Doctor Death (9 page)

My father smiled. “I am glad you think so. It was not popular reading among Varbourg’s elite.”

“No, I can well imagine. But science can’t be the servant of popularity.”

“You and I have no disagreement there,” said my father. And then he could not wait any longer. “I understand you arrived in an automobile?”

“Yes, Daimler’s latest invention.”

“Which motor?”

“Phoenix 4-cylinder. The same type that won Paris–Rouen.”

And then they lost themselves in carburetor-injections, fan belts, and drive shafts with a mutual enthusiasm that ended with my father allowing himself to be carried down two flights of stairs, with the help of the professor and one of his tame street urchins,
to take a test drive in the wonder. The sherry and Madame Vogler’s dearly bought petits fours remained untouched. And we had not yet even broached the mite question.

“They will be back soon,” I said, not quite sure whether it was Madame Vogler or myself I wanted to reassure.

They were gone for about a quarter of an hour. And when I saw the color and the excitement on my father’s face, I forgave the delay.

“Fabulous machine,” he breathed. “Absolutely fabulous! Believe me, Madeleine, in just a few years the suffering of the carriage horse will be over!”

I thought of the accident he himself had experienced. That would never have happened if the hearse had been an automobile.

“Then perhaps it will be safer to walk the streets,” I said.

“No doubt. We will be released from the whims of brute beasts. Traffic will be regulated by technology’s dependability and man’s ability to reason!”

Elise served the sherry without knocking anything over, and the glasses shook only a tiny bit on the tray. And then we finally got to the mites.

The professor placed the slide on the tea table with great care.

“The past few days have been interesting,” he said. “And I had better begin by saying that unfortunately I do not have a definite identification. This specimen is not identical in every respect to any that we have in our collection at the institute, even though there is one mite type to which it must be closely related.”

“And which is that?” asked my father.

“
Pneumonyssus caninum.
This one is larger and has a more yellowish color. It may be an aberration.”

“What is
Pneumonyssus caninum
?” I asked, hoping it was not too unintelligent a question.

“A mite that normally thrives in the nasal cavity of dogs.”

“Dogs?”

“Yes, it is relatively common. It is easily transferred from dog to dog, possibly because its presence causes an irritation that results in violent bouts of sneezing and at times a bit of bleeding. It affects the sense of smell, so gundogs and bloodhounds can be rendered completely useless from it, but it is seldom deadly on its own.”

“Do you ever see it in people?” my father asked, and leaned forward with an expression that was not entirely unlike a bloodhound’s when it has caught a scent.

“I do not know of any examples, but with your permission I would like to describe the specimen in
The Journal of Parasitology.
I should be able to get it into the April issue.”

“As long as you don’t give Cecile Montaine’s name, I see no problem,” said my father.

“Of course. Will you do me the great honor of coauthoring it? The discovery is, after all, yours.”

The pride this request elicited might not have been evident to the professor, but when one knew my father as well as I did, it was obvious.

“Thank you,” said my father. “How are you planning to introduce the article?”

It was midnight before the professor left us to drive to the guest house where he staying. The petits fours were followed by onion soup brought from Chez Louis; Madame Vogler was up in arms at having to serve a simple soup to a professor—“from Heidelberg!”—but I think the two men barely noticed what they ate.

I sat in the armchair that was usually occupied by the Commissioner and listened while they spoke. But it was not long before the professor suddenly shot me a question.

“Mademoiselle Karno, do you recall the measurements of the mite’s claws?”

“The shortest are around one-hundredth of a millimeter, the longest approximately two-hundredths.”

“Splendid. That is yet another trait that distinguishes it from both
Pneumonyssus caninum
and
Ornithonyssus sylvarum
,” the professor said, and continued the discussion as if nothing had happened.

But something
had
happened. Because in all the time that I had assisted my father, in all the time that I had registered, noted, sketched, and calculated for him, no one had ever before asked
me
instead of
him.
Not even if the details were ones I had immediately at my fingertips, so that he sometimes had to pass a question on to me with: “What was that again, Madeleine?”

Before the night was over, the “honored doctor” and “honored professor” had become Albert and August, and the professor had even accidentally called me Madeleine in the midst of a lively discussion, even though he quickly corrected himself.

“If this really is a different species, a human nose parasite, and not just an aberration,” said the professor excitedly, “then we can call it
Pneumonyssus karnodreyfussia
!”

They toasted the idea with eyes shining with port and brotherhood.
“Pneumonyssus karnodreyfussia!”

“You too, Madeleine,” said the professor. “Where is your glass . . . mademoiselle.”

It was in every way a successful and celebratory evening. At that moment we didn’t know, of course, that the mites we were so happily toasting would be the cause of much more human suffering, fear, and death.

“There is a Madame Mercier here who would like to speak with the Commissioner,” said Elise.

It was Sunday, and there was a heavy but comfortable mood in the salon on Carmelite Street. Outside it was raining, and we had lit the fire more to keep the damp at bay than because of the temperature. On the tea table was a tray of chocolate éclairs that the Commissioner had brought because they had been my favorite treat as a child. I did not have the heart to tell him that I now found them too sweet.

