by Sara Donati
He opened his mouth and rubbed the temporomandibular joint, rotating his jaw as if he had just come from the dentist. A stiff neck, sore jaw, muscle spasms.
She said, “Open your mouth, Dr. Graham.”
“What? Why?”
“Humor me. Open your jaw.”
The muscles in his lower face began to spasm and with that the pieces came together in her mind.
“I’m going to send for an ambulance,” she said. “You go back to sleep for the time being.”
* * *
• • •
SHE CALLED SOPHIE out of the next room. “I have to get help. I’m going over to the Jefferson Market police station to call an ambulance. I’ll send officers over here to deal with—”
Sophie’s smile was grim. “Mr. Hobart? Mrs. Smithson? We don’t know who’s responsible.”
“Doesn’t matter at this moment. It’s Neill Graham in the next room, not Minnie Gillespie. Will you tell Mrs. Louden? I think he may have tetanus, probably from those rusty nails. Will you be all right?”
Sophie drew in a deep breath, and nodded.
* * *
• • •
AS SHE EXITED the shop Anna hesitated and then turned the sign on the door from Open to Closed. She resisted the urge to look into the apothecary, and instead crossed Sixth Avenue as quickly as traffic would allow, dodging a delivery cart and a cab whose driver shouted after her. The entrance to the police station was on the far side of the market, but she had been negotiating Jefferson Square for years and wove her way through crowds of shoppers without slowing.
At the entrance to the police station she paused and ran a hand over her hair to smooth it.
In the foyer a young police officer sat at a desk scowling at a pile of papers. He glanced up and returned to consideration of his papers, scratching at his patchy beard with ragged fingernails the color of tobacco.
“I want to speak to the sergeant in charge,” Anna said.
“Have a seat.” He pursed his mouth at what he was reading and refused to even look at her.
“The matter is crucial and time is of the essence.”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
With complete calm Anna said, “What is your name?”
Now he did raise his head, his gaze traveling up, tracing her shape until he reached her face. Calculating.
“I am Officer Lyne.”
“Officer Lyne, who has charge of the station today?”
One thin red brow peaked. “Maybe you should just tell me what it is you’re so worked up about.”
Anna gave him a grim smile, turned on her heel, and strode to the station door. By the time the boy at the desk realized he had been outmaneuvered, she was in the middle of the squad room.
“Hello!” Anna called. There were some fifteen men in the room, most of them at desks, most in uniform. They all turned in her direction.
“Would some of you fine officers like to be of assistance?” She looked from face to face. “Mrs. Charlotte Louden who has been missing for many weeks is right under your noses, in the apartment over Hobart’s Bookshop. There’s another prisoner as well. Someone needs to call for an ambulance.”
Lyne shouted, his voice cracking. “Sergeant Magee, this skirt pushed past me, I’ll just toss her out.”
Before Jack, Anna would not have been sure enough of herself to face down a room full of police, all of them scowling. Now she had enough experience to look for the one officer who need concern her, and in fact he was coming toward her, both hands held up toward Officer Lyne in a gesture you would use to slow down a toddler working himself up to a rant. The sergeant in charge was about fifty years old, solidly built, with a mustache that hung so low he might have had no mouth at all. And yet he spoke.
“Ah, Billy Lyne,” he said. “I should let you toss her out, just to see your phiz once Oscar Maroney gets finished wit you. Had you bothered to ask, you’d know that this lady is Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte’s wife.
“Mrs. Mezzanotte,” he said, touching his forehead. “I am Alexander Magee.” His tone lowered and his volume increased as he pivoted to look around himself. “Now I’m wondering why the rest of youse are standin there starin like a herd of buffalo. Madison, Corey, Banks, Klein, McMaster, get over to the bookshop double time, but be careful. Mrs. Louden needs rescuing, in case you didn’t hear.”
“Another doctor is still there with her,” Anna said. “My cousin, Dr. Sophie Savard.”
“Are you listening, boys? Step lively now. Dempsey, Curran, close off the apothecary—” He paused to glance at Anna. “I’m guessing this is what the detective sergeants would want.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “Exactly. Detain Mrs. Smithson if you can.”
“I believe we’re equal to it,” the sergeant said, and went on barking orders at the officers.
“Breckenridge, telegraph Mulberry, get the detective sergeants over here and find the nearest ambulance while you’re at it.”
He took a moment to scratch behind his ear and then turned back to Anna. “If I understand correctly, you are a doctor, Mrs. Mezzanotte?”
“Sergeant Magee,” Anna said. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head. “No need to thank me. Are you sure it’s Mrs. Louden over there?”
She nodded.
“And where is Mr. Hobart, may I ask?”
“He is in an opium haze, I think in the shop.”
The sergeant grunted. “Then if you would be kind enough to accompany me, I think Mrs. Louden will prefer to see you than me. I know I would.”
At the door he paused and cast a disgusted look in Billy Lyne’s direction. “You!” he barked. “Stay here and hold down the fort, ye bleedin tick. I suggest you use that time to contemplate your sins.”
