Half a Mind TO Murder (Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

Alexandra placed her hand on his arm and spoke softly.
“It wasn’t whose fault, Lucas? Who is the she you speak of?”

“
She’s dead.” His eyes filled with tears again.

“
Who?” she asked again, her voice soothing.

“
Blackburn’s sow,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. “Make it better, Miss. Please.” He sniffled again and gave her a pleading look.

“
Oh, Lucas!” Alexandra covered his hand with hers and squeezed it before she sat down in her chair facing him. “I have no medicine to help that kind of hurt,” she said.

Lucas gave her a puzzled look.

“When something or someone you love dies, it feels as if a part of you has died, too. There’s nothing to do but cry and wait for the pain to go away.”

He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand and gave her a look that was oddly, wise.
“I will wait,” he said, then let his gaze drift as if he were staring at something in another dimension. “’Tis heaven she’s at now, ain’t it?”

“
Of course.” Those words were the only form of medicine she could give him.

“
Hog heaven,” Lucas said, still staring unfocused. He didn’t laugh. It was no pun he’d made. “She’ll not be lonely, will she? There’ll be others with her?”

“
Certainly,” Alexandra said. She could see that he was calmer now, but there was still sadness in his eyes.

“
I got to be going now,” he said. “Me mum will miss me.”

Alexandra helped him down from the table.
“All right, Lucas. I think you’ll feel better soon, but come back again if you need to.” He left without looking back, moving away with an odd lumbering skip. “And say hello to your mother,” she called to him.

“
A good-hearted boy, that one,” Nancy said from behind her. Alexandra turned around suddenly, surprised she was there. “’Tis a pity the way some people laugh at him and call him idjet.”

Alexandra barely had time to express her agreement before the next patient arrived. It was Mrs. Sommers complaining again of flatulence. The rest of the day was unrem
arkable with only a few patients with the usual run of minor complaints. She and Nancy went to bed early after passing the first part of the evening reading in the parlor. They were up early the next morning, Nancy busy with her housework while Alexandra made her daily rounds.

It wasn
’t until she saw her first patient, Hannibal Talbot, that she learned not all of Newton had passed the evening as peacefully. Ben Milligan had been found dead in a dark alley in town. His heart had been cut very neatly from his chest and then had apparently been carried away. So had the large slice of flesh that had been cut from his arm in precisely the same spot of the scar from the carbuncle that had healed.

Chapter
Two

Until recently, much of the gossip in
Newton-on-Sea had been centered around what would happen to the earldom of Dunsford. Edward Boswick, Fifth Earl of Dunsford had been dead a year now and, having neither siblings nor progeny, had left an unwieldy legal question as to who would succeed him. Ordinarily the heirs to aristocratic titles and holdings were of little concern to the citizens of Newton-Upon-Sea, but the late earl’s country estate, which included a venerable and lovely home, was located only a few miles outside of the village. When the season ended in London each year, the house had traditionally been filled with guests from the aristocracy and the upper class for most of the summer. Their annual visits and the associated dinners and parties had been an important source of income to the merchants of Newton. Now a full season had passed without the benefit of that revenue.

The house remained empty, which meant dozens of servants had to move elsewhere to find work. Tenant farmers on the lands had remained, paying their rent to an overseer but worrying abo
ut gossip that the estate would disappear, dispersed among many heirs or sold to the highest bidder and all tenants forced off the land.

Now, even that pressing economic concern had been replaced by Ben Milligan
’s recent gruesome death. That was especially true in the tavern. It wasn’t Alexandra’s practice to frequent the Blue Ram, but she had been summoned there when Jack Sheridan, the tavern owner, accidentally cut his palm with a broken glass and was bleeding badly. It was the day after Ben’s mutilated body was found. When Alexandra arrived, she found the tavern owner seated at one of the tables, looking pale from fright. His hand was bandaged in a dirty bar towel stained dark with blood. He and his customers had judged the wound too serious to risk his going to the surgery himself, so one of the men had been sent to fetch her.

Alexandra saw as soon as she removed the bandage that the wound need not be serious if it could be cleaned and the bleeding stopped. She couldn
’t help but hear the conversation taking place at the table next to the bar as she tended Mr. Sheridan, who was called Sherry by all who knew him.

“
Is it a bad un?” asked the oyster fisherman who’d been sent to fetch her. He was known to the village as Young Beaty.

“
Just bring me a basin of water and some soap,” she said.

The soap and water appeared quickly, and as she set about cleaning the wound, the customers lost interest and turned their conversation to another topic.

“As I wuz sayin’, ’tis unnatural to cut a man’s heart out. I says ’tis the work o’ the devil.” Young Beaty made the pronouncement as he set his glass of beer down on the table, sloshing a little over the side. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and nodded to reaffirm his statement. Young Beaty, at the age of forty-six, no longer fit his name, but the name had become indelibly his to distinguish him from his father, Old Beaty, who sat across from him, silent except for the slight sucking noise when he drew on his pipe.

