‘Bowden knows you have been ill?’
‘Yes, he does. I asked Mrs Wimbush to send a wire to the Medical School three days ago.’
‘Any clue what he could want other than you back in your laboratory?’ he asked.
‘No.’
He rose and waved his arm for me to sit. Standing next to the fireplace, he spoke: ‘Anna, trust yourself in this as I trust you. You are an excellent actress. In fact, the best I know. You are intelligent, observant, and you can adapt to any situation. Bowden knows you are sick, so he will not be surprised to notice you are not yourself. You can pretend to feel weaker than you really are. Lay in bed when he calls, close your eyes often, breathe heavily, you know the game.’
So assuring was his speech, I started to believe him. With a small grin he added: ‘Bowden can impossibly be half as sharp as you.’
I lifted my hands then and held them parallel to the floor. They shook severely.
‘I can’t. Not today,’ my voice was about to break and he must have noticed it.
‘Hum…’ he grumbled, ‘that serious.’
A moment later he clapped his hands together, told me not to worry myself, to go to bed, and find some rest.
‘What is the plan?’ I asked his back, which was almost out the door now.
He turned and stuck his face through the open crack, produced a boyish smile, and answered: ‘Holdup is the plan. Bowden will find it impossible to pay you a visit tonight’
The door snapped shut and I found myself trusting Holmes without detailed explanations. How odd.
Chapter Seventeen
I was lying on the cold ground on a large and empty field, unable to move a muscle. A tall man, clad in a black robe, his face hidden by a hood, towered over me. I knew him. He had finally come for me. A scythe shone in the moonlight. Slowly, it fell. He had cut my feet off. I screamed. The scythe fell again, and again, and again, cutting my legs into slices. I screamed and begged him to cut my head off next.
I opened my eyes. A cold and wet blanket stuck to my body. Day broke.
~~~
I stared into the glass and nodded at my own reflection, trying to convince myself that I was able to face the world of Dr Anton Kronberg again.
~~~
It took Anton a considerable time to get dressed, walk down onto the street and find a hansom to London Medical School. He wiped his moist forehead as he sat down in the cab and condemned his weakness. The timing was more than inconvenient.
He found his two assistants in the lab, preparing a fresh batch of media. Everyone adhered to etiquette: Anton bade them a good morning and they enquired about his health.
However, Anon noticed the surveillance had fortified. He struck a match on the table and lit the Bunsen burner in front of him. How much time would he have left? he wondered.
Using a magnifying glass, he inspected the colonies that had formed on the solid media. The Petri dishes clinked quietly while he handled them. Behind him, his two assistants were silent and he could feel their stares boring into his back.
He could see a vast diversity of bacterial colonies that had formed under both anaerobic and aerobic conditions. He would need a lot of mice to test these on. Anton turned to face his two companions.
‘Mr Strowbridge, we will need at least one hundred mice to test these germs. I need you to procure them immediately. And supplement the cages and the fodder, please,’ said Anton with a thin voice that was meant to reflect his weakened state.
Strowbridge nodded and left, while Bonsell stayed behind and moved a bit closer to Anton, compensating for the lack of his colleague and backup. Several minutes after Strowbridge had left, Anton heard a faint footfall in the hallway. It sounded like Bowden. Meanwhile Bonsell had squeezed himself a little too close to Anton.
He lowered his voice: ‘Mr Bonsell, are you resistant to cholera?’ He held a slender iron lance into the Bunsen burner’s flame, just above the hottest blue.
‘I know you are supposed to keep an eye on me, Bonsell.’ He pushed the glowing lance into the solid media. The hiss made Bonsell jump. ‘Be careful, I can get rough should you hinder my work!’ growled Anton at last.
‘Dr Kronberg!’ cried Bonsell in disbelief and took a step back, possibly afraid Anton would drive the smouldering lance into his hands if he wouldn’t keep them off the lab bench.
‘I mean it, Bonsell. The way you handled that woman was most unprofessional,’ he barked using up his feeble breath. ‘You left a trail of highly contagious faeces that contaminated my entire laboratory. Or how do you think did I contract cholera? And worst of all - you risked a contamination of the valuable pure cultures. Your careless actions threw back our work for more than a week!’
Anton had risen to his feet and his face was now very close to Bonsell’s. ‘Should you get too close to me while I work with my cultures, or should you so much as think of touching my work, I will break your arm!’
‘Well, well, Dr Kronberg,’ interrupted Bowden with a snarl. He had just entered the lab and must have overheard them. Anton was satisfied.
‘Mr Bonsell, if you could leave us alone for a moment,’ said Bowden and positioned himself to Anton’s right, his arms folded over his chest, eyes black like the fetid mud on the Thames’ bank. Anton sat back down and let Bowden tower over him.
‘Dr Kronberg, how far did you advance with the cholera germs?’
‘I have isolates that need to be characterised and identified. Strowbridge is getting mice this very moment. I’ll use them to test the cultures and in no more than five days time we should be able to tell which ones are the cholera germs. After that I can grow the amount you require.’
Bowden nodded and took a step closer. Anton felt like drowning in the dark pool of Bowden’s eyes.
