none of the other shops they had visited thus far in their quest. The electric lights rigged up behind the coloured bottles in Zimmerman’s shop window made the place as alluring as a sweet shop. A curling bell above the door tinkled as they entered. They skirted baskets of berries and sacks of dried goods with their strange, foreign smells. Florence felt like Dr. Livingstone hacking his way through the jungle as she pushed her way through medical hardware hanging in clumps from the ceiling, enamel bedpans and rubber hoses, and bunches of aromatic herbs.

The lighting over the counter was dimmer, as if to deliberately obscure the more nefarious contents of the bottles and jars on the shelves above. Several unborn hedgehogs shared a jar of preserving fluid; their neighbour, a curled grass snake, stared out through opaque eyes. Next to these, a stuffed stoat, teeth bared as if ready to pounce, guarded other jars containing less identifiable lumps of sloughing tissue and rubberised bone. Surely, she thought, there could be no better indication that this was the place.

Florence presumed it was Zimmerman himself leaning on the counter. The man adjusted his skullcap and smiled. “What can I do you for, miss?”

“I need something to help me. I am with child.” Florence rubbed her padded stomach and gave Zimmerman what she hoped was a knowing look.

“Vitamins, minerals; or is it iron you need to strengthen your blood?”

“No, nothing like that,” Florence whispered, more urgently now. “I mean I need something reliable to get rid of the baby. Surely you have something besides Widow Welch’s?”

Zimmerman frowned. “You won’t find anything stronger than that in my shop, young lady.”

“Not even lead tablets?”

“I would not risk my licence. Get out of here before I call the police.”

The man lifted his hand as if to strike. Florence cowered and reached for Daphne’s arm. The trouble she would face from Dody if the police became involved was not worth imagining. They scampered from the shop like a pair of frightened dormice.

“There is one last shop, Flo,” Daphne said as they continued down the street, “just a bit further down, not far from the Clinic. Let’s make that lucky last and then call it a day.”

“Mr. Borislav’s shop?”

“Yes, that’s it. I’ll have to wait outside, though. I sometimes get supplies for the Clinic from him and he might recognise me. Do you dare?”

“Well . . .” Florence hesitated. “I did call in the other day with Dody. He is a friend of hers and I really can’t believe that he would be a supplier of abortifacients, I—”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I feel very sorry for him, about the tragic death of his wife, I mean, and I’m sure he is a very nice man, but we shouldn’t let our personal bias get in the way of our professional investigation.” Daphne and Florence shared the same enthusiasm for detective literature.

Florence brightened. “But Mr. Borislav didn’t see me—we weren’t even introduced. I spoke to his nephew.” Florence paused. “If Joseph is serving at the counter, though, I’d better not risk it. But if it’s Borislav at the counter”—she gave a dismissive wave of her hand—“he won’t have a clue who I am.”

“That’s settled then.” Daphne nudged her with her elbow. “Go on.” Florence took a deep breath and crossed the shop’s threshold.

The chemist was empty, but the sound of angry male voices reached Florence from somewhere behind the counter. As she edged closer, she noticed the door leading to the dispensing room was ajar. The voices became clearer, a young man, Joseph, and an older one—Mr. Borislav, she guessed—and they were arguing.

“I’ve had just about enough of your moneymaking schemes,” Borislav said.

“If it were not for my innovations, we’d be on the street. As for that doctor from the mortuary who’s always hanging around—why put up with him when you have me to help? Can’t you give me just a little bit of credit for the shop’s renewed good fortune?”

“You have proven good at the book work, I’ll grant you that.”

“I have to protect my investment somehow. Can’t you see, Uncle, the only way we can prosper is to diversify.”

“Like Boots, you mean, turn ourselves into a lending library? For goodness’ sake, Joseph, it’ll be tinned salmon next, then tin-openers and!”

“In order to survive, we have to damn well offer our customers that something extra that the competition does not provide. You’re blind, old man, totally blind to what’s going on under your very nose. Aunt Gertrude’s been gone for six years, it’s time to—”

The voice stopped, as if the men were suddenly aware of another’s presence.

Borislav burst through the door from the back room, saw Florence, and tried to compose himself. He looked at her over his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles and moulded his mouth into a smile. “Good afternoon, miss, what can I do for you?”

When Florence explained her predicament, his pink complexion deepened. “I think it would be more appropriate for you to consult your sister on this matter, Miss McCleland,” he said. “I am afraid I’m unable to help you.”

