The Insanity of Murder (10 page)

The next afternoon Pike called at the townhouse as arranged. Annie and the scullery-cum-under-parlour maid, Lucy, lugged the ‘Baby Daisy’ from the middle of the stairs so he and Dody could pass. Annie was red in the face, whether from her vigorous pumping of the vacuum machine’s handle or from her never-ending annoyance with Pike, Dody couldn’t tell.
How much longer could she and Pike trust their secret with the maid?
she wondered. Would Annie be capable of holding her tongue in front of Mother, who was arriving the next day? The girl had an impulsive temper and was fiercely loyal to Florence. Dody didn’t dare contemplate what might happen if Annie ever found out that Pike and his colleagues were the cause of Florence’s current misery. She could only hope that since Annie had taken to walking out with a reportedly ‘handsome young man named Robert’, she would be too occupied with her own affairs to give much thought to anyone else’s.

Pike stopped on the stairs at the second-floor landing and nodded towards Florence’s closed bedroom door.

‘How is she?’ he asked quietly.

‘Physically, Florence is recovering nicely.’ Dody folded her arms. ‘Though maybe that is not such a good thing. I fear that being sent back to prison might drive her mad.’

Pike said nothing. He didn’t need to, the sudden tension in his jaw told her everything.

‘Can’t you see that this new tactic is no better than the alternative?’ Dody continued to whisper out of Annie’s earshot. ‘None of this barbarism would be necessary if the government was sensible enough to give women the vote.’

Dody left her words dangling, turned her back on him, and continued up the stairs to her study. They had similar views on so many subjects, but this Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge Act was one issue on which she could see no compromise.

Neither gave the bed a second glance as they passed it. Edward scratched for attention but remained unnoticed. Dody suggested that Pike take a seat behind the microscope to view one of her prepared slides. He was an eager student, one of the new breed of policemen who actually appreciated the role that forensic science could play in the detection of crime. He peered down the eyepiece of the microscope and adjusted the objective as she had taught him.

‘Fascinating. Much clearer than what we saw the other night,’ he murmured. ‘You have stained the sample pink to make its features stand out. I can see some nuclei now – the dots? Other than that —’ He shrugged, ‘— I have no idea.’ He drew away from the eyepiece and swivelled on the stool to face her. ‘So, tell me, what am I supposed to be looking at?’

Dody was pleased to find their disagreement at least temporarily forgotten. They were both highly rational people (Dody liked to think) and neither inclined to sulking.

‘The stain reveals that the cells are made of chromatin material,’ she said. ‘If you’d zoomed in you would have seen a small bubble-like thing called a Graafian follicle.’

‘Graaa …? You’ve lost me already.’

‘It means this lump of tissue is an ovary and most probably human.’

Pike coughed into his closed fist. ‘What is this, err, ovary you are talking about? Am I right in thinking it is from a female person?’

Dody laughed, unable to help herself. ‘I do believe you are blushing, Mr Pike!’

He shifted on his seat. ‘Well, where would I have learned such things? It was hardly talk around the campfire.’

Dody became serious again. ‘The ovaries are female reproductive organs situated in the abdomen and responsible for making the eggs.’

‘But how can you be sure this ovary is from a human and not, say, from a baboon?’ Pike asked.

‘Indeed, a large primate is about the only other creature this ovary could belong to, though highly unlikely, given their paucity in London. No, Matthew, the odds are that it is from a human.’ All of a sudden, Dody felt ill. ‘Oh my goodness.’ She covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply.

Pike slid from his stool and gripped her arm. ‘Dody, Dody, are you all right? You are white as chalk, what is it?’

‘The woman in the mortuary the other day, the one whose photograph I gave you. She’d had all her reproductive organs removed.’

This was the first time she had explained to Pike exactly what the illegal operation he was investigating entailed. At once he turned as white as she had.

‘We think it’s possible the operation had been performed illegally to cure her of hysteria. The woman had drunk bleach — no sane person would have done that.’ She opted not to tell him about the mutilated genitals for the moment, fearing the topic might prove too much of a challenge to his sensibilities. ‘I was meaning to tell you more about it, but what with Florence and everything …’

‘Let’s talk about this downstairs. I think we could both use a drink.’