‘How come you contracted cholera? Shouldn’t you, of all, know how to avoid it?’
‘One would expect so, yes,’ noted Anton. ‘It was necessary, nonetheless.’ He let Bowden digest his cryptic statement.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Bowden. No surprise, thought Anton and explained: ‘My two assistants have brought a dying woman here and smeared a trail of her contagious faeces from the entrance all though my laboratory. I had two choices – I fume the room with concentrated acid and sacrifice my tetanus cultures or I scrub the floor. I chose the latter.’
‘You could have told them,’ Bowden jerked his head towards the door, ‘to do it for you.’
‘Excuse me, Dr Bowden, but did they not prove unreliable?’
Bowden’s eyes narrowed and he considered what he had learned for a long moment. Then he leaned towards Anton and rasped: ‘What, in your opinion, should we be doing with the isolated cholera germs?’
Anton gazed into the flame. In contrast to all other fires, the Bunsen burner’s flame was perfectly steady. He knew his answer would decide whether he survived this day or not.
He swallowed the possibility of a very short life span and answered calmly: ‘I can only guess, Dr Bowden. But considering the fact that you abducted a cholera victim must raise the impression you are a man without scruples.’
Bowden’s arteries on both sides of his neck pulsated visibly and his face started to flush.
Anton smiled then and added admiringly: ‘I like that.’
The colour drained from Bowden’s face again and Anton spoke softly: ‘You are well aware that my neck is already in your noose. I euthanized the woman. That might be interpreted as manslaughter, but more likely as murder. How often do I have to prove my trustworthiness, Dr Bowden?’ Anton tried to keep most of the rage out of his voice, just a little remained audible, to let Bowden taste his impatience.
‘I repeat my question: What are we doing then?’ hissed Bowden and Anton saw the door of opportunity open.
‘Test both, germs and vaccines, on human subjects,’ he answered coolly.
Bowden’s face relaxed, but there was still a trace of doubt in his eyes. Anton took a deep plunge into the black and let his imagination go ram
pant. He leaned forward and said in a conspiring tone: ‘Considering that the Kaiser plans a war against England, I would try to develop highly aggressive strains of pathogenic bacteria and use them in warfare.’
It was an insane idea, a wild guess, something to press the point that Anton had absolutely no scruples.
It showed the desired effect - Bowden was visibly blown away.
Chapter Eighteen
Two days later, Anton and Stark met with Mr Standrincks, chairman of the Holborn Union board of guardians. The latter was to distribute contracts in all of Holborn’s workhouses, which allowed the testing of novel vaccines on inmates. The Club had prepared leaflets that ought to be signed by willing men, women, and children to take part in vaccine test trails. Most of them couldn’t read well enough and thus missed the small clause - it allowed the Club to inject active bacteria any time of their choosing to test the efficiency of immunisation. None of the paupers knew they were about to sign their own death sentence - for the pitiful price of two sovereigns.
As the poorest of London were to receive money in exchange for a small prick in their biceps, the Club expected a large number of volunteers to choose from. After their meeting in Standrincks’s office, the three men left with a cab to inspect Fulham Road’s workhouse. The selection process would start tomorrow.
~~~
The vase was waiting on his coffee table when Anton returned to his flat in the evening. He stood frozen in his doorway and only reluctantly moved into his room while gazing into every corner to find his visitor. But the room was empty.
Anton didn’t dare touch the vase, not even to toss it out of the small window. He knew too well what it meant and he wouldn’t agree.
Only five minutes later two sharp raps announced his arrival and the tall man entered without waiting for Anton’s invitation.
Standing at the door he said simply: ‘I saw you today, Anna, needless to say that I want you to select me.’
And my guard fell, so soon. I shuddered.
‘No,’ I breathed, turning away from him to face the window.
I heard his footsteps approaching. ‘I was under the impression that we are working together. How else can I appear in court to testify?’
‘The tests are legal. We give out contracts for signed consent,’ my voice reflected back into the room. The glass I had spoken to had gotten cloudy.
Holmes was quiet for a moment and I turned around. My hands held on to each other behind my back.
Contemplating, he rubbed his forehead.
‘I am sorry. I wished…’ I trailed off and looked at his threadbare shoes. ‘I wished I could end this now.’ How useless these words were, I thought.
He ignored my remark and asked: ‘Does Bowden trust you now?’
‘No. Not entirely at least. But I do hope he believes I’m worse than anyone in the Club.’ I avoided looking into his eyes.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘It is a long story,’ I said evasively and added: ‘I’ll tell you when this is over.’
‘You will choose me for the trial, Anna,’ he ordered.
‘Forget it.’
‘You will,’ he growled, ‘and you will also have to find a way to avoid killing dozens of people.’
Stunned I looked up into his face.
‘What do you think am I doing, Sherlock? Do I look like I enjoy myself?’
‘Hum… maybe you do,’ he said taking three strides forward to pick at my newly tailored waist coat. ‘Well made, wool and silk. Quite expensive I dare say.’
I slapped his hand away. ‘You are an idiot! That was a weak attempt. You need to come up with something better to make me hate you so much that I send you off to get injected with tetanus. What the hell are you thinking?’