Bloody hell.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

TUESDAY 29 AUGUST

A
t the sound of her mother’s brisk footsteps on the stairs, Elizabeth Strickland drew her knees to her chest and buried her head beneath the bedclothes. The mattress sagged as her mother sat down. Elizabeth smelled the starch from her fresh cotton blouse. No fancy perfumes for Mrs. Arthur Strickland and certainly no makeup. Heaven forbid she was mistaken for a trollop.

“Elizabeth, dear, isn’t it time you got ready for work?”

“I’m not feeling very well, Mama. I think I have a touch of the cholera.”

“Oh, my poor lamb. In that case I will pop down to the surgery and see if Dr. James is free. You can’t afford to be missing much more work. They’ll be sacking you soon, mark my words.” Elizabeth sat bolt upright in bed, pulling the sheet to her chin lest her mother notice the swollen breasts pushing against her flower-sprigged nightdress.

“No, Mama, please. Let us wait and see how I am tomorrow before summoning Dr. James; just give me one more day at home to rest. Besides, today is sewing circle and I know how little time you have to finish the church kneelers.”

Elizabeth read the conflict on her mother’s face: whether to be a good mother or a dutiful parishioner. The parishioner won.

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“Go, Mama.” Elizabeth looked to the clock on the wall. “Your friends will be waiting.”

* * *

I
t was a warm day, but it had rained quite heavily in the night. Mud, churned up by rumbling carts, splattered many of the shopfronts. A boy tossed a bucket of water against the fishmonger’s window, lashing it like sea spray.
The fish must feel at home,
Elizabeth thought. Not that she cared. Elizabeth hated everything about fish: their smell, their gaping mouths, their jellied eyes, and the prick of their scales. Not to mention the shiny film of blood that coated their gills.

She pushed open the door. It was hotter in the shop than it had been in the street. Shards of ice covering the fish were shrinking before her eyes. Come afternoon, the stock would be as warm as the customers.

A heavy woman with a grey bun and a bloodstained apron stood behind a sloping slab of fish. “What can I do for you, love? Want some fish?”

Elizabeth shook her head, lost for words.

The woman looked her up and down. “’Im upstairs, then?”

“Yes, please, ma’am. My name is Elizabeth Strickland and I was told to meet the doctor here.” The woman smiled, showing a row of blackened teeth. “Call me Mother, if you like.” She rubbed the side of her nose with a scaly finger. “Told no one else about this, I ’ope.”

“Not a soul.”

The woman guffawed, grabbed a big flat fish by the tail, and pointed to the orange spots on its back. “Sole,” she said.

Elizabeth tried to smile and failed.

“Mother” flicked the sign to
CLOSED
and beckoned Elizabeth to follow her up several narrow flights of stairs until they came to a small landing. The woman tapped on a door to the right of the stairwell, opened it, and pushed Elizabeth in. “This ’ere’s Elizabeth Strickland, Doctor,” she said to a man sitting behind a large desk.

“Thank you, Mother, you may go now,” the man said.

Mother closed the door behind her, clumping footsteps fading down the stairs. Alone in the room with the man, Elizabeth started to shake.

“You have the money?” the man asked without lifting his head from the open book in front of him.

She nodded, unable to get her words out, her throat constricted from all the days of crying.

“Put it on the desk then,” he said. “There’s a good girl.” Elizabeth reached into her pocket for the money and clunked it down. The coins were hot from her hand and it felt as if she were parting with a piece of her own body. The tears began to well again.

The man went for the money, sliding it across the leathered top of his desk and into his palm. “No more crying; this will soon be over. Climb onto the bed and let me examine you.” When he finally met her eyes with his, she noticed how dead they were—as dead as the fish for sale downstairs. She felt a spasm of fear. Was she really doing the right thing? What choice did she have, though?

The doctor took her by the hand, holding it high as if she were a posh lady about to mount a carriage, and led her to a high bed. Leather straps were attached to poles at each corner of the mattress and Elizabeth wondered what they were for.

“Just relax down onto the pillow now,” he said as he helped her up.

With a flick of a switch, the stained white ceiling disappeared, replaced by a blinding electric light that swallowed the shadows of the dingy room. She could no longer see his face, but felt his fingers fumbling with the buttons of her dress. As instructed, she’d not worn a corset. His fingers were cool against her burning flesh. He palpated her breasts and worked his way like a spider to her stomach.

“You took the pills?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“No symptoms at all?”

“Um?”

“Did they make you cramp or bleed?” he asked impatiently.

