The corporal continued to hover at Ruddy’s elbow. He didn’t want to get into a deep conversation with the milk-bearded soldier but he’d had similar situations with the young ones. The medal was a source of fascination for them. The glory of battle they imagined. “Is there something you want to ask me?”
The corporal nodded. “We were wondering. What battle was it?”
“Rorke’s Drift.”
The young man twisted around and told the friends at his table, “Rorke’s Drift.”
Their eyes widened, no doubt having heard of the incredible forces the British contingent overcame.
“What was it like, fighting such a fierce battle? We don’t get much by way of excitement on the Rock,” the corporal said, using the soldier’s slang for the colony.
“Bloody and brutal.”
“Let the man eat his meal, lad,” Morris told the corporal. “Get on back to your mates now.”
“Sorry sir, just never met anyone with a V.C. before,” the soldier said with a quick nod to Ruddy.
Ruddy dived into his fish pie as the soldier turned and left. He finished the bite he took. “It makes me feel old as my dad when the young ones call me sir like that. There are a couple at the station who do it as well. Very annoying.” He had at least a decade on the corporal, but he wasn’t in the sage old man age bracket either. “My pie is cold.”
“Want another?”
Ruddy shook his head.
“You were saying you’re baffled by these poisoning cases. What happens if you can’t solve your murders?” Morris asked. “This wouldn’t be the first time a case or two has gone unsolved.”
“No. But with these two, any follow-up action by the department depends on the families. Cross only has a sister who lives in the country. We haven’t heard much from her. I don’t believe they were close. Skinner is a different story. His family has some political influence. How much, I’m not certain. They could request the cases be turned over to Scotland Yard.” The pie’s gravy softened the bottom crust into a tasty sludge. Ruddy broke down the sides of the crust and mushed them into the gravy, turning them into similar sludge. “That would certainly be an embarrassing blow to my pride.”
“If you can’t solve the murders, there’s no guarantee the Yard can.”
“Not the point. The point is—I’ve never had a case reassigned due to a failure of action or inability on my part. It’s...” Ruddy considered how to best describe how he’d feel. “It’d be an awful blow. I’d be beyond embarrassed.”
“Then you’d better find your killer,” Morris said in a dry tone. Someone who didn’t know Morris might’ve taken the comment as acerbic and unkind. Ruddy knew better. This was his friend’s way of telling him steady on, he’d get it figured out.
****
Ruddy told Tony about Morris’s job offer and had arranged to meet Tony after his shift at the station. For Tony, this was the light at the end of the tunnel he never thought he’d see, an escape from the dismal work and living conditions at the athletic club.
“We’ll go to the public bathhouse first and get you cleaned up before you meet Morris. He’ll want to talk to you and make sure you’ll fit in working with the family. Let me see what decent clean clothes you have,” Ruddy said.
Tony looked sheepish. “I don’t have much.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a shirt that had been white and now had a yellow tint. Sweat rings marked the underarms and some buttons were broken. His trousers hung on a hook on the back of the door. Tony took those down and laid them on the bed for Ruddy to examine. The trousers were coarse black wool worn so long a light sheen had formed over the knees and thighs.
“These clothes won’t do. You don’t have anything else?” Ruddy immediately regretted the question. The man lived in a squalid room, in a seedy neighborhood, and was poor as a church mouse. What need did he have for decent clothes? He probably thought himself lucky if he had a winter coat that wasn’t too tattered to wear.
“No. Sorry, Mr. Bloodstone.”
Ruddy thought for a moment. “Tell you what. Put your good trousers and shirt on. I’ll leave you at the bathhouse. While you’re there, I’ll get an old shirt and trousers of mine and bring those to you. You’ll have to roll up the sleeves and the hem of the trousers as they’ll both be too long but they should fit well enough otherwise.”
Tony dropped onto the edge of his cot. His elbows resting on his thighs, he dropped his head into his hands.
“Tony, if I’ve insulted you, it wasn’t my intent. I’m just trying to help. A moment ago you were glad for the opportunity to work at the pub. I’m not sure what has changed.”
“No one’s ever done something like this for me,” Tony said, finally looking up. “No one has ever helped me.” A tear rolled down Tony’s cheek.
Seeing the strong boxer cry threw Ruddy for six. God, but it was worse than when a woman cried. “No need for tears. This is just one veteran helping another. Get dressed so we can go to Morris’s.”
Tony wiped the wet streak away, rose, and crushed Ruddy in a bear hug that left his spine feeling good, after the shock of the initial crack.
After Tony had finished dressing, Ruddy handed him a five pound note. “Here. Tomorrow buy yourself another shirt and trousers and make certain you have a good pair of boots. You’ll be on your feet a lot.”
“I will. When I do, I’ll be sure to have the clothes you loan me washed and return them to you straight away.”
“Don’t. They’re yours to keep. I can spare them.”
“In all the excitement of the job news I forgot to tell you what I discovered about that Napier fellow.”
“Does it pertain to me?”
Tony shrugged a shoulder. “Might. He’s started working out twice a day. He goes early in the morning right after sunrise and again late in the afternoon.”
