The Case of the Swan in the Fog

by A S Croyle

  Now, as I examined each patient, I summoned every tidbit I’d learned from Uncle Ormond and everything I’d ever read. The symptoms of bronchitis were cough and expectoration, but what I saw in my patients was the almost complete obstruction of the bronchi, which could become suffocative. Most of my patients complained of dyspnea and in some, the skin had a blue tinge, so I knew they were not getting enough oxygen. The average age for someone who died ‘naturally’ of bronchitis or emphysema was sixty years. I’d treated patients in my office as young as ten months.

  Trying to recall all the suggested remedies in these and other medical texts, I set about my task.

  I asked a man in his forties, who said he ran a coffee-stall on Whitechapel Road, what brought him to my office. He said, “One of them boys told me about yer.” It could only be Wiggins or one of his little friends, Ollie or Rattle, all errand-boys for Sherlock. He told me that he felt a tightness across his chest, accompanied with a feeling of rawness or soreness and that these feelings were aggravated by every act of coughing. He had a slight fever and a dry cough with very little mucus being expectorated. But during and especially at the end of each act of coughing, he said he felt a painful sensation under the breast bone. He also felt it when breathing in cold air or upon drawing a long breath.

  “What remedies have you tried, sir?” I asked.

  “At bedtime, a hot foot-bath, a glass of hot toddy and ten grains of Dover’s powder.”

  Dover’s was an old preparation comprised of powder of ipecacuanha, a homeopathic medicine, an ingredient in syrup of ipecac used to induce vomiting, powdered opium and potassium sulfate. People also used it to induce sweating, allegedly in advance of a cold and at the beginning of an attack of fever.

  Another patient had the same symptoms initially, but then his cough became looser, less painful but more profuse, and it was frothy and streaked with blood. A few days later, the expectoration became thick and yellow, and the cough became more frequent and violent. He had tried using a mustard-plaster to relieve pain and soreness in his chest, and he’d taken to consuming a half-teaspoonful of the syrup of squills every two hours. When he became nauseous, he tried tartar emetic, wild cherry syrup, and water and drank that every two hours. Yet another patient, a man in his fifties who walked very stiffly, had tried nitrate of potash, tincture of digitalis, and syrup of squills mixed with six ounces of water. He said he sipped it every fifteen minutes, but it had done no good.

  My roomful of patients had tried many home remedies: garlic, pepper, cinnamon, turpentine, bromides and iodides. I’d had good luck with Kimball White Pine and Tar Cough Syrup, which consisted of four minims of chloroform, so I dispensed this freely. I was concerned, though, because the chloroform could cause fatal cardiac or respiratory arrest, so cautioned my patients about proper dosage.

  On the patients with the most advanced symptoms, I tried something that Uncle was employing at the hospital, a vibratory inhibitor administered with a hard-ball applicator. I used short, rapid strokes with medium pressure for about forty seconds to the posterior spinal nerve roots from the seventh cervical to the eighth dorsal.

  My last patient of the day was a lovely, young woman with blond ringlets and deep and haunting blue eyes. She was in her mid-twenties and she was dressed in a modest beige blouse and skirt and a dark coat. I guessed that she might be a milliner or seamstress. She presented with symptoms of dyspnea, cough and expectoration and weak breath sounds.

  I asked her name.

  “Penelope. Penelope Potash. I have a little girl, Miss,” she said. “I need to get well to take care of her.”

  She was skin and bones and also mentioned that her monthly periods had stopped. I’d heard that vibration gave good results for this malady, but I was skeptical about any of these treatments, and particularly this one for absent periods.

  “Remove your blouse, please.”

  As she did so, a strand of sunlight filtered in through the half window, illuminating the dusty desk and creeping across the room. When she turned around, it shone directly on her back. I was aghast at huge bruises, cuts and red welts. I was not sure what instrument of violence was used to beat her, but it would not have surprised me if she also had broken bones or ribs.