“Cramp. But only a bit.”

“You are still with child. Do you remember what we discussed?”

Elizabeth nodded. The man pushed the light away. “I’ll put you to sleep, and when you wake up, it will all be over. You’ll stay here for a few hours before going home, just to make sure there are no, er, complications.”

Something cool and rubbery was placed over her nose and mouth, some kind of mask. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him reach for a bottle and slowly drip the contents over the mask. “Breathe deeply and tell me about yourself. What do you like doing best in the whole world?”

Other than being with Jimmy? Well. “I like family sing-songs, sir.”

Her voice sounded funny through the mask, like she was speaking from the depth of a cave.

“Sing me one of your favourite songs.”

Elizabeth liked the romantic songs best but she worried that the man would laugh at her. It was romance, after all, that got her into this mess in the first place.

“Go on,” he urged.

“All right then.” She began to sing in a high, quavering voice:

Let me call you “Sweetheart,” I’m in love with you.

Let me hear you whisper that you love me, too.

The darkness began to crowd in on her. “Doctor,” she said, “will it hurt?” She felt muddled and light-headed. She wasn’t sure if she was thinking, saying, or singing, if he was a doctor, Jimmy, or the devil himself.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

WEDNESDAY 30 AUGUST

D
ody held the dripping red paisley dress over the mortuary sink to examine it. The dress was labelled
SELFRIDGES
; the material, while not overly expensive, was too fine for your typical East-Ender. A faded brown stain spread from the middle of the back and travelled to the hem. The garment had not been in the Thames long enough to disguise the stain’s true nature—blood.

Dr. Spilsbury stooped over the girl’s body. He had been silent for some time now. The only sound in the echoing room was from his autopsy instruments: the brisk scraping of the bone saw, the snip of the rib-cutters, and the drip of watery blood into the drain beneath the slab.

“Where was the body found, Inspector?” Dody addressed Fisher, who stood near the swinging mortuary door as far away from the slab as possible.

The body was reasonably fresh and virtually odour-free save for the fetid smell of the river. Nevertheless, Fisher still answered through a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. “She was pulled out of the river last night by a lighterman near Temple Pier,” he said. Temple Pier, as the crow flies, was only about a mile away from the Clinic, Dody realised.

“Why wasn’t the body taken to the Bishopsgate Mortuary?” she asked.

“I sensed it would be of interest to you here, Doctor, and arranged for it to be delivered to Paddington.”

“Thank you, that was very considerate.”
He is still trying to make things up to me,
she thought, touched.

Spilsbury looked up from the body. “Had the corpse been weighted down or tied, Inspector?”

“A rope, sir, attached to her ankle. You’ll find it in the sack of clothes that came with her.”

Dody removed a coarse rope from the hessian bag and held it up.

“The body was attached by that rope to a heavy metal wheel found resting on a sand bar,” Fisher went on. “Whoever put it there either did not know about the sand bar or misjudged how close to the surface it appears at low tide. The lighterman saw her hair just below the water and thought at first it was seaweed.”

Our man’s making silly mistakes,
Dody thought. Interesting. Back to the dress. Dody felt something at the bottom of one of the deep pockets, put in her hand, and removed a printed calling card. Dropping the dress back into the sink, she hurried over to Inspector Fisher with it.

“Look, Inspector, a name.”

Fisher held the soggy card at arm’s length. The name was easy to read; the card had not been in the river long enough to suffer much damage. “
Dr. Archibald Van Noort. Number seventy-seven Harley Street
.”

“
She probably intended on seeing this Harley Street specialist to correct damage done,” Spilsbury said, throwing his heavy gloves to the floor with a splat.

Dody sensed the owner of this dress was not the type to visit a Harley Street specialist, but kept the thought to herself. That a Harley Street man might be responsible for the damage done was a notion Spilsbury would find hard to entertain.
Not too different,
she thought,
from my own earlier difficulty in believing that Everard would stoop as low as he has.

“Sew her up, Alfred,” Spilsbury said as he moved to join Dody and Fisher at the door.

“What have you discovered, sir?” Fisher enquired.

“She was dead before she was tossed into the river,” Spilsbury said. “The lack of water in her lungs tells me that she did not drown; this was no suicide. The cause of death was exsanguination. She bled out from a pierced uterine artery as a direct result of criminal abortion.” He turned to Dody. “This case bears striking similarities to the Esther Craddock case. There are still remnants of placental tissue adherent to the uterus wall, and the girl also shows signs of plumbism.”

