Doktor Glass (12 page)

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F
IGHTING THE RISING
panic, the belief that time was slipping away, Langton reached the Infirmary at close to midnight. He and McBride traced Professor Caldwell Chivers to an operating theater on the third floor; a yawning nurse guided them to a viewing room that jutted out above the theater, where a tiered circle of wooden seats—not unlike the stalls of a music hall—surrounded a conical glass skylight over the operating table.

At the sound of the doors opening, the sole occupant of the viewing room turned from the window. “Inspector. Sergeant. This is a surprise.”

Leaving McBride near the door, Langton joined Sister Wright at the window. Perhaps eight feet below them, figures in gowns of green and white surrounded a prone patient. The surgeons and nurses moved with slow, deliberate motions, like mime artists in some silent drama. Electric light flooded the theater and glinted from surgical steel instruments, oxygen cylinders, white bone edged with red. Langton looked away.

“You came to see the Professor?” Sister Wright said.

“If possible.”

“He’s working on a very serious case at the moment. It could be hours before he’s free.” Sister Wright leaned her forehead to the window. The delicate crucifix around her neck swung out and tapped at the glass. “It’s an amazing sight, the saving of a man’s life. We almost take it for granted. Just think: Those instruments are nothing without the experience and judgment of the surgeon wielding them. Mere tools.”

Langton forced himself to look down. “What happened?”

“A head injury, the skull shattered in three places. The poor man, a steeplejack, fell from a factory chimney. Broken legs and arms are easy to mend, but the skull demands another level of skill altogether.”

As Langton watched, one of the surgeons threw back the sterile green sheet covering a tray of instruments and selected a short, gleaming saw. Under the Professor’s guidance, he placed the saw against the man’s skull and braced himself. Langton swallowed hard and looked instead at Sister Wright. “I came to warn the Professor.”

“Warn him? About what?”

“There is a chance, only a chance, that his life might be in danger.”

She turned to him. “Go on.”

“It may be connected with the man we brought to the Professor.”

“The faceless Boer.”

“The same. A coincidental witness died; others with tenuous connections to the case have been killed or attacked.”

“And you think the Professor might be next?”

Langton hesitated. Was he overreacting? “I think he should take precautions. As should you.”

“Me?”

“Please. Just in case.”

Sister Wright rested her hand on Langton’s arm for a moment. “I’m sure he will appreciate your concern; I know I do.”

Langton looked into Sister Wright’s calm grey eyes and hoped
the Professor realized his good fortune. “I should go. We have much to do.”

“It’s late.”

Langton smiled. “Policemen, like nurses, can’t always keep office hours. Good night, Sister.”

Langton had reached the doors when he heard Sister Wright call out.

“Inspector, the Professor is holding a grand reception at his house tomorrow evening, to celebrate the inauguration of the Span. I’m sure he would want you to be there.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m very busy.”

“You might find it useful,” she said. “The cream of Liverpool society is invited, from the legal, medical, and professional worlds. If you find that you can make it, it begins at eight.”

“You will be there?”

She smiled. “The Professor insisted.”

“Then I’ll try to attend. Sister.”

On the drive back to Redfers’s house, Langton wondered how useful the Professor’s reception might be. It would be an opportunity to meet a variety of people from the upper levels of society, and Forbes Paterson had implied that the jar collectors came from among these. But was Langton concentrating too much on Sarah again? Now he could argue that investigating the Jar Boys formed part of both cases.

He realized that he’d started considering Sarah as a case, as a mystery to be solved, yet she was so much more than that. Activity distracted him; hard work helped the pain. Langton still had a void inside him, a cold absence of joy that became a physical ache. He couldn’t imagine the day that would ease. He wasn’t even sure he wanted it to.

As if echoing Langton’s thoughts, McBride asked, “Begging your pardon, sir, but do you think you might learn anything about Kepler or Doctor Redfers at the Professor’s party?”

Langton had known McBride for years and didn’t object to the question. “Possibly. I wonder if the same gang that murdered Kepler
also killed Redfers, and Inspector Paterson said that they sell their particular merchandise to rich collectors. It’s possible we may meet some of them there.”

“But how would we recognize them, sir?”

“A good question.” Langton saw Redfers’s house looming up through the mist and gaslight. “Ask me at the reception.”

