The Devil's Breath

by Tessa Harris

  Lydia’s eyes widened. “What has he done?”

  Again the coroner balked and shook his head. “I am not entirely sure, but Sir Henry Thorndike called on me this morning. Sir Montagu intends to implicate the doctor in murder and have him arrested. Silkstone is in grave danger and I have to go to London this instant to warn him.”

  Lydia stepped forward and clasped Sir Theodisius by the arm. “What will happen to him?”

  The coroner, however, was not forthcoming. “I have told you as much as I know. I must be away.”

  “Then may God grant you safe passage, sir,” she said, realizing it was no use pressing him further.

  Sir Theodisius’s thick lips stretched into a smile and he patted her hand. “He will come back safe and sound,” he told her, even though he knew he could promise nothing. Lydia watched as he turned to haul his corpulent frame back into the carriage with a little help from his liveryman.

  With a crack of the whip he was off once more. But just as the coach rattled off down the drive, Eliza walked down the steps with Richard, who was holding her hand tightly. Hearing footsteps, Lydia turned toward them.

  “Who was that big gentleman, Mamma?” asked the little boy, looking up at Lydia.

  It was only then that she realized. The man whom she had come to regard as a father-figure over the past few months had been and gone from Boughton Hall without even meeting her long-lost son.

  The carriage ride to the caves passed quickly enough. The haze still veiled the rayless sun, but only the very tops of the hills were now obscured. Lydia sat uneasily, remembering Sir Theodisius’s words and thinking of Thomas. She feigned an eagerness to point out to her son all the places of interest on the way. They drove through Brandwick and up onto the Wycombe road and all the while the boy peered through a chink in the thick leather curtains, eagerly taking in the sights of the countryside. Even the few sheep that were left to graze the parched grass caused much excitement. But it was toward the end of the journey that an odd-looking creature that was not quite a donkey and not quite a horse caused young Richard the most wonderment. They came upon it as it grazed on a patch of grass near the entrance to the caves. Wearing a saddle and a bridle, it looked up at the sound of the carriage, pricking its ears and chewing slowly, but its rider was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 45

  Thomas was to be joined by Dr. Carruthers in the laboratory early the next morning. The poisonous gas that had almost killed Franklin had dispersed, leaving a light coating of sulfur on all the surfaces. Thomas ran a damp cloth over the tops of sills, ledges, and tables to remove the deposits. He then lit a fire in the grate.

  From outside he could hear the telltale tapping of the old doctor’s stick as he crossed the courtyard. Within a few moments he had negotiated the threshold and was sniffing the air as he walked in.

  “Someone left the window open.”

  The acrid smell had faded, but Dr. Carruthers’s sharp sense of smell could always detect even the slightest whiff of poison in the air.

  “Yes, sir. Does it trouble you?”

  He shook his head. “No, besides I have this,” he said excitedly. “If the fumes are too much for me I simply sniff!” He was holding up a cane that Thomas had not seen before. It had an ivory top. “Look here,” ordered the old doctor, and he flicked open the lid to reveal a sweet-smelling potpourri of herbs and petals.

  “I was gifted it in the will of an old colleague.”

  Thomas remembered his own father possessing something similar. “A physician’s cane,” he remarked. “Useful for preventing contagion.”

  “Precisely, or just wafting away these unpleasant fumes,” replied Dr. Carruthers, smiling and tapping his way across the floor.

  “So you are happy to proceed?” asked Thomas, watching the old doctor ease himself onto a stool by him.

  “Of course I am. We must proceed. This air is killing scores of people, young fellow! Coachmen are dropping like flies in the streets, I’m told. So, you need to tell me all you know about the properties of this accursed fog and then we shall put our heads together. What say you to that?”

  Although Thomas had wanted to deal with the contents of his phials in relation to the murders first, he could hardly argue with Dr. Carruthers, so he recapped his experiments at Boughton that proved the poisonous air was sulfurous.

  “It seems that those who have been exposed to it longest suffer most,” he told his mentor, adding, “but those who are predisposed to asthma are struck down much quicker.”