Dody’s heart leaped. “Then it might be the same person who operated on Esther.”

“It might be.”

“When did she die, Doctor?” Fisher asked.

“Anytime between yesterday afternoon and late last night,” Spilsbury said.

Fisher had told her earlier that Henry Everard had only just been released from jail that morning. He could not have done this. Dody felt light-headed with relief.

“May I examine the body please, Doctor?” she asked.

“If you wish, but I think you will find that I have not missed anything.”

Heaven forbid. “I’m sure you haven’t, sir, but I would like to see it for my own experience.” Dody moved over to the body. Alfred abandoned his suturing and stepped aside to make way for her.

She pulled back the girl’s lip and saw the telltale blue line on the gums. Then she cast her eyes along the pale, marbled corpse. This was not the body of a street woman or a servant: the hands were unblemished, the body well nourished.

“Do we know her identity?” Spilsbury asked the inspector.

“Her description matches that of a Miss Elizabeth Strickland from Lewisham, sir. Her parents reported her missing to their local police station at about six o’clock last night.”

“How old was Miss Strickland?”

“Seventeen.”

“You’d better see if the parents can identify the corpse. This may well be her.”

“I’ll get on to it right away, sir. Good morning, Dr. McCleland.” Fisher put his shoulder to the swinging door.

“Inspector, wait. There is more we need to discuss. We have ascertained that the girl was suffering from plumbism before her abortion, yes?” Dody queried.

He turned and nodded.

“The supplying of the lead then was the first action against the pregnancy. The remnants of lead in her stomach were too dense to suggest it had been ingested in anything but tablet form—a form that we have already ascertained is relatively unusual. When this did not rid her of her child, can we speculate that she opted for the same extreme measures as did Esther Craddock?”

“I suppose so, but with all due respect, Doctor,
speculation
is the right word for it. We do not have the evidence to prove it.”

“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of its absence,” Spilsbury said. “Dr. McCleland is saying that the two may be linked. Surely, as you have nothing else to go on, this connection is worth pursuing?” Dody could have hugged him. “Find the manufacturer of the tablets, Inspector, and you might find the abortionist.”

“Which is what I decided to do when I was under investigation,” Dody said quickly. “I started making enquiries and discovered the tablets were being distributed in the public houses in or around Whitechapel. Someone must have purchased the tablets for this young lady.” She pointed to the body on the slab. “I can’t imagine her loitering about in a public house on her own. She probably asked her young man to get them for her. If you can find out the name of the father of her child, we might get some answers.”

Fisher gave a resigned sigh. “I’ll put some men onto it right away, Doctor.”

“Will you also be visiting the man whose name is on the calling card?” Spilsbury asked.

“My orders are to report to Chief Inspector Pike, sir.”

“This Van Noort is a Harley Street specialist,” Spilsbury said. “I think it prudent that a doctor accompanies the police during the interview, to translate medical terms if necessary. You can do the honours, Dr. McCleland. Contact Chief Inspector Pike and arrange it with him. Give Dr. McCleland the card, Fisher. A gentleman from Harley Street is, of course, above suspicion, but he might still be able to shed light on the matter. I want this murdering abortionist stopped.”

“Yes, sir.” Dody took the card from Fisher and put it in her apron pocket. The thought of being thrown back into Pike’s company after Monday’s uncomfortable meeting was mortifying, but she was going to have to bear it. Her feelings for Pike were not the issue here. Her purpose was to find the man responsible for the death of this poor girl and the murder of her unborn child, and to stop him from killing again.

She said good-bye to Inspector Fisher, told Alfred he could continue with his suturing of the body, and returned to the clothes in the sink. She gleaned nothing of interest from the lace chemise other than the garment’s reasonable quality, which suggested Elizabeth Strickland was a member of the respectable lower middle class. Criminal abortion pervaded all classes, as should sensible birth control practices. Anyone could make a mistake, no matter what her level of income or education—as Dody had come perilously close to proving herself.

Picking up the bloodstained drawers, she felt along the drawstring. Something at the eyelet jabbed into the skin of her thumb. A dot of blood appeared on her thumb and a small opaque protrusion—a sliver of glass perhaps. The last thing she needed was an infection. Taking a magnifying glass and some fine forceps from the shelf above, she extracted the object and examined it.

It wasn’t glass.

“Dr. Spilsbury, would you mind having a look at this, please?” Spilsbury joined her at the sink. “I have just pulled it from my thumb and I think it’s a fish scale. It was in the eyelet of her drawers.”

