Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel

by E. L. Tettensor

  Lenoir’s eyes narrowed. “Do I take it to mean you think someone . . .”

  The soothsayer arched an eyebrow.

  “But why?”

  “To discredit Oded.”

  “And you think Horst Lideman—?”

  “I think nothing in particular about the man. But someone did, and if it was not Lideman, then it was one of his people.”

  “Did what?” Kody asked, his gaze cutting back and forth between them. “What are we talking about?”

  Lenoir squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. Sometimes, the sergeant could be impossibly dense. “Sabotage,” he said.

  “Murder,” the soothsayer added.

  For a moment, Kody just stared at them. When understanding finally dawned, his mouth dropped open a little. “You think the head of Medical Sciences murdered four of his own patients?”

  “No,” Lenoir said, “I do not, and I suggest we take this conversation elsewhere.” He gestured meaningfully at the green tent a few paces away.

  “This way,” Merden said, and he headed toward the river.

  When they were at a more discreet remove, Lenoir said, “Your theory is flawed, Merden. Lideman has no motive.”

  “Does he not? It would certainly be embarrassing for him if Oded’s heathen ritual”—his voice dripped with sarcasm—“was able to achieve what his College of Physicians could not.”

  “That’s not much of a motive for murder,” Kody said.

  “Agreed,” said Lenoir. “The fact is, Lideman did not believe for a moment that Oded’s treatment would work, and if he had been that concerned about being proven wrong, he would never have agreed to try in the first place.”

  “One of his people, then,” Merden insisted doggedly.

  “Look,” said Kody, “I get that you want to protect your friend’s reputation, but this is just silly.”

  Merden fixed him with a cool look. “I met Oded two days ago, Sergeant. It is not as if he is a brother to me. It is not loyalty that moves me to speak, but reason. Consider: the patients we saw yesterday were all terminal, according to Lideman, but they were not all suffering from precisely the same symptoms. Some could have been expected to die within hours, while others had longer. Yet they all died overnight, possibly within minutes of one another. We will never know, since no one was there to witness it.”

  “So?”

  “So, does it not strike you as highly improbable that all four patients died at roughly the same time?”

  “Not really. You just said it yourself—they were all terminal.”

  Merden sighed. “Very well. And what if I were to tell you that there was a fifth patient, one who did not yet display the bruising?”

  “Lideman said there were four patients,” Kody said.

  “To the best of his knowledge, that was true.”

  Lenoir stared long and hard at the soothsayer. Merden returned his gaze evenly, without a hint of shame. “If you were to tell us that,” Lenoir said, “it would mean that you and Oded treated someone in secret, without the permission of his family or physician.”

  Merden fluttered a hand, as though dismissing a meaningless detail. “If, hypothetically, we decided that the parameters of the experiment were flawed and undertook to treat a fifth patient, and if, hypothetically, that patient also died at the same time as the others, despite having been nowhere near as sick, would you then conclude that something highly improbable had occurred?”

  Kody scowled. “You’re a real piece of work—you know that? How do you know it wasn’t the ritual that killed those people? Maybe all the stress of having that . . . whatever it was going on around them is what did it!”

  “Do not be ridiculous. They were unconscious at the time.”

  “That doesn’t excuse—”

  “Enough, Sergeant,” Lenoir said. He needed to think, and he could not do it with Kody throwing a fit of righteous outrage. “What’s done is done. For now, we must focus on what it means. If what you are telling me is true, Merden, then it does indeed appear as though someone has interfered with the patients. The question is who, and why?”

  “I must see the bodies,” Merden said.

  “What for?”

  “To determine what killed them. If I am successful, it may shed some light on who did this.”

  “Very well. As an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, I can compel Lideman to release the bodies to us. But you must be careful, Merden. The corpses are highly contagious.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I will take appropriate precautions.”

  “In that case, we must hurry,” said Lenoir. “In view of the risk, they will wish to dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible.”

  Merden was already moving. “I will begin immediately.”

  * * *

  “Here,” the soothsayer said, gesturing along the dead man’s jaw, “and here.” He wore leather gloves covered in some kind of grease, but even so, he did not touch the corpse any more than was necessary. He had cast off his cloak in favor of a dun jerkin and trousers, and even his boots appeared to be different. Lenoir had no idea where Merden had obtained any of these items, or what he had done with his own clothing, but the sight of it made Lenoir nervous, for he and Kody had no protection beyond the scarves they wore. He had already made the mistake of peering over the edge of the trench, and the sight of the corpses—stacks upon stacks of them, lined up like matches in a matchbox, covered in flies and reeking of rot—was enough to make him light-headed. He wondered how the gravediggers managed it. They were wrapped from head to toe, only their eyes visible, as anonymous as executioners. Just now, they stood at the edge of the trench, leaning on their spades, watching as the hounds, the soothsayer, and the physician argued over the morning’s crop of corpses.

  Horst Lideman scowled behind his scarf. “So they have bruises. What does that prove?” He gestured irritably with a gloved hand. “They had bruising before they died. It was how we chose them, for Durian’s sake! Please, Inspector, I do not have time for this nonsense!”