  At the word asthma the old anatomist frowned. “Interesting,” he said, stroking his chin. “Have you tried atropa belladonna?”

  “Belladonna?” repeated Thomas. He pictured the delicate flower with its purplish-blue petals. The locals called it deadly nightshade. It was a common sight in the Oxfordshire hedgerows, among the cow parsley and the foxgloves, where he had seen it growing himself.

  “I know of the plant,” he replied. “But I thought it was used to treat gastric ailments.”

  Dr. Carruthers nodded. “Indeed, it can be, but given in the right dosage, it can also ease breathing in asthmatics. It may help.”

  Thomas knew that the plant’s properties were many and various. Cleopatra had used it to make the pupils of her eyes larger, and therefore more alluring to men. He also knew that merely ingesting a handful of berries from the plant could easily kill a grown man. Yet he was prepared to bow to his mentor’s encyclopedic knowledge. After all, since nothing else was having any real effect, there was very little to lose.

  “I assume you have some ready prepared?” said Thomas, already on his way to the storeroom, lighted candle in hand.

  “Third shelf on the left, I think you’ll find.”

  Sure enough, there it was: a small porcelain jar marked “Ex. Bellad.” Thomas picked it up and peered inside at the powdered petals that looked like dried wood chippings.

  “May I suggest we mix this with a little turmeric, sir? That seems to ease the breathing, too,” ventured Thomas, thinking of his original formula.

  “Yes. Yes,” came the reply.

  So Thomas produced his notebook and pencil and went back and forth to the storeroom fetching jars and vessels. He pounded and ground with the pestle and blended the powder with honey and oil of vitriol until finally he had produced a mixture that was ready to test.

  “Now all we need is a willing patient,” said Dr. Carruthers. Thomas smiled. “I know of one very close at hand, sir.”

  “You do?”

  “Franklin.”

  “That wretched rat of yours?”

  Ignoring the jibe, Thomas went to fetch the rodent from the cellar. “I will be back in a moment,” he called.

  He found Franklin still breathing, but barely alive. Lifting him gently out of the crate, he brought him back into the laboratory and set him down on the table, still lying on top of the rag.

  “Now, all we need to do is work out the quantity of the formula appropriate to his weight and then trial the physick on him,” he told the old doctor, who seemed distinctly unimpressed.

  “I suppose ’tis worth a try,” he said with an unconvinced shrug.

  Thomas weighed the rodent in his scales, then after making calculations on his notepad, he measured out the relative weights of the ingredients. Within a few minutes, he had reduced the mixture to the required strength.

  “Now for the moment of truth,” he said, drawing up the liquid into a pipette.

  The old anatomist nodded his head. “I’ve heard the ingredient can work very quickly,” he ventured.

  Holding the rat’s jaws open with one hand, Thomas emptied the contents of the pipette into its mouth, then closed it shut to make sure he swallowed the physick. The creature barely protested. Thomas then laid Franklin down in the cage, on the piece of rag, to wait for the formula to take effect.

  “Now, sir,” said Thomas, opening up his case. “For our next task.”

  “The samples?”

  “Yes. I need to i
dentify the contents of these phials.” He brought out the glass tubes, each holding small flakes of material, none of them bigger than a grain of mustard.

  The microscope lay under a small sheet in a nearby cupboard, thankfully protected from the sulfur dust. Thomas handled it with a renewed reverence and set it down gently on the work surface. Carefully withdrawing a flake from the first phial with a pair of tweezers, he placed it on a glass slide and examined it under the lens. It was the sample taken from Lady Thorndike’s wound. A network of tiny woody veins appeared before his eyes.

  “What do you see, young fellow?” asked Dr. Carruthers eagerly.

  “ ’Tis as I thought, sir,” said Thomas, sitting upright. “A piece of a leaf.”

  “And this was found in the hair of the first victim?”

  “Yes, sir. Lady Thorndike had been underwater for several hours, so its properties may have changed.”

  “Then let us look at one that may be easier to identify.”

  Thomas concurred. The samples he retrieved from Gabriel Lawson’s wound could have been tainted by the smoke, but those he had taken from the dead children would have remained, to his knowledge, unsullied.

