The Alchemy of Murder (12 page)

He rests his head back and tries to let his body and mind relax by listening to the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves. It feels like years have passed from the days when he was a foolish young café revolutionist—a gentlemanly scholar who spent evenings with friends, drinking absinthe and smoking pipes as they talked about how they were going to overthrow the government and bring justice to the poor.

It was nothing but café prattle until a year ago when Perun approached his table and asked him to join his fight against oppression. He was honored and his friends jealous. Perun was a man of mystery in the world of political anarchy. Better known by reputation than by sight, he had a tendency for action—the kind that drew blood.

He never questioned why Perun chose him. He likes to think it was because there are few doctors whose main interests are political anarchy and biological chemistry, but deep down he knows differently—he’s someone Perun can control.

Once again his right pinkie burns. He holds it tight, but the pain stays, along with the memory of how he lost it. He had balked when Perun gave him his first assignment—to kill a man. It made no difference to Perun that the man he wanted killed was Dubois’ friend. When he asked why, Perun refused to tell him. Than, when he told Perun he couldn’t kill his friend, Perun beat him almost unconscious.

“A comrade must put aside his personal feelings,” he told Dubois after the beating. Then—so Dubois would have a permanent reminder that he had to obey without question—Perun cut off half the pinkie. Oddly it sealed his loyalty to Perun. Dubois even feels lucky—he still has his life.

*   *   *

B
Y THE TIME
he exits the carriage the rain has stopped. The fog is even thicker than on the Butte—a damp, heavy cloak over the night. The closest street-light, a tall metal post with two huge gas lanterns, is a faint glow a dozen paces from where he stands. He locates the stairway down to the quay and descends mossy stone steps.

“Monsieur…”

Dubois almost loses his footing as he recoils from the voice.
“Mon Dieu!”

A prostitute materializes from a cove along the wall and he waves her off. “Not tonight.”

“Not so fast, my friend. What is the color of your flag?”

He understood. Perun always stations a lookout near the river barge. Using a prostitute is clever. Dubois has no doubt she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he doesn’t give the right answer.

“Black.” The color of the flag of anarchism.

Without a word she slips back, leaving Dubois to continue on.

The exterior of the barge is like other wooden vessels used to haul farm products and supplies along the river. Low to the water, twenty meters long, seven wide, the only structure rising on the deck is a small pilothouse. No one would ever suspect the boat houses a laboratory.

He goes up the gangplank and walks across the deck, passing rows of damp gunny sacks filled with rotting potatoes. A faint glow from a cigarette is visible from the pilot-house. A man with a sharp knife is inside, watching for intruders. He has a gun, but that would be used only if the police raid the vessel.

Dubois knocks twice and lifts the companionway door. He hopes Perun has not changed the signal since he saw him that morning. He feels honored that he is even allowed aboard the barge. Few people other than those working directly on the project have been aboard.

The laboratory at the bottom of the companionway isn’t a broom closet like the one he has at the hospital, but a research center that would strike the envy of any experimenter. A kerosene lamp hangs from the ceiling above a long stainless steel table that dominates the center of the room.

Dubois knows from his own laboratory work that he is entering a battlefield in a war that has been taking place since life forms first appeared on Earth and began to compete for existence, an invisible war that goes on every moment of every day, a conflict between mankind and animals so tiny most cannot be seen even under a microscope. Yet they are able to kill creatures billions of times larger than themselves.

The combatants are everywhere: in food, water, air, and dirt; even in the very bodies of man and creature. Most are harmless, some help mankind—without them, food could not be grown or digested, waste decomposed. But some of them are the deadliest killers on the planet, striking down millions of people each year.

Perun is sitting on a wooden stool at the lab table, examining a specimen under a microscope. He uses a Carl Zeiss state of the art optical instrument, far superior to the outdated microscope Dubois has at his makeshift lab at the hospital.

Perun’s dedication to his work reminds Dubois of what he’s read about the great microbe hunter, Louis Pasteur. Both are fanatics about their science, but they differ on their goals. Pasteur’s objective is to control the virulence of microorganisms, to stop their spread and devastation to lives. Perun’s an anarchist at war with government and it tempers his scientific work.

The aim of anarchism is to unshackle people from the arbitrary dictates of government, to create a free and peaceful society. But the path to a new society is one of violent acts of terrorism.

Dubois stands quietly by the table, his eyes sweeping the array of biochemistry apparatus on the table: petri dishes, bunsen burners, alcohol lamps to boil water for the beakers, glass stirrers, corked-test tubes, thermometers, forceps, and pipettes. A crate from China, slipped by customs without inspection because it bore Dubois’ Department of Health insignia, is on the floor under the table. He silently sighs to himself as he looks at the superb selection of scientific apparatus. If only the great man would permit him to work beside him …

“Have a bite of sausage,” Perun says, without looking up from the microscope.

The “sausage” is spoiled food in a glass container.

“What is it?”

“
Clostridium botulinum
.”

“Ahhh.”

Clostridium botulinum
is a bacterium that secretes one of the deadliest poisons known to man: botulism. The name is derived from the Latin word for sausage:
botulus
. It was applied after people in Wildbad, Germany, died from eating uncooked smoked sausage. Even with the knowledge that ill-prepared foods are the breeding ground for a microbe that emits a deadly toxic, thousands of people still died every year from the poison, usually from home-canned foods that were not cooked thoroughly.

Perun had bred the lethal little creatures by following the example of the sausage-eating Germans: He allowed food to spoil in a low oxygen atmosphere.