“Don’t you have any boxers here who work out twice a day?”
“Yes, when they have important fights coming up. There’s something else. I heard the name Bloody Ruddy mentioned when he was talking about the new routines. Bloody Ruddy is you, isn’t it?”
“That’s me all right.”
“Want to start doubling up on your sessions?”
“I think it best.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Graciela watched with increasing unease out the carriage window at the change in the neighborhoods. The cabbie hadn’t passed a park or well-tended building for many blocks. More and more buildings had windows that still remained boarded from the days before the repeal of the window tax. Lace curtains and velvet draperies were everywhere in Belgrave Square but her destination was a different London from the one she knew.
“Do you wish me to wait, Miss?” the driver asked as she stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the hospital.
The eyes of a cluster of men loitering outside a pub fixed on her. Graciela quickly looked away. A horse tied by a slaughterhouse up the street squealed. She shuddered at the animal’s panicked cry. In all the years she’d lived in London, she’d never been on this side of the city. She’d only read about the East End in the broadsheets. What a shocking sight to see in person. An abomination to beauty and human decency.
“It would be best if I do, Miss. There aren’t many reliable cabbies who work this area if you take my meaning,” the cabbie said.
“Yes, please wait. I won’t be terribly long.” She had opted to take a cab rather than trams from Mrs. Zachary’s to Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. With the hospital being across town, she’d never make it there and back before Mrs. Zachary awoke from her nap.
Instead of moving toward the hospital entry, she turned and placed a foot on the step of the carriage.
“Do you wish to leave? A wise choice, Miss. This is no place for a gentle lady like yourself.” The cabbie took her other hand in his to help her up the rest of the carriage steps.
Stricken, she couldn’t decide which way to go. Part of her was desperate to talk to some of the patients at the hospital. Cur
iosity over the possibility of Finch having become a reformed man from the young buck rapist drove her decision to go to the hospital. Zachary believed every man no matter how wicked, with the right provocation, had in them the capacity for redemption. Graciela never challenged her employer but actually believed the opposite. She believed every good man with the right provocation could be turned to wickedness.
Finch would be a good test to see who was right. Now that she was here she wasn’t certain she wanted to proceed. This place, the filth, the hopeless faces of the people on the street and those huddled in doorways, there was nowhere her eyes landed that offered relief.
“Miss, shall we go then?” The cabbie gave her hand a little tug.
I need to know. You brutalized a young woman, doctor. Because you volunteer your services and treat these poverty stricken women and children, am I now to believe the darkness in you has supposedly gone? I would know for sure.
Her curiosity prevailed. Graciela stepped down onto the sidewalk again and turned back toward the hospital entry. “No. I have information to gather here. I will stay. But don’t you go anywhere. Wait for me,” she added in a rush.
“No worries, Miss.”
She’d never been in a hospital. As soon as she was inside the smell blanketed her like a thick fog. It was a stomach-churning combination of camphor, vinegar, and sick.
“May I help you?” a nurse in a dark uniform with long white apron and crisp white headdress asked. She set the tray of medicine bottles she carried onto a wheeled cart.
Graciela hadn’t seen or heard her until the woman spoke. “Where did you come from?”
“Here,” she tipped her head toward a door. “One of our supply rooms, not that it’s anyone’s business. Back to my question, how can I help you? You don’t appear sick or poverty stricken.”
Graciela anticipated the question and had an answer ready. “I’ve been considering volunteering. Before I made a commitment I thought it best to visit. I want to make an informed decision.”
“Lord knows we can always use an extra pair of hands.” The nurse busied herself with switching out bottles. “You’re not the first to come here with a notion of doing something altruistic for the desperate East Enders. If after today you return, I’ll be surprised. Your kind rarely does. It’s much easier to leave a few shillings in our poor basket and scurry away.” The nurse looked up from her work. “What you’ll see is nothing you’ve ever been exposed to and will wish you hadn’t seen.”
The nurse pressed her fists into her lower back, closed her eyes, and rolled her head around on her shoulders one turn in each direction. When she finished, she straightened and pulled the cart out. “I’m afraid none of us nurses have the time to show you around at the moment. You’re free to walk through the wards and speak to some of the patients. I would ask that you use discretion regarding whom you speak with. Please leave the painfully weak children and women alone to rest and don’t pester any patients you talk to with too many questions.”
“I won’t.”
“There are nurse’s stations at the end of every ward if you have questions.”
The first ward she entered was all children. They appeared to be of various ages ranging from toddlers to ten years of age. Some were curled up asleep, some sat up in their beds. As she walked down the center aisle, the state of their small bodies horrified her. All were reed thin, their coloring either an unnatural grey or lily white. One or two had a jaundiced cast to their skin. A streak of panic hit her and she wondered if they didn’t have a contagious disease. Only a few bothered to note Graciela as she passed by.
