No Cure for the Dead

by Christine Trent

  Jarrett smiled even as she stood with her arms crossed, hugging her waist, proud to have been called such. Certainly I had never used that word in connection with her before.

  “It was all quite inventive. You made the terrible decision that they both had to die. First you redid Roderick Alban’s rooms; then you waited a short time and killed Caroline Bellamy. I imagine you fed her a little arsenic somehow. The ill effects of the arsenic would have made her more pliable for the violent death you intended for her. I don’t know how you got her body to hang in the library alcove, though.”

  Jarrett shrugged. “She was no match for me,” she boasted. No doubt she had been waiting for her moment to brag about how canny she had been.

  “One afternoon with both you and Mrs. Roper out, I invited her to sit with me in the kitchen for late tea. The inmates were all abed, and everything was quiet so I knew she could spare the time. Somehow as she drank, she caught on to me and began to run. I tore off her locket in the struggle and later tossed it into the secret room for safekeeping so I could sell it later, but that stupid boy found it.

  “I saw it around his neck later and tried to take it from him the night he came back late, but he put up such a fuss after I … er … helped him down the stairs that I wasn’t able to get it back. The little guttersnipe nearly woke the entire neighborhood.” She shook her head in disgust at the inconvenience John Wesley had created for her.

  Poor John Wesley had probably known that someone had pushed him down the stairs—even if he wasn’t quite sure who—and had been too terrified to tell me. How remarkable it was that fear could make skilled liars of both adults and children.

  Jarrett was quite animated now that she was reaching the climax of her story and was even pantomiming what came next. “While Caroline was still awake enough not to be dead weight, I yanked her by the arm and took her and my length of rope up to the library. She was getting quite sleepy by then, and it wasn’t much work to choke her once I got her in the alcove. Once I had strangled her, I fashioned a noose from one end, something I learned from a Punch cartoon. With that tightened around her neck, I threw the other end over the chandelier, tied it to the leg of the table in the alcove, and pulled it until she was dangling properly. I held the rope, pushed the table back, climbed on and tied the rope up around the chandelier, then arranged the table to look as though it had been kicked away. Thus did Bellamy hang herself.”

  I was surprised she didn’t curtsy to the audience as if having completed the final act of a great dramatic play.

  I continued my telling of her sordid tale. “I suppose I must give you credit. You wrote notes that made me believe that they were done by someone wholly uneducated, but that is not true about you, is it, Miss Jarrett? You became a librarian because of your excellent writing and grammar skills, and even Nurse Hughes said she had you help her order cloth because of your talents.”

  “Yes, I even gave her some leftover green fabric that I had, a good way to get rid of it, but I told her I had ordered it special just for her. Didn’t matter to me that she would use it to make uniforms because I would never have to wear one.”

  “Speaking of fabric, if someone were to search your lodgings, no doubt we would find the dresses Mr. Alban purchased for Nurse Bellamy.”

  Jarrett stared back at me incredulously. “You are a half-wit if you believe I would have kept them. I cast them, one a day, across the street into the paper boy’s fire.”

  Her disregard for others was astounding and sad, but I plowed on, determined to have every bit of confession from her. “Showing me the floor layout was a game for you, wasn’t it? A pretense that you were helping me. You knew I’d eventually ask for it again and you would innocently tell me it was missing from your locked desk. I imagine you had originally drawn it as a way to inform Mr. Alban of the various places you could meet, and in combing through the Establishment, you came across the secret room down here. In doing so, you realized that he and Bellamy had found it first and were using it.”

  Alban looked so miserable I thought he would retch, as Mary would in witnessing something so distressing. Speaking of Mary …

  “As I said earlier, our killer—you—enjoyed theft. You stole a page from Mary’s notebook and then moved the notebook to another location. I suspect the page itself wasn’t important; it was just a way of distracting Mary so that you could fill me full of your poisonous lies about the floor layout. Ah, poison,” I repeated. “Why did you have to fill John Wesley full of laudanum? Wasn’t shattering his knee enough for you? You had to attempt to kill him a second time as well?”