It was teatime, but neither of them felt like drinking tea. Pike poured whisky into crystal glasses at an occasional table holding several gleaming decanters. While he prepared the drinks, Dody appraised her surroundings. The room was more immaculate than ever, the maids having been instructed to put in extra effort in honour of Mrs McCleland’s visit.

The carpet was traced with ‘Baby Daisy’s’ tracks. The green velvet curtains on the two front mullion windows had been cleaned and rehung, softly framing the diamond patterned glass as it sparkled in the hazy afternoon light. The oriental rugs had been beaten on the clothesline, the silver cleaned, and the inlaid furniture dusted and polished with lavender wax. All the room needed was fresh flowers, which Dody planned on purchasing the next morning from a roadside flower seller.

Not many single women had the luxury of living independently from their families. The sisters were always keen to demonstrate their appreciation to their mother and prove to her that her trust had not been in vain. They kept the townhouse spotless and made sure it was always welcoming to her.

‘I wonder if Poppa’s coming too?’ Dody mused as they settled back into the plumped sofa, nursing their whiskies. ‘Mother didn’t say.’

‘Might that be a problem?’ Pike asked.

‘Only if he tries to force Florence back to Tretawn with him for a rest-cure.’

‘Whether he comes or not, I suppose I’ll still have to make myself scarce,’ Pike said with resignation.

‘Not necessarily. My parents know full well how my profession entails working with the police. I’m afraid the English police still remind them too much of how things were in Russia when they left.’

‘I’ve never understood that. I don’t see how they can compare the English police to the Russian.’

‘I’m sorry, Matthew, but that’s just how it is. Their socialist ways brought them nothing but trouble with the Tsar’s people.’

‘Just so long as your father doesn’t try to take another shot at me.’ Pike smiled boyishly, obviously thinking about the last time he’d had dealings with Nial McCleland. God how she loved this man, the way he accepted her and her eccentric family for what they were. She knew then that it would take a lot more than a disagreement over the Cat and Mouse Act to drive a wedge between them.

‘But about the suicide,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, that.’ Dody wetted her lips with whisky and organised her thoughts. ‘How much do you know about the treatment of female lunatics in this country?’

Pike shuddered. ‘I saw enough yesterday to last me a lifetime.’ He went on to explain how he had visited Bethlem, discovered the suicide’s name, and tracked down her former husband.

‘She was Mrs Cynthia Hislop, former wife of Francis Hislop in Chelsea. What’s more, at one time she resided at the same rest home as Lady Mary. Lady Mary’s “Cynthia” and Cynthia Hislop must be one and the same person.’

‘That’s wonderful, Matthew, well done. At last we have a name.’

‘And a verified connection. It seems that Hislop and his present wife have been together for a long time, despite her comparative youth. She was once Cynthia’s ladies maid, apparently, first employed in the house when she was about fourteen.’

‘Now that’s a scandal that would take some covering up.’

‘Indeed.’ Pike said thoughtfully. ‘The house was recently repainted but still gives the impression of being unkempt. Singh said the servants’ morale was low, with the cook having been longest in Hislop’s employ. But even she had not known the first Mrs Hislop.’

‘I sometimes think servants are more socially conscious than the rest of us.’

‘Singh concluded, without being told outright, that the new Mrs Hislop has trouble hiring staff. Apparently everyone in the locality knows about the scandal and servants with good references won’t work there.’

‘Hence the condition of the house.’

‘Quite. I haven’t finished with Mr Hislop yet. Suffice to say he left me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.’ Pike paused. ‘Are you and Spilsbury certain the cause of Mrs Hislop’s death was suicide?’

Dody paused. The questioning of their judgement would not please Spilsbury. It did not please Dody much either. ‘You have doubts, Matthew?’

‘The matron said that people with extreme melancholia are often unable to find the motivation to kill themselves.’

‘Her melancholia might not have been extreme at the time of her suicide.’

‘Still, I think this requires some more investigation. Mrs Cynthia Hislop must have been an embarrassing inconvenience to her former husband. Just how much would he have to gain by her death?’ he mused.