  Merden tilted the corpse’s face away from them. “Look harder,” the soothsayer said. “These are finger marks. The killer was right-handed, and he stood here.” On his knees, he positioned himself level with the dead man’s shoulder and hovered his hand over the bruises.

  Lenoir studied the corpse. The marks were there, to be sure, but they did not greatly resemble fingers to him. “When a victim is smothered, the bruises are typically well defined,” he said.

  “The internal bleeding would account for that,” Lideman said grudgingly. “If you will forgive the analogy, these patients are like overripe fruit; the slightest pressure causes them to bruise badly. What would cause a clear outline in a healthy person would bleed much more profusely in someone suffering from the disease.”

  “So you agree those look like finger marks?” Kody asked. From his tone, it was obvious the sergeant did not see the resemblance either.

  “It’s impossible to be sure,” Lideman said. “I must admit, however, that it’s strange for all four patients to have so much bruising around the nose and mouth. Typically, the bruising is more pronounced in the trunk and extremities.”

  “Could it have happened postmortem?” Lenoir asked. “Were the bodies washed in any way, or otherwise handled in a manner that could account for a bruising pattern like that?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Merden tsked. “Why do you all strive to deny the obvious? These people were murdered.”

  Lideman shook his head, but it was more in amazement than denial. “I cannot fathom it. Who would do such a thing?”

  The same sort of person who would deliberately start an epidemic. Lenoir kept the thought to himself. “Who had access to the treatment tent?”

  “Myself, my students, and any number of nuns and priests,” Lideman said. “Are you
implying that one of us is a murderer?”

  “I am not. Aside from the lack of obvious motive, the fact that the victims were smothered suggests that it was not one of your people.”

  Lideman blinked, half mollified, half curious. “Why is that?”

  Lenoir was not inclined to explain himself. Unlike Lideman, he took no pleasure in edifying others; indeed, he found it reliably tedious. Kody, however, had a more generous nature. “Smothering isn’t the easiest or most reliable way of killing someone,” the sergeant explained. “It usually means the killer is hoping the crime will go unnoticed.”

  “But smothering typically leaves well-defined bruises. You said so yourself.”

  “But most murderers don’t know that,” Kody said. “They think what they’re doing is invisible.”

  “Presumably, that rules out anyone with medical expertise,” Merden said. “They would know that smothering leaves traces, so they would at least have used a pillow.”

  “Precisely,” said Lenoir, doing his best impersonation of Horst Lideman.

  If the physician realized he was being mocked, he did not let on. He rubbed his chin, seemingly fascinated by this new discipline. “Interesting. So what else can you deduce?”

  Kody was only too happy to oblige. He dropped to his haunches to inspect the body, his invisible tail wagging again. “Well, it suggests that the murders weren’t planned, or at least not very well. Most likely a crime of opportunity.”

  “Perfectly sound, Sergeant,” Lenoir said, “but not terribly useful, since we knew that already. The murders could not possibly have been planned in advance, since we selected the patients only hours before their deaths.”

  “Meaning our murderer knew what we were up to, or had access to someone who did,” Kody said. “That ought to narrow the field.”

  “Indeed. Aside from ourselves, Doctor, who knew about Oded’s treatments?”

  “No one,” the physician said, “apart from myself and Sister Ora. I could hardly let it get about that I was permitting something like that.”

  “Yourself and Sister Ora.” Lenoir arched an eyebrow. “Is that all? Are you not forgetting someone?”

  Lideman looked lost, so Kody supplied the answer. “Your assistant.”

  “Oh, yes! I’d quite forgotten . . .”

  “Also the loved ones of the patients themselves,” Merden added.

  “Unlikely,” said Lenoir. “The patients were already terminal. If a family member had wanted one of them dead, they need only have refused treatment.”

  “And anyway, there were four of them,” Kody pointed out, “with no connection to each other except the disease and the treatment.”

  Lenoir started back toward the pestilence tents. He had seen all he needed to, and had no desire to prolong his exposure to the corpses. “I will need to speak with Sister Ora and your assistant immediately,” he said.

  Lideman frowned, but he nodded. “And the bodies?”

  “You are free to dispose of them.”

  The physician signaled to the gravediggers, and they resumed their grim task. Lenoir could not help wondering how many men it took to keep up with the deluge of death. The three he had observed were only part of the crew; others had been hard at work farther down the trench, expanding the pit. And Lideman had mentioned a second trench, identical to this one, on the far side of the encampment. They will have to begin burning soon, Lenoir thought, pestilent air or not.

  Lideman conducted them back to his office, where he left them while he searched for his assistant. “He’s dealing with this pretty well, considering,” Kody said.

  “Do not forget, Sergeant, it was Lideman who first theorized that the plague had been started deliberately. Murder is quite pedestrian in comparison.”

  “Maybe,” Kody said, “but it’s also pretty crafty, when you think about it. If Merden and Oded hadn’t treated that fifth patient in secret, we might never have noticed anything was wrong.”