  Looking at the specimen from the dead girl’s head wound, he saw the familiar cells of a leaf structure under the microscope. “Another type of leaf,” he told Dr. Carruthers.

  “Children play among trees and plants all the time,” he replied, obviously unimpressed.

  Thomas nodded. “Yes, sir, but this leaf material appears desiccated.”

  He brought out his second sample, this time from the boy. Again he put it on a glass slide and examined it under the microscope. Once more he discovered a leaf structure similar to the type found in the girl’s hair. It was edged with a dark stain of blood.

  “Another leaf, sir,” replied Thomas.

  “What about its smell?” asked Dr. Carruthers.

  Thomas lifted the specimen off the slide with his tweezers and sniffed. “I cannot detect any scent,” he replied, but knowing how keenly his mentor’s sense of smell had developed, he wafted it under his nose. “Can you?” he asked.

  Carruthers’s nostrils twitched. He paused for a moment, frowning, then said: “Yes, there is a faint whiff of . . . of rue, if I’m not mistaken.” His face broke into a triumphant smile.

  “Rue?” repeated Thomas.

  “Yes. Also known as the herb of grace.” Dr. Carruthers was chuckling now. The young doctor did not, however, share his mentor’s enthusiasm. He remained silent.“What is it, young fellow? Have we not identified the leaf?”

  Thomas sighed. “If I’m not very much mistaken, rue is an herb used in exorcisms.” He had neglected to tell Dr. Carruthers the full story of the children’s unhappy last few hours on earth. The presence of the herb proved nothing. He remembered the Reverend Lightfoot sprinkling a handful of it over each child to symbolize repentance.

  “And this?” Thomas offered him a sample from Lawson’s head wound.

  Another sniff. “This is more difficult,” said the old doctor, tilting his head to one side, his nose still twitching. “Let me see, now. ’Tis sharp, and unpleasant.”

  Thomas watched, holding his breath.

  “I have it!” exclaimed Dr. Carruthers, clicking his fingers. “Wormwood.”

  It was an herb that was familiar to Thomas. “I have used it to treat fevers and indigestion,” he remarked.

  “And in England ’tis sometimes used in beer instead of hops,” added the old anatomist.

  “So we have a variety of herbs,” Thomas said, trying to make sense of their findings so far. He recalled sniffing what may have been rosemary in Lawson’s hair, too. “But there does not seem to be any connection between them.”

  This time he brought out the phial containing what appeared to be a shard of silver, no wider than a woman’s fingernail. “I found this fragment of what looks like silver in Lady Thorndike’s wound, too. I shall try the magnetic test first,” he said, running a magnet over the sample. It was not attracted. “No,” he muttered.

  “So it is silver?” asked Dr. Carruthers.

  “No doubt,” repeated Thomas. “But the fragment is so thin, it may well be from a comb or some hair adornment.” He leaned forward, pondering until the silence was broken.

  The old doctor suddenly turned his head. “What’s that sound?” he asked.

  Thomas put down the magnet and listened. A strange scratching was coming from the corner.

  “Franklin,” he cried. He had been so preoccupied testing the samples that he had quite forgotten about the rat. Hurrying over to the cage, he was delighted to see the creature stirring from the makeshift bed.

  “He seems much restored,” he told Dr. Carruthers, unfastening the lock and bringing out the rat.

  Placing Franklin on the work surface by Dr. Carruthers, Thomas began to examine him. Straightaway it was obvious that his labored breathing had returned to normal. He sat up on his back legs and sniffed at the air, bringing a smile to his master’s face.

  “If the formula helps Franklin, there is a strong chance ’twill work on humans, too,” ventured Thomas.

  Dr. Carruthers clapped his hands. “Indeed,” he agreed enthusiastically. The excitement, however, was short-lived. From somewhere outside came a commotion. Mistress Finesilver was shouting.

  “No! What do you think you are doing?” Her shrill voice could be heard in the courtyard, mingling with the sound of heavy footsteps and men’s grunts.

  “What goes on?” asked Dr. Carruthers, his head wheeling ’round, trying to make sense of the hubbub.