“You want me there?”

Langton smiled. “By talking to the guests’ chauffeurs, and the maids and staff, you could well learn more than I will.”

A lone constable remained on the steps of Redfers’s house, stamping his feet and pacing back and forth to fight the freezing cold. He saluted Langton and said, “All quiet, sir. Apart from the maid.”

“Redfers’s maid? She finally appeared?”

“An hour or so ago, sir. She’s down in the kitchen.”

Inside the house, most of the rooms lay in darkness, but a sliver of yellow light showed under the kitchen door at the rear of the house. Opening it, Langton saw a pale woman of maybe thirty years sitting at the wide pine table. She spilled her tea in surprise and jumped to her feet, dabbing at her black uniform dress.

“I’m sorry, I should have knocked,” Langton said. “Sit, please. I’m Inspector Langton and this is Sergeant McBride.”

“Evening, sir.” The maid waited until Langton sat at the table before she settled down again. “I remember you, sir. You and your wife used to visit the doctor.”

Langton wondered if she knew that Sarah had died. “You’re…Agnes?”

She smiled. “That’s right, sir. Been with the doctor four years last September.”

Langton remembered her not only from his and Sarah’s appointments but also from a handful of dinners with Redfers. An efficient, smiling woman.

“Would you like some tea, sir?” Agnes asked, reaching for cups. “I brewed a pot for the shock.”

“Thank you, no. Can you tell me what happened today?” Langton glanced at the kitchen clock over the dresser. “I mean yesterday.”

She sipped tea. “Just after lunch, sir, a GPO boy knocked with a telegram from my mother in Chester. Doctor Redfers was very kind, gave me money for the train fare and said not to worry, he and Mrs. Dunne would manage.”

“Mrs. Dunne?”

“The doctor’s receptionist, sir. She arranges his diary and looks after the patients.”

Langton dimly remembered a tall, sour woman with severe hair. “Go on, Agnes.”

“Well, sir, I rushed to Chester fast as I could, but Mum was right as rain. Swore she hadn’t sent any such telegram. We didn’t have a clue who’d spend good money to play a joke on us like that, but what could we do? So I stayed and had supper, then caught the train back. Your man on the door told me about the poor doctor.”

At this, Agnes dabbed at her eyes.

Langton saw that someone had wanted Agnes out of the way. What had happened to Mrs. Dunne and Redfers’s patients in the waiting room? “Mrs. Dunne lives close by?”

“No, sir, she moved up to Southport when she got married last year.” Agnes sniffed. “Quite the madam, she is now.”

Langton glanced at McBride, who nodded and wrote in his notebook. Then Langton asked Agnes, “Did Doctor Redfers have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of, sir. The opposite, I’d say.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, sir, he used to have lots of visitors. My room’s at the top of the stairs and I heard the bell going all times of the night. Some were patients, asking for a home visit, but plenty of them were social calls.”

“Did you see any of his visitors?”

Agnes blushed. “Why, sir, you take me for a nosy parker?”

Langton smiled and leaned closer. “Not at all, but it would help us
if we knew his habits, and perhaps you happened to notice some of his visitors—purely by chance, of course…”

Agnes sipped her tea and looked down at the table. “I have to admit I did, sir. Strange bunch, I’d say. Men in top hats and fine tails, like they’d just come from the opera; navvies still covered in mud and dust; women in fine dresses that could have stepped out of the window of Bon Marché. Got all sorts, did the doctor. I couldn’t hear what they was up to once they went down to the basement.”

If the investigation had started in some other way, Langton might have suspected sexual or narcotic motives for Redfers’s nocturnal guests. Both Langton and Forbes Paterson knew of cases where some of Liverpool’s highest citizens had shown a regular, unhealthy interest in its lowest. The trade in drugs and bodies still thrived. Now Langton wondered what those frequent guests had wanted from Redfers.

As Agnes hid a yawn behind her hand, Langton said, “Go and get some sleep. We can continue in the morning.”

“You’re sure, sir?”

“I’m sure.” Langton checked his watch: almost two o’clock. He and McBride had much still to do. “Agnes, if you could tell us where you keep the coffee, before you go—”

“You leave it to me, sir,” Agnes said, already reaching into the cupboard.