  I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her round to face me. “What has happened to you? Who did this to you?”

  She shrugged off my hands, lowered her eyes and said, “I had a disagreement with someone.”

  “A disagreement! You have welts all over your back. This was not just a disagreement. Who did this to you? We must go to the authorities.”

  She pulled at her blouse and started to button it.

  “No, please. Don’t. I’m just trying to help.”

  She dropped her hands to her sides and averted her eyes again. “I saw something I shouldn’t, that’s all. This was just his way of encouraging me to keep silent.”

  “What? What did you see?”

  “I can’t tell you. Please, can you just give me some medicine?”

  I drew in a long breath. I was desperate to find out what had happened to her and put the degenerate behind bars. But I told her I would give her medicine for her bronchial problems and then proceeded to vibrate the nerve roots that supply the uterus, the second, third, fourth lumbar and the second, third and fourth sacral. “This may work,” I told her. “But it may not. You need to eat more. You need to be healthy for your monthlies to return.”

  She shrugged. “I’d just as soon they didn’t. One child to care for is enough. And I haven’t much of an appetite,” she added.

  Before she left, she politely requested use of my privy. “It’s not very decorous,” I told her.

  She laughed. “My father was demoted from his profession and forced to clean the urinals at St. James Palace for four shillings a week to make a living. He used to say, ‘Royal or not, it all comes out the same.’ I don’t like to crouch in broad daylight to relieve myself on the pavement. But I don’t exactly have a coach with a bordalou waiting for me, and I can’t afford to buy anything to have the right to use one in a confectioner’s or milliner’s shop.”

  It was an unexpected admission from such a well-dressed and well-spoken woman and it made me curious. But I restrained from probing,

  She disappeared behind closed doors. When she came out, she thanked me again as I gave her a bottle of ointment for her back and said, “It’s too late to apply something cold to your back to ease the swelling. Otherwise, I would send you home with a raw beefsteak that you could eat later.”

  She smiled and laughed again.

  I handed her my scarf to cover her face. She shook her head but I forced it into her hands. “I have another,” I told her. “Now, to help with your female problem,” I said, “a course of vibratory treatment over sixty to ninety days is usually suggested. Will you come back?”

  “What will you charge?”

  I had accepted whatever they could give, a shilling here, a pence there, all morning. “We’ll work something out,” I assured her. “Now I want you to soak in a hot tub. And then have someone apply this,” I said, handing her some ointment. “Dilute it in water first, though, because it can excite irritation in the skin when it’s torn and you do have some lacerations.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tincture of arnica. Use some caution with the first application. Will you come back in a few days’ time so I may check your progress? And perhaps we can then give you another female treatment.”

  She nodded. “Yes, yes. I can do that. Thank you. You are very kind.”

  “And here is some medicine for your breathing.”

  She wrapped the scarf around her neck. “This is lovely,” she said, lifting the edge of the scarf to look more closely at it.

  “It was a gift from my aunt. She brought it from France.”

  “Oh.” She
started to unwind it and I reached out to touch her hand. “Bring it back when you return.”

  “I shall, I promise.”

  “And you’ll try to eat better? You will promise that as well?”

  She nodded again. “Thank you. Thank you for helping me. And for being so brave.”

  “Brave?”

  “You have the courage to push ahead in a profession that does not welcome women.” She tucked the scarf in tightly and added, “But it will be women who do something about this abominable veil of soot, mark my words.”

  “Twelve hundred died during the Great Fog of December 1873,” I said, remembering my uncle’s tales about the overcrowded hospital. “And still the factories belch their smoke despite the laws against it.”

  Though reform has been tried, the domestic hearth still went unchallenged. My father had told me that the year after I was born, 1856, Lord Palmerston introduced the Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act, so mills, factories, printing houses, iron founders... most industries were ordered to consume their own smoke as were steam vessels west of London Bridge. But all that changed was the onslaught of litigation.