  Thomas hurried toward the door just in time to see it flung open, almost catching him in the face. Two thickset men stood on the threshold, one of them trying to fend off Mistress Finesilver’s thrashing hands. The other glowered at Thomas. He wore the insignia of a court official on his coat.

  “Tell the woman to stop it, or she’ll be coming with us, too,” he barked.

  Thomas could see that the men meant business. “Mistress Finesilver,” he called. She turned, her face flushed with exertion. “Please,” he said and she stilled her arms and stood aside.

  “Dr. Thomas Silkstone?” asked the same man. He was shorter and less brutish than the other.

  “I am he,” replied Thomas, squaring up to the inquisitor.

  “I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Lady Julia Thorndike,” he informed him.

  Thomas’s jaw dropped. “On whose authority?” he cried. “Let me see.”

  The law officer handed him the paper, a smug look on his face. Thomas scanned it. “But this cannot be!” he said, shaking his head incredulously.

  Dr. Carruthers tapped his way over to the door and now stood beside the young doctor. “You are accused of murder?” he asked anxiously.

  “This is a warrant for my arrest,” replied Thomas, snatching the paper from the officer’s hand and glancing at it. “And ’tis signed by Rupert Marchant.”

  “Marchant?” repeated Dr. Carruthers. “Is he not the . . . ?”

  Thomas’s mind flashed to Sir Theodisius’s arrogant nephew, who had not only hoodwinked one of his patients but also sought to seduce Lydia, too.

  “Yes, the conniving lawyer who swindled Charles Byrne for a supposed King’s Pardon. It would seem he’s been made a magistrate.” Thomas’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  “Enough!” cried the official, “or I’ll have you for contempt of court, too.” At his signal, the burly constable stepped forward with a set of shackles and grabbed hold of Thomas by the wrist.

  “There is no need for force,” protested the young doctor. “I can prove I am innocent of the charge.”

  The official let out a sharp laugh. “That’s what they all say!”

  “What’s happening?” pleaded Dr. Carruthers, standing helplessly behind Thomas.

  “Have no fear, sir. Everything will be all right,” Thomas assured him, glad that he could not see him in chains.

  “But if you are taking him to
jail, at least allow the man his coat!” wailed the old doctor, stepping forward with it.

  The official looked at him, then at Thomas, and shrugged. “Very well,” he conceded.

  Thomas was a little surprised by his mentor’s request, but as soon as he took the coat, he understood. The old man tapped the pocket lightly. At least the new formula would not be lost.

  Lydia had settled Richard down on his new bed in the caves as comfortably as possible. The journey had clearly taken its toll on the young boy, but he had managed to eat a little bread softened with milk and was now sleeping.

  There were only six other patients left in the caves, so they had all been moved into the banqueting chamber. The others had been returned to their homes, their breathing much improved by their time resting. Three of them had lost their fight. The ones who remained were nearly all elderly and showed few signs of recovery. Lydia feared for them. That is why, later that afternoon, she was so pleased to see the Reverend Lightfoot arrive unannounced.

  It was one of the nurses who notified her of his presence as she sat reading by Richard’s side. She looked up to see him standing there, smiling benignly.

  “Reverend Lightfoot. How kind of you to call,” she greeted him.

  He bowed his silvery head. “It is my duty to offer words of comfort to the sick and old, Lady Lydia, and I am sure many of them here would welcome such solace.” He lifted the prayer book that he held in his hand.

  “I am sure they would,” she agreed. She guided him over to the three remaining women, who lay limply on their mattresses. At his arrival two of them eased themselves up and were happy to listen to the vicar read prayers to them. Meanwhile Lydia returned to Richard’s bedside. Eliza had been watching him for the past five minutes and reported that he had not stirred.

  “You look tired,” Lydia told her. “Why not take your rest?”

  Eliza nodded, bobbed a curtsy, and holding a lamp went to lie down in the far corner of the chamber. Lydia remained with Richard until, half an hour later, she saw the clergyman close his prayer book and bid the elderly women farewell. She rose as he approached her.