The Moon by Night (48 page)

The men rode silently for a while. As so often happened after a snowstorm, the night air was bitingly cold, the sky clear, the stars like crisp individual snowflakes. It was the night of the new moon, so the night sky was depthless black, the landscape impenetrable except in the round fuzzy globes of light from the streetlamps.

Finally Shiloh said, “I assume, Dev, that you're talking about Rebecca Green in the first instance, right?”

“Correct.”

“But who's the second patient? The one who's critical now?”

Dev started to tell Shiloh about Cornelius Melbourne, but then he remembered that Cheney had not yet told Shiloh about her patient. Lamely he said, “Oh, just a man who was in an accident a couple weeks ago. He was injured, had surgery, and now has tetanus.”

“That's bad,” Shiloh said in a low voice. “I've seen that before, and I never want to see it again.”

“Might all this have to do with the laudanum, Dr. Buchanan?” Officer Goodin asked hesitantly.

“That's exactly what made me start thinking of all the other things,” Dev replied. “I think you and Officer Jamison and Alfie the Pocket and Wilhelmina are all correct. That is not laudanum we're giving the patients for pain. I think it's mostly whiskey.”

“You think he's weakening the laudanum?” Shiloh asked, mystified. “Why would anyone do that?”

“I'm not sure,” Dev answered. “I want to ask him.”

They had reached the Corinthian, a six-story hotel built in 1834. In those days she had been a
grande dame,
very popular with the theater-going set and visiting players. Now she had aged and had a quaint old-fashioned air while the neighborhood had turned steadily seedier as the finer theaters moved uptown. But the Corinthian was still favored by actors and musicians and dancers who now performed at Niblo's Garden and Theater, the Gaiety Concert Saloon, and Harry Hill's Dance Hall.

They dismounted and tied the horses to a stone nymph invitingly holding out a brass ring. The gas lamps outside were bright and inviting, and some couples were out walking, although there was not much carriage traffic.

The three men went into the small reception area of the hotel, which fronted West 14th Street. The small foyer had an ancient but still plush Turkish carpet, a sizable mahogany receiving desk, and paintings of red-haired ladies wearing gauzy dresses in various garden settings. Behind the receiving desk in a leather banker's chair snoozed a woman who looked like she might have stepped out of one of the paintings. She was a buxom lady, with flame-red hair, dramatic makeup, rings on every finger, wearing a bright green-and-yellow striped dress.

Officer Goodin stepped up to the desk and knocked lightly. “Mrs. Bowdoin, ma'am,” he called softly.

She started and sat bolt upright, her round blue eyes opened wide. “Oh, oh, Officer Goodin, it's you! My goodness, did I fall asleep? Was I dreaming in the seductive arms of Morpheus?”

“May be, ma'am,” Officer Goodin said politely. “May I introduce my friends? Dr. Devlin Buchanan, Mr. Irons-Winslow, I wish to make known to you Mrs. Beatrice Bowdoin, owner of the Corinthian.”

Dev and Shiloh made their obeisances, and the lady graciously nodded. She had a rather flamboyant grace that told them she had once been on the stage herself. She stood up, smoothed her very generous corsage, and touched her hair. “I am all askew, am I not? What can I do for you gentlemen tonight?”

“We're looking for a certain gentleman, and we heard that he may be enjoying your famed hospitality, Mrs. Bowdoin,” Officer Goodin said. “His name is Marcus Pettijohn.”

“Dr. Pettijohn?” she cried, dramatically pressing one hand to her breast. “Oh, certainly he would not be sought by the law? Not he!”

“We won't know, exactly, until we talk to him,” Officer Goodin said. “Is he here?”

“Oh no, no. I have given you entirely the wrong impression, and I humbly beg your pardon,” she said, her blue eyes big and insatiably curious. “Dr. Pettijohn was here for several months, but let me see, let me see, hmm…yes, that would have been in 1868. Yes, it was, how could I ever forget? He was here at the same time Guillaume Denalfri, the famous dramatist from Venice, was here performing at the Olympia Theater. And he so smitten with me, it was quite tragic when he had to return to Europe!”

“I can imagine,” Officer Goodin agreed in a courtly manner. “But about Dr. Pettijohn. You haven't seen him since 1868? Are you sure, Mrs. Bowdoin? It wouldn't be possible that Mr. Bowdoin might have checked him in?”