“
Devil?” said Tom Stillwell, the town’s butcher who also shared the table. “I doesn’t know about devils, I doesn’t, but I knows this… The man what done it knew ’is work when it comes to dressin’ meat.”

Old Beaty
’s eyes grew wide and alarmed. He pulled his pipe from his mouth and broke his silence. “Ach! Watch what yer sayin’, Tom. ’Twasn’t a carcass o’ beef what was layin’ in the alley, ’twas old Ben Milligan.”

“
Ain’t sayin’ ’twas a carcass o’ beef.” Tom sounded defensive. “I’m just sayin’ the one what done it knew ’ow to slice meat good as any butcher.” Tom glanced at Alexandra, who was now picking shards of glass from the wound. “You seen the body, mostly likely, didn’t ye, Doc? And ye’ll back me up. ’Twas a fine job o’ slicin’ what was done.”

“
It was brutal, Tom. That’s all I can say.” Alexandra pulled a needle threaded with cat gut from her bag and used it to stitch Sherry’s flesh together, making an effort to concentrate on her work. She didn’t want to talk about the mutilated body or even to think about it. She’d seen her share of blood and gore, of course, but there was something evil about this. The malevolence had hung in the air surrounding the body like a foul smell when she’d arrived with the constable to examine it. As for the butchering skill of the killer, Tom was right. It did show a certain amount of finesse.

“
Unnatural, I says.” Young Beaty turned his face away from Sherry’s hand as he spoke, unwilling or unable to watch the stitching. “’Twould have to be a madman if ’tweren’t old Satan hisself.”

There was a murmur of agree
ment.

“
A lunatic.” Young Beaty’s voice grew louder as he emphasized his point. “The likes o’ the idjet Lucas.”

Alexandra stopped her work and glanced up suddenly at the accusation.
“Not Lucas. That’s ridiculous.” A heavy silence descended on the room as she spoke, and all eyes focused on her. “Lucas is not a madman. Not in that sense. He is simply—”

“
Lucas Pendennis?” Someone at a table across the room laughed as he spoke the name in a booming voice. “A madman if I ever seen one. Thinks ’e talks to pigs, ’e does. And what’s worse, ’e thinks they talks to ’im.”

Where there might have otherwise been raucous laughter at such a statement, there was now only a nervous twitter, and another voice shouting,
“Killed Seth Blackburn’s sow, ’e did. Done it without layin’ a hand on ’er. Killed ’er with black magic.”

There was another twitter that quickly grew to a loud murmur, and then another voice shouting.
“It ain’t black magic ’e’s usin’, ’tis poison, but ’e’s a madman just the same.”

Alexandra felt a momentary void i
n her chest that was soon filled with dread. Blaming Lucas because of his odd behavior and deficient mental state was, in itself, insane. She knew him to be a gentle person who would never harm another creature intentionally.

She
’d always felt protective of Lucas and of his unfortunate mother as well. Still, she knew it was true that Lucas’ behavior had become even more odd recently as he mourned the death of Blackburn’s sow. He spent long hours at the pig sty and even longer hours walking around town talking to the spirit of the dead sow and assuring her there would be others of her kind to join her in heaven. That strange behavior on his part obviously helped make him a target of blame for the ungodly death and mutilation of Ben Milligan, not just in Young Beaty’s mind, but in the mind of others as well. She left the tavern as soon as she could finish stitching and bandaging Sherry’s hand.

It was not surprising that the hideous murder was on the minds of everyone in the three houses where Alexandra made ca
lls the following morning. What was surprising, though, was how quickly the suspicion of Lucas Pendennis had spread and intensified. Edith Prodder, who was given to enjoying her ailments, was less concerned now about her sprained ankle than she was about the fact that Ben’s body had been found in an alley very close to her house. She’d had a visit that morning from her friend Nell Stillwell, the butcher’s wife, who described the killer’s skill with a knife.

“
Nell says her Tom could not have done a cleaner job hisself,” Edith said as she lay on her bed with her foot and swollen ankle elevated on pillows. “’Twas never a gent’ler soul than Ben Milligan, so if it could happen to the likes of him, then none o’ us is safe, I say. There’s a madman loose, I tell ye, and we all know who ’tis.”

“
Oh do we?” Alexandra massaged tincture of camphor on Edith’s ankle. “I wasn’t aware Constable Snow had solved the crime.”

Edith wrinkled her face in disgust.
“Constable Snow? Pshaw! What does he know about solving crimes? A weaker man I never saw. And immoral, too, I suspect. Always running off to London to visit some woman of questionable character, I dare say.”