“Show her in,” I said to Elise. “I hope that you asked her into the hallway so she isn’t standing in the rain?”

A few moments later our guest stepped into the room. The Commissioner shot out of his chair with unwonted haste, and if my father was a bit slower, it was solely the fault of his cane.

“Madame,” said the Commissioner. “How may I help you?”

I myself had trouble wrenching my gaze from her and felt a jab of unfamiliar feminine envy. The first impression was of overwhelming beauty. Shiny chestnut brown curls framed fine regular features, melting nut brown eyes, and a mouth that made even a prosaic and female soul like mine think of dewy rose petals and the dulcet tones of angels. Add to that a figure that actually looked like the illustrations in the fashion magazines.

Only at second glance did I notice how much of that impression of beauty was created with the aid of careful makeup, attention to her clothing, and an unusually effective corset.

“Are you the Commissioner?” she asked.

“At your service, madame,” said the Commissioner, only a tad out of breath.

“They say that you see all the dead in Varbourg,” she said with a voice that vibrated with restrained emotion. “Is it true?”

“At least all the dead that the authorities know about,” he said.

She nodded. “My name is Marie Mercier. If I describe my son Louis to you, would you tell me if you have seen him?”

“Do you fear that he is dead, then?” asked the Commissioner.

“He has been gone for a week,” she said, and although she still held precisely the posture that flattered her figure best, one could suddenly sense how fragile she was and how easily she could collapse. Nor was she as young as I had first thought. At least thirty, and showing the little telltale signs of it if one looked more closely.

“A week?” said the Commissioner. “So since last Sunday?”

“Yes. I did not realize it until today. He lives with my mother, you see, and I am seldom able to visit him more than once a week. Today he didn’t come to meet me at the streetcar as he usually does, and when I got home, his grandmother told me that he was gone and had not been home for seven days. She thinks he has run away, but he is only nine years old, m’sieur, at that age one does not run away . . . And he always comes to pick me up, always.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“Yes, but it was as if they were not listening. They probably think he has run away, too. He is about this tall”—she held a hand out in front of her at the level of the tight corset waist—“and dark haired like me, but with blue eyes. He was wearing his brown serge jacket, short pants, and a leather cap that our milkman gave him. It is a little too big but he loves it. He . . . he has a scar on his right knee, but otherwise . . . otherwise he is just a little boy of nine. M’sieur, have you seen him?”

The Commissioner held out a hand, whether it was to calm her or to halt her outpouring was hard to determine.

“Madame, I don’t know of any dead boys of that age in Varbourg this week.”

“Oh . . .” She swayed once, from one side to the other, then her legs seemed to collapse beneath her, and she sank into a helpless and inelegant pile on the floor. It happened so abruptly that neither the Commissioner nor I had the chance to catch her.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am sorry.”

We helped her to her feet, and my father relinquished the chaise longue so that she might lie there and recover.

“With your permission,” I said. “It would help if I loosened your corset a bit.”

“The dress would not fit,” she gasped. “It has an eighteen-inch waist. No, this is fine. I am feeling better now. At least Louis is not dead. At least not that.”

She was not vain, I suddenly understood. All the trouble she had taken with her appearance, including the inhuman discipline it required to have an eighteen-inch waist at her age, and after having given birth to child, too . . . all of that was not due to any excessive devotion to fashion but was rather an attempt to guard the only capital she had. Her beauty was her profession.

He is just a little boy of nine.
Desperation aged her face, and I couldn’t feel envy or outrage at her choice of survival strategy, only compassion for the loss she had endured.

I caught the Commissioner’s gaze and knew that he had seen the holes in her logic, as I had. Marie Mercier’s little Louis might not be among the dead that had been found and reported to the Commissioner’s office this week. But unfortunately that did not necessarily mean that he should still be counted among the living.

“I must get back to the police station,” she said, and moved to rise. “As he is not dead. They must find him for me.”

But the Commissioner stopped her. “Why not rest a little longer, madame, and let me arrange for the police to come to you this time?”

Police Inspector Clarence Baptiste Marot was not pleased to have his Sunday spoiled because of a runaway street urchin. He listened with ill-concealed impatience while Marie Mercier yet
again described her nine-year-old son. Once that was accomplished, the Commissioner managed to convince Madame Mercier to go home to her mother’s to await news. He accompanied her downstairs and hailed a hansom cab, so she would not need to wait in the rain.

When he came back upstairs, Marot’s irritation had erupted. He directed a wave of indignant reproach at the Commissioner. Phrases such as “inexcusable interference” and “gross waste of police resources” flew through the air, accompanied by badly veiled insinuations as to the reason for the Commissioner’s personal involvement.

“That woman is no better than a simple street whore,” he hissed with such force that small pearls of spit lodged in the fringes of his bushy mustache, “and we will no doubt catch her delinquent offspring with his hand in some good citizen’s pocket one day, and that will be that. Case solved. I certainly hope she has rewarded you well for your efforts, because you will not be reaping any benefits for it elsewhere!”