“Oh no, no. I would certainly know if he and his lovely wife and daughter were here,” Mrs. Bowdoin assured him.

Dev, Shiloh, and Officer Goodin all froze and stared at her. She simpered a little, fluffed her hair again, and went on, “Indeed, have not Wilmer and I asked each other, ‘Why? Why wouldn't Dr. Pettijohn and Madame Pettijohn have come back to visit us, when we did so adore the both of them? Such a lovely young couple, the little girl so sweet, and another on the way. Why, why didn't they ever return?'”

“Why, indeed,” Officer Goodin managed to mumble. “You say Dr. Pettijohn—Marcus Pettijohn—had a wife. And a daughter. When they stayed here in 1868.”

“Yes, indeed, indeed,” Mrs. Bowdoin insisted. “Madame Pettijohn was a famous opera diva, a
prima donna
, in Paris. I always thought I would hear of her performing here in the city, but never once have I seen her name published. Manon Fortier, as she was known, and I cannot vouch for her, exactly. She was French, and you do understand how those people are. She looked more like a young boy than a grown woman, but then Dr. Pettijohn told me that she had just finished a very successful run as Tancredi, which is one of those breeches roles that Americans find scandalous but Europeans are so la-di-da kiss-my-hand about, even though there at the end of their stay she was showing just a bit. But is there any accounting for the taste of men? No, there is no accounting for it. And the French, they are so epicene, so libertine, are they not, Officer Goodin?”

“Yes, ma'am, it's just as you say,” he responded meekly. “You are certain that Dr. Pettijohn has not come back, perhaps by himself, in the last few days?”

“Here, we shall peruse the register together,” she pronounced, waving one arm through the air in a grand all-encompassing gesture. Turning the large ledger around, she declared, “Here is the evidence, sir, that will absolve me and prove me true!”

The policeman ran his finger down the listed names, then turned the page back and checked, and continued back to the beginning of the month. He looked up at Shiloh and Dev and shook his head. To Mrs. Bowdoin, who looked triumphant, he said humbly, “You were exactly right, Mrs. Bowdoin. But still I need your help, ma'am.”

“Of course I shall do anything in my power to assist in the search for the poor unfortunate doctor,” she cried.

“It may be a lot to ask, but could you check your records and see if Dr. Pettijohn left a forwarding address with you when he and his family checked out?”

“He did,” she declared. “Wilmer and I kept the note posted by the room boxes, for we found that Dr. Pettijohn received quite a bit of mail.” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Accounts due, I am grieved to say.”

Patiently Officer Goodin said, “But you have no way of finding out what the forwarding address was?”

“Of course I have a way of finding out the forwarding address,” she replied indignantly. “Doesn't my darling Wilmer keep all forwarding addresses neatly filed so that we may always have them at hand should they be needed? And isn't this just a perfect example of how they are so often needed?”

“Yes, ma'am, this is a perfect example,” Officer Goodin agreed, but she was sailing majestically through a door behind the desk.

In a few moments she entered stage right, waving a small piece of paper. “And so it is found, the good doctor and his lady-wife!” She handed it to Officer Goodin.

He read it aloud. “‘Dr. Marcus Pettijohn, Manon Fortier Pettijohn, #23 Morton Row, City.'”

“That was his address on file at the hospital,” Dev said thoughtfully. “He told Cheney that he had to move out just last week for some reason or another.”

“He told her that the landlord had decided to make the whole row of houses into tenements,” Shiloh said.

Officer Goodin grimaced. “Now I happen to know that's not true. Morton Row, that's old Carl Grimes's row houses. He lives in number 19 himself, and I haven't heard anything about any tenements.”

“I'd like to check at Morton Row,” Dev said. “If he's not there, we'll be at a dead end. I suppose he'll report to the hospital as usual on Monday morning, but I hate to wait until then to talk to him.”

Officer Goodin handed the paper back to Mrs. Bowdoin, who took it and smiled, fluttering her lashes at him. “I hope and pray this was a help to you good gentlemen?”

“It was, Mrs. Bowdoin,” Officer Goodin assured her, bowing slightly. “As always, it was a pleasure to see you, ma'am.”

Dev and Shiloh made their courtliest good-byes and followed the policeman out. But at the door Shiloh turned back and asked, “By any chance, ma'am, do you remember the little girl's name?”