* * *
• • •
THERE WAS CHAOS in the bookshop and the apothecary both by the time Anna made it across Sixth Avenue in the company of Sargeant Magee, and a crowd had already begun to gather on the street. Though Anna knew there was little chance of it, she looked for Jack and Oscar but found Detectives Larkin and Sainsbury instead at the top of the stair between the two doorways.
“Thank God you’re back,” Sainsbury said.
“She doesn’t want us in there,” Larkin told them. He cleared his throat. “She was, uh, clear about that.”
Anna drew in a deep breath. “I think a bath might help the situation immeasurably.”
In short order they had a rudimentary plan. They would clear the apartment so that Anna and Sophie could move freely between bedrooms and bath with Mrs. Louden. Anna asked that someone fetch her Gladstone bag from home, and sent one of the patrol officers to make sure they would have plenty of hot water.
* * *
• • •
WHILE ANNA WAS gone Sophie had searched out and found a pair of men’s shoes. Now she placed them in front of Mrs. Louden.
“I’m sorry, this is the best I could find. I’m sure you’d like to get out of this room.”
Mrs. Louden had a piercing gaze, her eyes bright blue even in the dimness of the room. She stared at Sophie as if she doubted her vision.
“Mrs. Louden?”
“Tell me first, who are you?”
“My name is Sophie—”
“Savard,” Mrs. Louden interrupted her. “You are the midwife Savard’s niece.”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “My father was her brother. How did you know?”
“I’ve heard about you every day for weeks. She couldn’t stop talking about you.”
Sophie’s throat was very dry, suddenly. “Who couldn’t stop talking about me?”
“Nora Graham.” Charlotte Louden shuddered. “Nora Smithson, I should say. I know your aunt. I came to the apothecary to ask for her address, so I could write to her. That’s all I wanted, was an a
ddress. And now—” She raised her arms and then dropped them. To Sophie it looked as if she was on the edge of losing control of herself. Of letting go of the rigid posture that had sustained her throughout this terrible experience.
She said, “Mrs. Louden, will you come out so I can tend to you? There’s a bath across the hall, and hot water.”
“I only wanted the midwife’s address,” Charlotte Louden said. Her voice had gone hoarse. “If I had thought to ask Leontine for it before she left, none of this would have happened.”
Sophie made a soft humming sound, the voice she used with children who came to her bloody and beaten.
“I understand,” she said. “But now you’re safe. You can come out. Come out and I’ll tend to you.”
She knew better than to make promises. If things had gone well, Mrs. Smithson was or would soon be in police custody. If not, Mrs. Louden had every right to be anxious.
“I don’t want to see anyone,” Mrs. Louden said to Sophie. “Not yet. Not today. Not tomorrow. I wish I had realized that Amelie had a niece who was studying medicine.”
Sophie tried to smile at her, but managed only a grimace. “I am a physician, as you have said. So please let me do my work and examine you. I will be as quick as possible.”
Sophie assisted Charlotte Louden to the bath, reminding herself that Mrs. Louden needed calm competence and compassion more than she required liniment or tea. There was no place for curiosity here; she must keep her questions to herself.
With great care she helped Mrs. Louden out of her tattered clothing and into the bath as it filled with hot water. Every vertebra, every rib, the hip and shoulder bones, all were plain to see. Charlotte Louden had been slender, and now she was skeletal. But there were no bruises, no signs that she had been restrained. No needle marks. If she was pregnant, it was a matter of weeks and not months.
The questions multiplied, but none of them could be put into words. If Mrs. Louden began to speak of her own accord, she would listen. Until then she did what she could. She found a linen closet, towels and washcloths, soap, and sat on a stepstool beside the bath ready to help when she was called on.
Charlotte Louden was as stoic as any soldier. Her hands might tremble but she used the washcloth to scrub herself clean, bent forward to let Sophie pour more water over her head, and worked soap through the mats and snarls. Her breath came steadier and slower, the warm water doing its work.
A light knocking at the door so startled her that she half rose out of the bath and then settled back with a gasp.
“All is well,” Sophie said calmly. “It’s the other Dr. Savard, my cousin.” She went out in the hall.
“The police are waiting downstairs, and they’ve been to the apothecary,” she said. “Nora Smithson is in custody.”
“Mr. Hobart?”
She glanced away. “He was in the cellar. Dead. I’m going to ride in the ambulance with Graham.”
“How advanced is the tetanus?”
“I don’t know. He might have four or five days. At any rate he shouldn’t be alone, and Jack and Oscar aren’t here yet.”
“You are hoping for a deathbed confession.”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to miss it if one is forthcoming. But my guess is that we’ll listen to him trying to put together an alibi for his sister.”
“Mrs. Louden would be able to counter anything he comes up with,” Sophie said. “I need to get back to her. Tell the police to stay away until I fetch them.”
* * *
• • •
OUT OF HER bath Charlotte Louden was suddenly talkative, in the way that patients who are relieved of severe pain will turn to a nurse or doctor and spill out their gratitude.