His grey eyes met mine and he said quietly: ‘I’d very much prefer if you’d not have romantic feelings for me.’
What a flood of emotion he caused with that one sentence! Frantically I searched for words. But all I could squeeze out was a simple: ‘Me, too.’
~~~
I was sitting on our cherry tree, my father calling up to me: ‘Anna! You will come down now!’
‘Forget it! I will not wear that dress! It is so ugly! And I will surely not go visit that bloody man on the cross!’
I woke up laughing, thinking of my father’s final attempt to get me into church. Then, I noticed I hadn’t been laughing for weeks. Quickly, the happy memory faded.
~~~
Stark and Anton stood in the large dining hall of Fulham Road’s workhouse. The vaulted ceilings were reminiscent of a church, but the odour wasn’t. The aroma of stale porridge and sweat, mould and dust were carried along by the cold air chafing frigid stone walls.
The inmates had dressed in their best attire for the occasion: women with clean linen dresses, white aprons, and neat caps. Men wearing styles of greater variety – some from the shoemaker store with leather aprons, heavy trousers and boots; some from the farm with equally sturdy clothes, but all were exceptionally clean. They wanted to look appealing, noticed Anton with a heavy heart while watching them lining up to sign the consent.
Anton and Stark selected more than fifty subjects from the large mass. They should suffice for the first tests. The day before, Anton had convinced Bowden that he’d be the one with the final word in the selection process. He wanted strong and healthy adults. No children, no old or undernourished people, no pregnant or nursing women. He argued that the mortality rate may be higher in these groups. Dead paupers must raise suspicion, Anton had said, and Bowden believed him.
He could see the tall man getting closer with each pauper Anton examined. For more than half an hour did Anton avoid the tall man’s gaze until he finally stood before him, holding the signed contract in his outstretched hand.
Anton fingered the tall man’s biceps and ribs, pulled the lower lids down to check the colour of the eyeballs and said: ‘Not this one’, to Stark, without ever addressing the man in front of him.
‘Why? He looks comparatively healthy,’ was Stark’s surprised answer.
‘Too old and undernourished, I will not use him,’ said Anton, shoving the tall man to the side and shouting: ‘Next one!’
He knew he could expect a visitor tonight.
Chapter Nineteen
The only man I ever loved lay next to me. He gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and…
I opened my eyes. It was still dark.
~~~
The tall man had not appeared last night, but Anton didn’t think too much about it. All he had done was to refuse an order.
But he didn’t see him at Fulham’s nor in the other two workhouses they inspected. Maybe he was disappointed and didn’t want to talk to him, Anton hoped. But after yet another night, he got worried and placed the vase into the window.
No one came and he knew something went wrong.
~~~
…and said: ‘I must leave now,’ his smile was fading.
‘Why?’
‘Death is coming for me.’
‘I will come with you.’
I sucked in the cold night air and squeezed my eyes shut. Shall the water stay inside and drown my wretched soul.
~~~
‘Strowbridge, I need to talk to Dr Bowden. Send him a wire, if you please,’ ordered Anton the moment he walked into his laboratory in the early morning.
Strowbridge nodded obediently and left. There had been a recent change of climate in the lab. His two assistants were friendlier and more cooperative than ever. But the surveillance was still under operation.
Now only Bonsell was left in the lab and he was the less observant of the two. Carefully, Anton took the beakers containing the liquid pure cultures of cholera germs and walked them over to his workbench. He would need both, active and heat inactivated bacteria for the tests on human subjects. His assistants had already sterilised four fresh beakers for him. He would seal them now for tomorrow’s use. He knew what to do. He had done the same with
the tetanus germs.
‘Mr Bonsell, would you give me a hand?’ he asked in a friendly manner.
Bonsell obediently walked over to Anton, who sat in front of the Bunsen burner. All four beakers were standing next to the flame. Bonsell eyed the liquid cultures.
‘Be careful, they are active,’ said Anton with a low voice. A sideway glance at Bonsell’s hands told him that his words had the desired effect - they were shaking slightly.
‘Take these empty Petri dishes, cover the two beakers with them, and place the beakers into the water bath. It needs exactly 80°C for exactly two hours. I will prepare the active ones in the meantime.’
Bonsell nodded. He did not know that the process of vaccine production would require exactly twenty minutes of heat inactivation, balancing the killing of germs while leaving cell surface proteins mostly intact. A risky undertaking, as the cultures were to be injected into humans. Any surviving germ could cause an infection and that hazard was very real, given the short time of heat treatment. But Anton made sure the cultures would be boiled to death and no life could be threatened.
Bonsell’s hands were shaking.
‘Pull yourself together, Bonsell! The germs are in a bottle, they are not going to jump at you.’
Bonsell’s nervous eyes shot to Anton and back to the flasks before he took the Petri dishes and placed them carefully on the beakers’ mouths. The liquid shook, and the glass dishes made little clonking noises as he carried them over to the water bath. As soon as Bonsell had turned his back, Anton started to count down from twenty.
The Devil's Grin - A Crime Novel featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes (Kronberg Crimes) Page 14