Why did so many have racking coughs? Wasn’t the purpose of admitting them to the hospital to rid the children of such problems? Didn’t they receive cough medicine? One toddler began brutal fits of coughing. In the brief seconds between fits the child struggled for breath, wheezing loudly with halting starts. Graciela ventured over. She had no idea how to help other than to hold the child. But no nurse was in sight and she couldn’t stand by and do nothing while the child suffered. The toddler was curled up under a cheap blanket. Graciela sat on the edge of the cot and drew the blanket back.
“Dear Lord.” Her heart broke seeing the child. The little girl was about two, pale as chalk with blue eyes set deep into the dark hollows of illness. A haunting sight in one so young and small. She lifted the child and set her down on her lap. “Shh, little one.” She began to rock the child. When the toddler was struck with another coughing fit, Graciela held her tight to her chest and stroked her back.
“That’s my sister, Siobhan.” It was the boy in the next bed.
“How long has she been sick?”
“I’m not sure. I lost count of the days we’ve been here.”
“Is your mother sick too?”
“Don’t know. I haven’t seen her. She never came back after dropping us off. This is the orphan ward.”
What the devil kind of mother does that? “Where’s your father?”
“Dead. He fell from a roof last year and broke his neck.” The boy bent double, coughing.
She waited for the boy’s bout to end. “What’s your name?”
“Danny.”
“Does a doctor named Finch ever treat you?”
Both Danny and Siobhan broke into more fits. Graciela’s eyes filled with tears as the girl’s face turned bright red with her fight. Her sunken chest heaved in a staccato pattern at her continued battle for air between the hacking bouts.
“Yes, Doctor Finch comes every Monday to the ward, sometimes alone, sometimes with his lady nurse. He doesn’t always see both of us. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
Danny shrugged. “I heard him talking to his lady nurse. He said Siobhan is hopeless. He only treats me now.”
“Does he help you?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to get better.”
“Why?”
“Then I have to leave. I don’t want to leave Siobhan alone. She shouldn’t be alone when she...” Danny hung his head. “When she, you know...”
Graciela wanted to tell him perhaps death would be a mercy, considering her suffering, but she wasn’t certain Danny was ready to see it that way. “I understand.” Siobhan had finally quieted and Graciela laid her down and covered her up. “You’re a good brother, Danny.”
The greater test of Finch’s possible redemption would be found among the women. Graciela stood. “Which way is the ward where the sick women are?”
“That way.” Danny pointed to the left.
She passed a different nurse than the first. This one looked up from putting linens in a cupboard. She was much older than the other nurse. Wrinkles creased every inch of her face and brown age spots dotted the backs of her hands. “We were told a possible volunteer was walking around the wards. Do you have any questions?”
“Not yet.” Graciela smiled and continued on for a few steps then stopped and turned. “Actually, I do have a question about the women who are treated here. What sorts of diseases are most common? Are your women patients poxy ladies of the night?” She assumed they were. If Finch didn’t press them for sexual favors, that might be why, which would affect her test.
“No. The syphilitic ones receive initial treatment here but they are transported to other hospitals as soon as possible.” Her lips pursed in moral superiority. “As a charity we welcome any and all sick and destitute women and children, except those who are suffering results from the wages of sin.” She eyed Graciela suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
Graciela pulled the necklace she wore with the tiny gold cross out from under her collar. The nurse eyed it and she looked a tad less sour. “I was curious. One reads about the rampant crime and loose morals of the East End. I hoped it hadn’t corrupted hospital life. I wouldn’t want to volunteer in such a place.”
“Of course not. I couldn’t blame you. Worry not.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to see the women’s ward now.”
“Straig
ht ahead,” the nurse said with a smile.
Graciela didn’t waste time speaking to the very old or very homely. If Finch were to trouble any women, he’d surely approach the younger, prettier ones.
She talked to the three prettiest she saw. All spoke well of Finch. He’d treated each and all were on the mend. When asked, they expressed their gratitude for the chance of having a doctor of his reputation helping them.
It appeared Mrs. Zachary was right. A wicked man can change. He helped the children and the women. How could she kill him and deprive them of that?
Graciela thanked each woman and was headed toward the door when a hand grabbed her sleeve. Startled, she turned to see a young red-haired woman in a hospital gown hiding behind a privacy screen. The woman’s cheeks and nose were covered in freckles but they did nothing to detract from her lovely face and bright green eyes.
Unsure of the woman’s mental state, Graciela warily asked, “What is it you want?”
“Come closer.” She gestured for Graciela to step behind the screen. Graciela hesitated but stepped just far enough to be out of sight of the other yet still be arm’s length from the woman. “Follow me.” The woman quietly opened a door and went through.
Graciela paused in the doorway before going further. The room the woman entered was for surgery. No one other than the redhead was there. Graciela went inside, but she palmed a scalpel from a nearby table just in case.
“Close the door,” the patient told her and Graciela did but not all the way.
“Why am I here?” Graciela asked.
“The others won’t tell you the truth,” the patient said.
“Truth about what?”
“Doctor Finch. They’re afraid he’ll stop coming if they do.”
Curiosity piqued, Graciela asked, “What truth?”
“He makes us have sex with him. Not all of us but me and the ones you talked to. He takes us into the storage closet and makes us do things to him.”
Snifter of Death Page 20