“What stage are you?” Dubois asks. His tone reveals the envy and admiration he has for Perun’s ability as a scientist.

“I have a pure culture.”

That meant he now had laboratory-grown botulus as opposed to what he obtained from the decomposed food. Dubois knows the first specimens taken from the “sausage” would have contained many different species of bacteria. Perun had to first separate out the botulus from the other bacteria. Once he has a culture of pure botulus in a nutritious medium of simple sugars or perhaps a meat broth, either in a liquid or solidified in agar, it would not be difficult to increase the size of the colony by keeping the bacteria well fed.

As Perun continues to study the bacteria, Dubois steps over to watch a worker inside an “incubator.” While Pasteur’s scientists would have found the microscope and other items on Perun’s lab table familiar, the incubators on the barge were unique.
Not just unique
, Dubois thinks,
but strange and amazing
.

An incubator is an insulated box in which temperature, humidity, and other conditions are controlled so microbes will reproduce. But the three incubators on the barge are rooms the size of walk-in meat coolers.

One wall of each incubator room is clear glass and faces the lab so Perun can observe the worker inside. The other walls are wood, but were also covered with glass and sealed with rubber. The sealing is necessary to ensure that whatever is inside,
stays inside
.

Perun claims that no one on Earth has colonized as many deadly microbes as he. Dubois does not doubt the claim.

The atmosphere in the walk-in incubators is so potentially toxic, no one enters unless they are in a deep-sea diving suit. Perun chose diving suits because material that keeps out water on the ocean floor is also impervious to microbes. The suited workers are supplied air pumped through a rubber hose. Their faces are partially visible in the glass portholes of the big metal helmets covering their heads. They leave the incubator rooms through a door at the back where they are thoroughly hosed off before taking off the suits.

It is dangerous work. They are all anarchist comrades and Perun occasionally loses one to the tiny creatures they are breeding. “Never forget they’re hungry and you are their meal,” he tells them.

As they toil with the microbe colonies, they remind Dubois of pictures of deep-sea divers harvesting food on the ocean floor in a Jules Verne book he read as a teenager.

“I’m going to test the toxicity,” Perun says.

Dubois steps back to the lab table as Perun draws liquid from a culture of botulus into a syringe. He uses a military bullet extractor biologists call a “mouse forcep” to capture a rat from an animal cage. After injecting the animal, he places it back in the cage.

Perun glances at Dubois as he cleans up his work area. “Botulism kills more slowly if you ingest it in food. Putting it directly into the bloodstream will of course speed up the action. The bloodstream will carry it to nerve endings and cause the muscles to contract. In the final stages there will be paralysis and death.” He grins at Dubois. “Are you sure you don’t want to sample the sausage?”

Dubois rubs his burning pinkie.

Perun’s sardonic humor evaporates. “What’s so important that you interrupt me tonight?”

“We have a serious problem that must be taken care of immediately.”

“Well, what is it?”

“There is a woman newspaper reporter from America who knows about you and has informed the police.”

Perun breaks out laughing.

Dubois’s fear level soars. He doesn’t know how to deal with Perun’s mood changes. “She knows who you are. She’s determined to catch you. We must stop her before she ruins everything.”

“No. Leave Nellie Bly alone.”

“You—you know her?”

“She’s chasing shadows.”

“But Detective Lussac told me that the Chief Inspector of La Sûreté is coming to see me tomorrow to ask questions about the girl you killed tonight.”

Perun abruptly stands up, almost knocking over his stool. He comes within inches of Dubois’ face. “You’re talking about the girl that died
from fever
 … aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Dubois looks down afraid, “yes, that’s what I meant.”

“Good. Then there’s nothing to be concerned about, is there?”

“No, but she has raised questions and I’m to be questioned. Questions that would never have been asked.”

“You’re a doctor. Give them some technical drivel so they think their concerns are being dealt with.” Perun pauses, his eyes penetrating deep into Dubois. “You are capable of handling such a simple task?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I just thought…”

“Let
me
do the thinking.” Perun paces back and forth. “This is all very good. As a matter of fact, it’s perfect. This will be your opportunity to convince the Chief Inspector that all fever victims should be sent to you for examination.”

“But that duty belongs to my superior, Doctor—”

“
Change it
.”

Dubois knows he has no other option. He doesn’t want to think about what would happen if he doesn’t obey Perun’s commands.

“Yes, this is very good.” Perun picks a scalpel off the table and taps it against his palm. He looks genuinely pleased. “When everything is accomplished, I must thank her for helping me.” He tucks the edge of the scalpel under Dubois’ chin. “You agree, don’t you, Monsieur Doctor?”

“Yes.”

Dubois holds his breath.

Perun smiles as he teasingly slides the scalpel back and forth on Dubois’s neck. “It will give me great pleasure thanking her as I kill her.” He then sets the scalpel down as if he is bored with the game and goes back to his microscope.

“Leave. I have work to finish.”

When he is on the street above the quay, Dubois collapses on a bench. His hands are shaking. He touches his neck. No blood, but he can still feel the cold steel against his throat.

16

Nellie

The police wagon and fiacre behind us carrying Lussac and other officers come to an abrupt halt. I push open a wood flap to find we are in the middle of a commotion in Place de Clichy.

Crowds have overflowed from the Place Blanche carnival to watch a group of chanting men and women standing on a flat bed wagon that has stopped in the middle of the square. It’s the same group I saw earlier.