“How odd,” he said, holding out a specimen jar for her. She tapped the scale on the lip of the jar to dislodge it from the forceps.

“The girl’s dress would have billowed in the water and a fish could have brushed against her and lost a scale. Or maybe someone was cleaning fish nearby,” Dody said.

“Send the scale to the lab for confirmation. They might be able to identify the fish.” He gave her one of his rare, chilly smiles. “Every little detail is worth noting. Good work, Dr. McCleland.”

* * *

D
ody hurried home to bathe and change her clothes. She was in the hall, about to go upstairs, when the sounds of voices in the morning room caught her attention. She opened the door to find Florence engrossed in conversation with Daphne. They immediately stopped their chatter. Daphne climbed to her feet and smoothed her dress.

“You can relax, Daphne,” Dody said with a smile. “You are not at work now.”

Daphne sank back into the winged chair but continued to look ill at ease.

“What are you doing home at this time of the day?” Florence asked.

“Just home to bathe and change before going out again.”

“Have you heard . . .” Florence hesitated. “Have you progressed any further with the case? Found the source of the lead tablets?”

“Spoken to Mr. Borislav?” Daphne blurted out.

“No, why should I?” Dody asked, perplexed. “A while ago I asked him about the tablets, but we have not spoken on the matter since.”

Both women looked relieved. Dody did not have time to stop and talk, but made a mental note to ask Florence about it later. She pulled the bell and asked Annie to prepare a bath for her with plenty of lemon juice to help neutralise the odour of the mortuary.

After her bath, she changed into her pale yellow outfit. Now that she was clean and fresh, she decided not to battle with the sweaty public transport system. She asked Fletcher to take her to the Medical Licensing Board so she could examine Archibald Van Noort’s credentials, and then on to Scotland Yard.

She had not visited Pike since his move to the Special Branch section of the castle-like New Scotland Yard building. His office was small and poky, not much bigger than a water closet, with barely enough room for the boneshaker bicycle balanced across two filing cabinets. No matter how determined he was, without the operation she could no more see him riding that thing again than she could see herself behind the steering wheel (or was it a rudder?) of a flying machine.

He stood when a constable showed her in, one hand on his desk for support. She suspected he was still feeling the effect of Dunn’s kick and hoped his knee had not suffered further damage. A few days earlier she would have offered to examine it for him, but sensed that any kind of advice from her now would be unwelcome.

“Inspector Fisher told me you were handling the case,” Dody said, trying for a nonchalant tone. “With your Mata Hari assignment over, I thought you might be taking some leave.”

“Yes, I should have. But this case is close to my heart.” The intensity of his gaze made her own heart lurch. “I have been given permission to pursue leads in the deaths of Craddock, Dunn, and now Elizabeth Strickland, with Fisher as my assistant.”

“Just like old times.” She shot him a tentative smile.

“Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten my manners. Please sit down.” He pulled out the visitor’s chair for her. Not wishing to waste time with idle talk, she waited for him to settle back behind his desk and then got straight to the point, producing Van Noort’s card from her reticule.

Pike gave a pronounced start when he read the name aloud. “I know this man.”

“You do? From where?”

“He was obsessed with Mata Hari, always hanging about the stage door. He told me once that he was a doctor in the South African war. There was a time when I thought he might have been my spy.”

“I’ve just come from the Medical Licensing Board. Van Noort was struck off the list over five years ago.”

“But he has continued to practise?”

“The card found in the girl’s pocket suggests it. A Whitechapel chemist recently complained to me about a doctor with a foreign name harassing his female customers.” Dody shrugged. “I can’t help but note that Whitechapel is where it all started.”

“Van Noort introduced himself to me as a doctor,” Pike said.

Dody paused. “You came to know him quite well?”

“Well enough to know he is an odd fish—I saw him once having some kind of a fit.”

“Can you describe the fit?”

Pike opened his palms. “A dazed look, gnashing teeth, facial contortions, nonsensical mutterings—”

“Did he fall to the ground?”

“No, but the fit appeared to weaken him. He was forced to lean against a wall and took some time to recover from it.”

“Did he remain continent?”

“I believe so.”

Dody thought she knew the type of fit Pike was describing, but would not jump to conclusions without a physical examination of the man. “I am anxious to meet him.”

“As am I to renew our acquaintance,” Pike said, leaving his desk to assist Dody with her chair.

“You think he might be our abortionist—even have something to do with the drug gang?” she asked.