“
You’ve met this woman?”

“
Of course not. I’m a decent woman myself.” Edith shifted her position as if to emphasize her point.

“
Then how do you know—?”

“
How do I know? For what other reason would he be running off to London four times a year? I know what I’m talking about, my dear. You, being a spinster, doesn’t know about the darker side of a man’s yearnings, I dare say. But mark my word, they’s many a man what ought to be married to calm the beast in ’im. Otherwise, he’s bound for the sinful life, one way or t’other.” She shook her head in disgust.

“
If Constable Snow hasn’t solved this crime, then who gets the credit?” Alexandra replaced Edith’s foot on the pillows and picked up her medical bag.

“
Doesn’t take more than common sense to solve it now does it?” Edith said. “Anybody with half a mind knows that it had to be the work of a lunatic like Young Beaty says.”

Alexandra turned her head toward Edith, surprised.
“You’ve already heard the gossip?”

“
But he’s wrong about one thing, I can tell ye that,” Edith said, ignoring the question. “’Twasn’t likely Lucas. The boy’s a pure idjet, but ’e ain’t a madman, now is ’e?”

Alexandra felt a moment of relief.
“Of course he’s not a madman, he’s simply—”

“
Borned that way, I know,” Edith said, interrupting again. “’Tis ’is mother what’s the crazy person. I says most likely ’twas her what done it.”

Alexandra dropped the bottle of camphor she
’d been trying to return to her medical bag. “Mrs. Pendennis? Why would you say that? I’ve never met a saner woman in my life.”

“’Tis
Miss, not Mrs.” Edith almost shouted her correction. “She’s never entered the holy state of matrimony. Poor idjet Lucas is a bastard.”

“
You’re right, of course. Gweneth Pendennis has never been married,” Alexandra had begun to tremble. “But that doesn’t make her a lunatic.”

“’
Tis common knowledge, the kind of thing she done—gettin’ ’erself in trouble—is symptom of a madness. A uterine disease. Makes a woman crazy. Your own father, may ’e rest in peace, was the one what told me that. Now there was a doctor for ye.”

Alexandra had become accustomed to her patients in
Newton-Upon-Sea comparing her, usually unfavorably, with her late father. As for his position on the uterus and female insanity, it was true that he subscribed to the theory that female symptoms of insanity were associated with disorders of the uterus and the reproductive system. He also believed that the menstrual discharge common to all women predisposed them to insanity, since insanity was believed to be a disease of the blood. He had not, however, gone as far as the renowned London physician, Dr. Isaac Baker Brown, who routinely performed surgical removal of the clitoris as a cure for female insanity.

Yet, her father would have, as Edith suggested and as Alexandra knew all too well, considered Gweneth Pendennis
’s indiscretion a symptom of an overly aggressive sexual appetite, which, in females, indicated insanity. On more than one occasion, he had administered leeches to the labia and cervix of women of such appetite as a treatment for female insanity.

She was also well aware that her own personality sometimes cau
sed him concern, since strong resolve, force of character, and a certain fearlessness also were traditionally considered symptoms of insanity in women. Somehow, though, he had come to terms with these suspicious characteristics in his daughter and had eventually even encouraged them. He’d even shown a large measure of pride in her unconventional choice of a career as a doctor of medicine. She could only be thankful that he had never known the full extent of her independence.

Alexandra was grateful for all t
hat her father had taught her about medicine, in spite of the fact that she sometimes found herself disagreeing with him. His likely diagnosis of Gweneth Pendennis, for example. Alexandra knew with certainty that one indiscretion did not mean a woman was overly sexually aggressive. But if, by chance, a woman was a bit aggressive in that respect, did that mean she was given to insanity? The question troubled Alexandra.

Her next stop was to check on the
Blackburn boy who had developed whooping cough. His stepmother, Helen, had taken excellent care of him, and he was recovering quickly. Enough so that Helen’s concern was now less for the little boy and more for her husband’s pigs, since two more besides the renowned sow had died.

“
Some say the devil has cursed us.” Helen’s voice was choked with worry. “The devil in the body of that Pendennis boy, some say. He’s always out there looking at them pigs, you know, and talking to ’em. ’Tisn’t natural. He’s crazy, just like his mum. People say madness is inherited.”

Al
exandra tried to explain that Lucas Pendennis was not an embodiment of the devil and that his mother was not insane, but Helen was in no mood to listen. She was far too worried about what the loss of the pigs would do to their livelihood.

Even old Mrs. Lea
nder had heard about the murder. She was confined to her home with severe dropsy and could hardly speak without running out of breath. Yet she was able to gasp out her fears that everyone in Newton-Upon-Sea was now in danger, and that she, herself, might expect to be murdered in her bed some night.