  Lenoir paused. The fifth patient. He had forgotten all about it. “Merden, should we not have checked whether the fifth patient showed the same bruising pattern?”

  A clever smile tugged at the soothsayer’s mouth. “There was no fifth patient, Inspector.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It appeared you needed additional convincing, so I offered a scenario. I did say hypothetically.”

  “Wait—are you saying you made it up?” Kody stared, incredulous. “But if there was no fifth patient, how did you know it was murder?”

  “It was the only explanation.”

  “Hardly,” Lenoir said. “There were, in fact, a number of explanations, of which murder was by no means the most plausible.”

  The soothsayer shrugged. “I had . . . What do you southerners call it? A hunch.”

  Kody shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “I will not apologize for it, Sergeant. We are now virtually certain it was murder, which means that Oded’s treatment may well have worked. That gives us hope.”

  “It gives us more than that,” Lenoir said, his irritation easily eclipsed by something much more important. At last, they had the scent of their quarry.

  At last, they had a lead.

  CHAPTER 13

  The kid looked like he was going to cry.

  Kody wasn’t sure what Lideman had told him, but the assistant obviously knew why he’d been summoned. His eyes were downcast as he entered the tent, and his thin shoulders trembled. When Lideman gestured for him to sit, he obeyed silently, without asking any questions. He definitely looked guilty. The question was, guilty of what? He weighed maybe ninety pounds with a full belly, and he had the pale, soft-looking hands of a scribe. Kody had a hard time believing the young man was capable of anything more sinister than squashing a spider.

  Lenoir sat behind Lideman’s desk, watching, his gaze taking silent inventory of everything. What does he see? Kody wondered. The guilty look, certainly. The soft hands and the trembling shoulders too. Was there anything else, something Kody might have missed? Kody caught himself squinting, and he felt foolish. The assistant was no more than three feet away; anything there was to see was right there in front of him. Besides, Lenoir’s genius wasn’t really in close observation (though he was no slouch). It was in making sense of what he did see, assembling it all into a meaningful whole. He didn’t get attached to this theory or that, didn’t obsess over every little detail. He gathered, he analyzed, he explained. He’s gathering now, Kody thought, studying the way Lenoir sat in silence, staring at the assistant, letting the tension build. Lenoir was a master of silence. It was his shield and his weapon, and Kody had never seen anyone wield it more effectively.

  When at last Lenoir spoke, he didn’t go for the throat straightaway; he circled his prey instead. “What is your name?” he asked the young man.

  “Brice,” Lideman supplied. Since Lenoir had taken the liberty of installing himself behind the desk, the physician was reduced to hovering in the corner with Kody and Merden. “His name is Brice Wenderling.” The introduction was delivered with an accusing scowl—directed not at Lenoir, but at Brice himself.

  Interesting. Kody has assumed that Lideman would be protective of his assistant, and continue to play the role of the skeptic. Instead, it seemed that young Brice’s flinching manner had dismissed any doubt in the physician’s mind, as it had in Kody’s, that his assistant had done something wrong.

  Lenoir glanced up at Lideman, annoyed. “From this point on, I should be grateful if Brice answered the questions himself.” He returned his gaze to the assistant. “You know why you are here, Brice, do you not?”

  “Yes, sir.” The young man spoke to his lap.

  “You gave someone information about the treatments the Adali healer was administering.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lideman made a disgusted sound. “Brice, how could you?
The confidence of a patient—”

  “Doctor,” said Lenoir, “if you interrupt again, I will have you ejected.”

  Lideman blinked. “This is my office!”

  Lenoir ignored him. He let the silence settle again, then asked, “Whom did you speak to, Brice, and what did you tell him?”

  For a long moment, the young man just sat there, head bowed, shoulders shaking. A tear worked its way down his left cheek. Kody found himself feeling sorry for the kid. Sorry and angry and maybe even a little guilty for not picking up on the signs. The kid had been entirely too curious yesterday. He should have noticed that.

  The whole thing gave him a headache.

  Lenoir, though, was unmoved. “A name, Brice. Now.”

  “Burell. He didn’t tell me his first name. He said he was . . .” The young man paused, gazing ruefully into nothingness. “It sounds so stupid now . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “He said he was with one of the newspapers. The Herald, I think. He was doing a story on the plague, and he—he wanted to know why the Metropolitan Police were hanging around.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him . . .” Brice shot a guilty glance at Lideman. “I told him the College thought the plague had been started on purpose.”

  Lideman growled under his breath. “Of all the foolish . . .”

  “I thought it would help!” The young man swiveled in his chair to plead with his employer. “I thought maybe, if he printed that, maybe somebody saw something, and they could report it! The hounds are so busy at the barricades, and on the river . . . I thought they wouldn’t have time to ask around. I only wanted to help, Doctor!”

  “If you truly wish to help,” Lenoir said, “you will save your protestations for later, and focus on the matter at hand. This Burell—when did he first approach you?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Lenoir sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Take me through it. Spare no detail. He approaches you, introduces himself. What does he look like?”

  Brice considered. “About forty, I guess. Dark hair. Average height. He asked me—”