‘It is your prerogative to regard Mrs Hislop’s death as murder,’ Dody said stiffly, ‘though I think you will be wasting your time.’

Pike arched an eyebrow at her, swirled the whiskey in his glass and took a swallow. ‘Back to Bethlem,’ he said, tactfully brushing off the Hislop case, though Dody sensed it was still in the forefront of his mind. ‘I was told that while they provide all sorts of therapies for the patients, they do not perform operations on the women there. Would that be correct?’

‘A high profile hospital like Bethlem wouldn’t, but I’m not sure about the smaller, private hospitals. Not long ago it was considered fairly normal practice to remove a woman’s reproductive organs to cure her of various nervous conditions.’ Dody eyed Pike when the gasp she expected did not come. ‘Now, thankfully, these kinds of procedures are less in vogue.’ She paused. ‘You don’t seem very concerned.’

‘Well,’ Pike said, ‘did the operations work?’

Men
. ‘Sometimes. In cases such as polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition that causes women to develop certain masculine traits, oophorectomy would certainly “work”. But that’s not the point, Matthew. The point is that these operations very often lead to infection and death. If survived, the procedures render a woman unable to have children. Most of the women who undergo this kind of surgery are in the prime of their lives. Surgery is something that should never be performed lightly. Do insane men have their sexual parts cut off — certainly not! So why should it be considered therapeutic for women?’

Pike looked deeply into his glass. ‘Oh. I see.’

‘And then there are the clitoridectomies — the removal of the piece of genitalia from which a woman’s sexual pleasure is derived. Many doctors still believe that damage to the central nervous system is caused by over excitement of the peripheral nerves, meaning mastur —’

Pike tipped a good deal of whiskey down his throat. ‘Do I really need all the details?’

‘No, I suppose you don’t. But I think you
should
know that there is a school of thought among some doctors still, that the majority of female madness is caused by what they consider to be an unhealthy preoccupation with sex — nymphomania, if you will.’

‘I’ve heard of that.’

‘I’m sure you have,’ she said with the hint of a tease, knowing he was probably thinking of the notorious siren Mata Hari with whom he once had professional dealings. ‘Many unenlightened surgeons blame this interest in sex for the desire of young women to leave home and set up independently, and to follow their chosen careers. But many are merely desperate for a fuller life than the one society offers. Lord knows what they would make of me! It was the same years ago for women who wanted to take advantage of the new Divorce Act and leave their husbands. Invariably, after having had their sexual enjoyment curtailed by surgery, they returned to their husbands like the meek little lambs society wanted them to be.’

Dody regarded the thoughtful expression on Pike’s face. She wondered if he was thinking of his daughter. ‘The main thrust of the argument against this procedure, though,’ she went on, ‘is that many of the women are operated on without consent, because they are deemed insane.’

‘A legally insane woman cannot give legal consent. I see.’

‘Doctor Spilsbury and I are certain that the suicide you are helping us with —’

‘
Suspected
suicide,’ Pike corrected her. ‘Mrs Cynthia Hislop.’

‘Thank you. We think perhaps Mrs Hislop was the victim of an illegal procedure. She was not only missing all her internal reproductive organs, but parts of her external genitalia also.’

‘Do you know when the operation on Mrs Hislop took place?’

‘Possibly within the last five years.’

‘She was first admitted to the Elysium about ten years ago.’

‘The operation could have been performed then,’ Dody said.

‘But how do you know it was performed to treat a nervous condition? How can you discount the fact that it might have been done for medical reasons?’

‘Indeed. The reasons behind the surgery are often hard to prove, but I think the external mutilation in this case provides some evidence. The bottom line is that the coroner wants the suicide investigated, and jolly good for him, I say.’ Dody raised her glass. ‘This has been a long time coming. Perhaps we can help put an end to such immoral treatment for good. It’s about time women were given control over their own bodies.’

Pike rubbed his hands together. ‘Now this is beginning to make more sense. Do you think that’s why Lady Mary wished me to have that, err, tissue sample?’

Dody brooded on this for a moment. ‘Perhaps it is. Perhaps she is trying to tell you something. You were kind to her. Also, you are a policeman. Most law-abiding middle class English, with the exception of my family, accept and trust the police.’