“I do, poor little mite. She was as plain as a board fence but with a pretty name. Solange. Solange Fortier. I understood she wasn't Dr. Pettijohn's blood daughter, for that is how he always introduced her.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” Shiloh joined Dev and the policeman as they mounted up and headed south. “If we'd had more time, I would have loved to have met darling Wilmer,” he told Officer Goodin.

“He's a tiny, dusty, prissy little bookkeeper who rarely says more than three words at a time,” Officer Goodin said with amusement. “And never in my life have I seen two people more devoted—Listen to me, I'm talking like Mrs. Bowdoin,” he rasped. “That happens every time we have a conversation.”

Shiloh chuckled. “She definitely leaves an imprint.”

Morton Row was five narrow, rather mean-looking row houses on Morton Street. The three men considered number 23, which was the one in the middle. The windows were thin and long, giving the facade of the units a furtive air. In the other four houses glimmers of light could be seen in the cracks of the drapes, where either a gas lamp was lit or a fire glowed. But there was no light at all in any of the windows of number 23.

Still, the men dismounted and went up the steps to bang the plain brass knocker. It made a raucous sound in the quiet night. They waited. Officer Goodin knocked again and called out, “Hello? Officer Goodin of the Metropolitan Police here. Open the door, please!”

They waited. No sound; no answer.

“Let's go in,” Shiloh said suddenly. “I think we should look around.”

Uneasily Officer Goodin said, “That would be breaking and entering, Mr. Irons-Winslow. We don't have good cause to enter the premises without permission.”

Dev turned to the policeman. “Shiloh has some instincts, and some extra sense, that I have come to respect, Officer Goodin. Would it be possible to go ask Mr. Grimes to let us in?”

The policeman considered this, then nodded slowly. “He's the owner of record, so if he gives us permission to go in, everything will be nice and legal. I'll feel better. I'll just go roust him out, gentlemen. It shouldn't take long because Grimes doesn't want to get on my bad side.” He went down the street to the first house, knocked, and a sliver of light shone as the door cracked open. He went in.

Shiloh said thoughtfully, “Dev? About the tetanus patient, are you thinking that maybe he got tetanus from the sutures?”

“You know about sutures made from horse intestines?” Dev asked in surprise. Sutures from horses were cheaper than those from sheep, but they were also flimsier, tended to dissolve while soaking in carbolic acid, and soaking them in chromic acid did little good in strengthening them. Also, it had been observed that more patients who were sewn up with horse sutures seemed to get tetanus, although no plausible explanation existed for this.

“Yeah, I know about them all too well,” Shiloh replied. “In the war we finally got down to using rotten horse sutures that wouldn't hardly hold together enough for one stitch. And then we were down to using threads we pulled from our clothes. But anyway, our men were dying from so many things that tetanus just seemed to be one more plague we had to suffer through. But I remember hearing the surgeons talk about the risk of tetanus when we still had the horse sutures. They figured, though, that taking the risk was better than using cotton or wool thread, which
always
led to gangrene.”

“That is true,” Dev said. “But you can be assured, Shiloh, that I would never consent to use horse-gut sutures in the hospital.”

“I know you wouldn't, Dev,” Shiloh said quietly. “But that's really why we're here, tonight, isn't it? And, Dev, I have to know—the tetanus patient, did you do the surgery?”

“No,” Dev answered evenly. “Cheney did.”

Shiloh's indrawn breath was ragged. “Okay,” he said finally. “Thanks for telling me. Does she know?”

“Not yet. At least, I don't think I explained enough when I left that she could figure it out.”

Down the street, the door of number 19 opened, and Officer Goodin and a short thick man came out. The short man stumped along the walk, followed by the tall gangly policeman. They would have been a comic sight under less grim circumstances.

Grimes came straight to number 23, stamped up the steps, unlocked the door, shoved it open, and turned back to stick his face close to Officer Goodin's. “He—ain't—there,” he pronounced with ill-tempered relish. He went down the steps and back toward his house without another look or word.

“Good night to you too, Grimes,” Goodin called out dryly.

Shiloh went in, took a cursory look around the dark foyer, then went straight into the parlor. He stopped at the door, searching all around. He went to the fireplace and knelt down. “A few weak embers,” he muttered to himself. He leaned over and touched a square of linen crumpled by the side of the hearth. His eyes narrowed, and he rose. Officer Goodin and Dev stood in the middle of the room watching him.