Langton returned to Redfers’s consulting room with McBride. The desk lamp illuminated the empty chair where the body had lain; the chair’s padding leaked out where the surgical knife had been embedded. In the grate, the fire had died to ashes.

“What are we looking for, sir?” McBride asked.

“Names. I want to know all about Redfers’s circle; who he saw, who he dined with.”

“Who visited him late at night, sir?”

“Exactly.”

“You think it’s drugs, sir? Or maybe he liked a bit of variety…”

Langton didn’t want to discuss his suspicions, or the involvement
of the Jar Boys. “Let’s see what we find. You check Mrs. Dunne’s room next door.”

Langton looked around for a starting point. Against one wall, under an oil painting of Redfers’s stern father, stood a bureau next to white enamel cabinets with glass fronts. First, Langton opened the desk drawers and rummaged through the contents: old fountain pens, coins, prescription pads, rubber bands, keys of all sizes. The usual detritus of a busy man’s desk.

On the desk itself stood the vandalized telephone, a blood-pressure gauge filled with mercury, patients’ files, a heavy glass inkstand, and a blotter busy with scrawled fragments of words and doodles. Langton couldn’t make any sense of the doctor’s writing, but he easily imagined him sitting there with the phone in one hand and a pen in the other, scribbling as he talked.

After checking under the desk, Langton sat in Redfers’s chair and remembered the position of the body. Head pinned back. Hands clutching the chair’s arms. No, not just clutching: fastened onto the padded leather, like claws, with every tendon raised. And his wide-open eyes staring at the door. Who had come into the room? Who had scared Redfers so much, and then killed him?

As the door swung open, Langton jumped up, ready.

Agnes nearly dropped the tray. “Oh, sir, you gave me a start.”

Langton put a hand over his racing heart. “Sorry, Agnes.”

“I’ll leave this here for you.” Agnes slid the tray onto Redfers’s desk. “There’s two mugs and a Dewar flask that’ll keep the coffee warm a good while. I gave a cup to your constable, too; must be frozen out there. If there’s anything else you need, sir…”

“No, thank you, Agnes. You go off to bed.”

Agnes paused at the door. “I don’t mind saying, sir, I’m a little nervous about staying here. It’s not in my nature, but the thought of the poor doctor lying there, and the person that did it still wandering the streets—”

“Don’t worry. McBride and I will be here another few hours, and
there’s a constable out front.” He tried to inject assurance into his voice. “We’ll look after you.”

Langton walked Agnes through Mrs. Dunne’s office and saw her climb the stairs. As he returned, he looked over McBride’s shoulder as the sergeant riffled through a cabinet of file-index cards.

“Hope it’s not one of his patient’s that done him, sir.”

“Why not, Sergeant?”

“There must be three, four hundred of them, sir. Take us until next summer to question all these.”

“If we must, Sergeant, we must. Now, come and have some coffee.”

As they sipped their drinks in the consulting room, Langton thought aloud: “Agnes gets a false telegram, calling her away from the house. Someone wanted Redfers alone. So what happened to Mrs. Dunne and any patients waiting to see him?”

“I can ask her in the morning, sir.”

“Do that. Let’s presume they left Redfers alive and well. Did someone break in, or did he let them in?”

“There’s no jimmy signs on the doors or windows, sir. Front or back.”

Langton leaned against the couch and looked around the room. “Then Redfers let his killers into the house. Perhaps he was expecting them. Either way, I can see no signs of any struggle.”

“Nor me, sir.”

“So why would Redfers simply sit there and let someone drive a spike through his throat?” Again, Langton looked to the chair and asked himself why Redfers would allow someone to connect an electrical apparatus to his neck. Did he know what to expect?

“Maybe he was drugged, sir,” McBride said, “like the Boer chappie.”

“Maybe so. We’ll have to ask Fry.” Langton drained his mug and set it on the desk. He tried to remember the last time he’d eaten. It wasn’t important. “Let’s crack on, Sergeant.”

While McBride returned to the receptionist’s room, Langton searched the bureau. At first, he found only bills and receipts,
pharmaceutical catalogs, and copies of old physicians’ periodicals. The bottom drawer would not open. Langton tried the keys he’d found in the desk, but they were much too large. He cursed himself for not checking Redfers’s body for his set of keys. Maybe he was more fatigued than he realized.