  “The courts hear dozens of cases a year,” I said, “but the factories just claim technical problems and households go on unrestricted.”

  Nodding, she agreed. “Yes, I know. And so London is still a city of smoke and fog. It’s clear that sometimes it takes death to force change. Perhaps a few more blokes have to fall off the West India Docks for someone to do something about this noxious smoke that seeps into everything. Maybe it will take a few more deaths for the Queen to-”

  She stopped abruptly, and put her hand on the doorknob. “Thank you again, Doctor Stamford. I’ll be back for another treatment soon. Oh, and happy Christmas.”

  “What is your name again, Miss?”

  She paused for a long moment and stuttered, “Penelope. Penelope Potash.”

  “Happy Christmas to you as well, Penelope.”

  With that, she opened the door and disappeared down the hall. The encounter left me with a sinking feeling in more ways than I could count.

  Chapter 5

  It was dinner time when I returned to Uncle’s house in Regent’s Park. But these days I rose, went to the office, worked, and returned home in darkness, so it was hard to keep mark of the time. Sometimes my biological clock was completely confused by the perpetual night in the Metropolis.

  Due to the infernal fog, I often left an extra scarf and gloves at the office, so I’d had an extra scarf to give to Penelope Potash that day. I placed my cape, scarf and hat on the oak coat tree in the hall and dropped my gloves on the table. It was then that I noticed the note from Aunt Susan leaning against the silver bird perched on the rim of the ornate calling card holder on the marble table. I unfolded it and read it; it was dated two days before Christmas.

  Happy Christmas, sweet Poppy. As you, Michael and my stubborn husband refuse to join us to celebrate at Burleigh Manor, I’ve arranged for the Cheadles’ cook to make a proper Christmas dinner. I know you shall not supply the sustenance.

  Of course, I would not prepare dinner. I almost laughed out loud. Sherlock had said once that he could never be a proper husband to me. I was certain I’d never be a normal, suitable wife. I could barely manage to properly steep a pot of tea.

  I knew the Cheadle brothers’ cook and the men she worked for. They were employed by my uncle’s solicitor, Mr. Havershal. They lived in a run-down century-old home in Holburn, a very tall and ugly edifice that they kept talking about renovating into a law office of their own should they ever leave Mr. Havershal’s employ. Their home was dingy with smoke and dirt and sadly in need of a hand of repair. The window frames barely boasted the last remnant of paint and the iron fence was red with rust. Their culinary talents were even less impressive than my own, but they did employ a few servants, one of whom was a plump Irish woman named Fiona McMonagle, who cooked and baked.

  I was surprised Mrs. McMonagle had stayed on there for there was no comfort or joy or cosiness in that house. It certainly wasn’t gold coins or sterling that kept her there, for though the Cheadle brothers were excellent barristers, very sharp practitioners, they were miserly in the highest degree. She toiled and moiled, but perhaps her pitiable earnestness belied her goal to accumulate enough money before her gray hairs thinned to baldness and her strength failed her. I think she hoped to buy a place of her own, rent out private rooms, and sit, content, by a tiny fire burning in the grate to gladden her spirits, just as Mrs. Hudson did. Mrs. Hudson, Victor Trevor’s former housekeeper, had been caught up in a blackmail scheme orchestrated by her husband against Victor’s father, but Sherlock had befriended her because of her assistance in bringing that case to a close. Now she owned a building on Baker Street and rented out rooms for an income.

  I continued reading Aunt Susan’s note as I walked toward the dining room.

  There will be everything from goose to Christmas pudding and all the trimmings in between waiting for you when you, Michael and Ormond have finished your work for the day. I shall miss you, Poppy.

  Love,

  Aunt Susan.

  P. S. Gifts from your uncle and I are in the morning room and on the tree. Presents from your parents, however, are waiting for you at Burleigh Manor until your next visit, which my sister urges you to plan soon!