She said, “Your aunt was my salvation so many times over the years. I doubt I would have survived past my thirtieth birthday without her. It’s rare to find someone who is both very skilled and truly compassionate.”
She was stretched out on a couch in the parlor under a quilt, dressed in an old-fashioned shift and quilted petticoat Sophie had found in a trunk.
“Aunt Amelie will be glad to hear it,” Sophie said.
The slender face, scrubbed clean, turned toward her. “She’s alive? Nora Smithson told me she was dead.”
“I’m sure she told you many things, and I’m sure most of those things were false. My aunt is alive and well.”
“That is very good news,” Mrs. Louden said. “I suspected that Mrs. Smithson was lying about her. Or maybe I was just hoping.”
Sophie reached carefully for the right wording. “So you came asking about Amelie’s address?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “Yes. I wanted to write to her. You see, I have a daughter—” Her voice cracked. “I should have known she was lying about Minnie.” She took a sip of the tea Sophie had made for her. “My daughter and my daughter-in-law and nieces are all married, and all increasing as quickly as their husbands can arrange it. There are rumors about a modern and better way to—” She hesitated.
“Prevent conception?”
She nodded. “A Dutch cap? Is that the right term? I thought your aunt could tell me about it, where to go, a reputable doctor or midwife who could be trusted. So I came to the apothecary to ask for her address and—” Her voice wavered.
“You don’t have to talk about this now,” Sophie said. “Later the police detectives will want to hear all the details, but now you should try to rest before your family comes for you.”
The look on her face was nothing that Sophie could have predicted: shock bordering on revulsion.
“But I can’t tell the police why I was here,” she said. “I couldn’t say I was here about—that. Word would get out.”
Sophie took a moment to school her expression. “Then what will you tell them?”
She threw back the quilt and struggled to sit up. “Why do I have to tell them anything? Can’t I just say I don’t remember how I ended up here? The shock has robbed me of my memory, that must make sense to them.”
“Mrs. Louden.” Sophie struggled for the right tone. “If you claim you don’t remember, Mrs. Smithson will claim she never realized you were here at all. Do you like the idea of her going about her business, looking for the next woman she can lock away?”
Honest surprise crossed her face. “Another woman? She would do this again? What makes you think that?”
“Why did she do it this time?” Sophie’s tone had sharpened, and Mrs. Louden pulled back from her a little.
“When I asked about your aunt, she thought I wanted an—illegal operation. She said she was going to keep me here until my child was born.”
Sophie had to clear her throat. “Are you with child, Mrs. Louden?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “No, I’m not, but she thought I was. I tried to tell her I wasn’t, but she wouldn’t hear it.” She glanced away. “So I’m not the first? You’re telling me there have been others?” The idea seemed to shock her.
“She has done this before, and more than once.”
“If she has done this before, why didn’t the other women give evidence, wouldn’t—”
“They did not survive,” Sophie interrupted her. “Not one of them.”
The older woman’s hands stilled in her lap. “If that’s true, why was I spared?” Her gaze shifted back and forth across the room. Sophie watched as she tried to make sense of it all, and then, slowly, as she came to a conclusion.
“There was another doctor,” she said. “A man who came when I had been here for four days. I heard them arguing. He sounded very drunk. I was gagged, then, and I couldn’t call out. I think he must have been insisting that she let me go, but she found a way to stop his interfering. Do you know who that man was? Was he in the next room?”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “It was her brother, Neill Graham. A physician and surgeon.”
So
phie thought of Nicola Visser, and wondered how much Neill Graham might know of that sad affair. If her death had made him act to stop his sister, with catastrophic results.
Mrs. Louden drew in a shaky breath. “If she imprisoned her own brother she is truly insane. In that case it won’t matter if I keep silent about why I was here. Surely she’ll be committed to an institution no matter what I have to say.”
Sophie sat back, at a loss for words.
“Doesn’t that make sense?” Mrs. Louden went on, a note of panic in her voice. “There’s no reason for me to bring more notoriety down on my family, is there? Not if her other crimes are enough to put her away. Surely you must see that.”
There was a soft knock at the door, and she started. “Who is that? Who could that be? If it’s the police you must send them away.”
“I’ll go see, but wait one moment,” Sophie said as she began to get up. “Think about this, please. Dr. Graham saved your life, but it may have cost him his own.”
She sat again. “What do you mean?”
“He injured himself on the nails and he has a very serious infection. One that is almost always fatal.”
The knocking was louder now. “Charlotte?”
“That’s Jeremy,” Mrs. Louden said.
“Please reconsider talking to the detectives.”
“Charlotte? Charlotte, answer me. Are you in there?”
“Just a moment,” Sophie called, her gaze fixed on Charlotte Louden, who gave her a sad but very firm shake of the head.
She leaned forward and touched Sophie’s hand. “I want to go home now. Thank you for your help.”
And what was there for Sophie to do but swallow her anger and frustration? She had sworn an oath that prevented her from telling anyone what she had learned from Mrs. Smithson, and was bound to keep silent. It was outrageous and she could do nothing about it.