  I pivoted and turned to walk down the hallway to Aunt Susan’s morning room. I surveyed the beautifully-wrapped presents that were stacked on her piano. I sat down at the piano, placed my hands on the keys, and pecked out The Sussex Carol, the only Christmas carol I did not fumble over. My hands could hold a scalpel steadily, but my fingers turned into sailor’s knots on the ivories. I had almost finished the first stanza when I heard Uncle say, “Happy Christmas, Poppy.”

  I turned my head and saw him standing near the door. “And to you, Uncle.”

  He strode across the room and pecked me on the cheek. “You worked rather late.”

  “I had a room full of patients, Uncle. For the very first time! I should be glad of it, but the reasons for it bring me no joy.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “The queue today curled round the hospital and The Square was more crowded than a prison yard during a hanging.”

  I cringed at the reference. I had attended two hangings with Sherlock and wanted no reminders of those occasions.

  “Dinner will be served shortly,” he said.”I was amazed Mrs. McMonagle actually found her way through the fog to deliver it. And Genabee is making everything ready for us now.”

  “I thought Genabee was spending the day with her family.”

  “She did. But yesterday she kindly offered to help out here this evening. She’s a good girl.”

  And she is not unaware of your kindness and generosity, I thought. She will be compensated handsomely for her loyalty and inconvenience.

  “Thank heavens she made it here in one piece,” Uncle said. “Most people stayed in today, whether they could have a proper dinner or not. One of the doctors at St. Bart’s said the only reason he would have Christmas dinner was because the servants to whom he had given duck and plum pudding were willing to share.”

  I nodded in understanding. As I had traveled home, I could barely see my hand in front of my face. People were actually asking where they were and house numbers were indecipherable.

  “Go wash your face and hands now and come to dinner. Michael and Sherlock are waiting.”

  “Sherlock? Sherlock is here? But I didn’t even hear Little Elihu bark.”

  Uncle laughed. “Oh, he and Sherlock have become fast friends since your last adventure when that madman attacked the two of you. Elihu saved your lives, remember?”

  How could I forget? The serial killer we had tracked down was about to kills us both when my dog sank his teeth into him.

  “I invited Sherlock to dinner, Pop
py. He was in the lab most of the day and I thought I should see if he had any plans with Mycroft, which he did not. And he was obviously not going home to spend the holiday with Sherrinford and his family. That isn’t a problem, is it?”

  I shook my head. “Of course not.”

  “Good. We were just having a port in the library. Now go get ready for dinner.”

  When he left, I rose to go up to my room, but the array of gifts tempted me. I had to open at least one to brighten my spirits.

  I unwrapped a package wrapped in green marbled paper. It contained a curled paper decorated tea caddy. The box was a hexagon with a lid with steel hinges, a brass lock and a brass handle of axe-head form. The top and all the side panels were encased in mahogany banding inlaid with chequered boxwood and ebony. The curled paperwork decoration extended to all the panels with yellow, green and gilt ground contrasting paper and the interior had traces of tea box pewter lining and a base of green woven cloth. A note in Aunt Susan’s hand read “For your hope chest.”

  My hopeless chest, I thought.

  I then turned to the smallest box, recalling Sherlock’s gift of a locket. Often the finest gifts come in the smallest packages. When I unwrapped it, I found a small wooden keepsake box, the lid of which was decorated in Berlin work, a counted thread design in brilliant shades. Aunt Susan had left another note inside. “To keep your secrets or your fine jewelry... as you wish. Now solve the puzzle to find your next gift.”

  I glanced at the note below. She’d decided to make me play the new game called Doublets, created by Lewis Carroll and recently described in Vanity Fair. To play, one had to use several words to change one word into another, using only one letter from the previous word. All the words between the first and the last had to be actual words. As an example, Carroll charged the reader to change the word PIG into the word STY, with five words in between. Aunt Susan did not tell me the last word, though; she’d decided to make it even more difficult. Instead, to find my gift, I had to change the word Noel “into a component of a game, using only Christmas-related words.”