  “Stupid boy. Who would miss that street urchin?” she spat out. “I couldn’t trust his ten-year-old mouth. He knew of the room and he had found the locket. He sealed his own fate when I caught him watching me as I tore the page from the little coward’s notebook.” She sniffed in a belittling manner in Mary’s direction. “Anyway, I didn’t wish to be cruel to him, so I gave him the laudanum. If you hadn’t interfered, he would have simply gone to permanent sleep, and I would have been just as surprised as you when we found his rotting body.”

  I joined Alban in his desire to kill her myself. I had to maintain composure, though. “Indeed,” I said, clasping my hands together as I always did when asserting control of a situation. “I’m afraid the surprise will be all yours, Miss Jarrett. Charlie, please go and fetch the pol—”

  But the astonishment was suddenly all mine. Persimmon Jarrett had somehow gotten possession of Clem Harris’s knife and now had it pointed threateningly at me. I patted my dress pockets. They were both empty except for the locket and the notes. Good God, how stealthy she was. I wasn’t even sure when it had been stolen, as I had been carrying it around for so long that I no longer paid attention to it.

  I paid attention now, as Jarrett backed away, the knife still thrust forward as she edged her way to the stairs.

  “Be silent, say nothing more, or I will, I will—” Jarrett looked frantically around the room. Clementina Harris was still standing off to the side by herself. A terrible, calculating smile spread across Jarrett’s face, and before I could shout a warning to the nurse, Jarrett acted. She leapt over to Nurse Harris, grabbed one arm and twisted it behind Harris’s back, and put the nurse’s own knife to her throat.

  I had to give Harris credit. Although she rolled her eyes back so that just the whites showed, demonstrating her very real fear, she remained calm and silent. She didn’t struggle against Jarrett’s rough handling of her.

  “Maybe I should cut your pretty locks off instead of slicing your neck,” Jarrett snarled, the sharp, rusted knife tip indenting Harris’s flesh. “You’ve always been too haughty and proud of your hair.”

  Harris closed her eyes. The only sign of her fear now was her shallow breathing and her throat bobbing slightly as she swallowed nervously. I admired her bravery but was fearful that I could do nothing to save her.

  Alban looked at Jarrett sadly but also with contempt. “How could you do this?” he demanded of her. He extended his hands out to his sides, palms up in dismal query.

  Her response was one of rage as she shrieked, “How could I do it? How could I? You are the monster who abandoned me for that … that…” The librarian had no words.

  “I loved her, and you took her from me,” Alban declared flatly. “For that, you are the one who should die.”

  CHAPTER 21

  But Jarrett had not come this far in her dark journey to allow the object of her affection to hinder her escape.

  Jarrett drew the knife across Harris’s neck, and a crimson line instantly formed along the blade’s track. While everyone gasped, the librarian tossed Harris off to one side, where the nurse hit the floor with a loud thump. Jarrett then dashed madly up the stairs, skirt in one hand and the knife held over her shoulder as if she would stab anyone in her way. Who that would be, I didn’t know, given that everyone was down in the kitchens except for Alice Drayton.

  Oh, no.

  I pointed at Hu
ghes. “Take care of Nurse Harris,” I commanded as I picked up my own skirts and pushed my way past the sea of faces to chase the crazed librarian up the stairs.

  Jarrett moved quickly, for by the time I had arrived on the main floor, I could hear her already stomping into Alice Drayton’s room. I had never moved so quickly in my entire life, my feet seeming to fly of their own volition. I hardly felt the flooring beneath me as I swiftly followed her. She would have to kill me before I would permit her to harm that poor woman whose only current crime was being unable to move herself out of bed.

  Jarrett stood over Drayton’s bed, her face wet with perspiration as she held the knife over Miss Drayton’s chest. “If I can’t do the boy, it may as well be you. There is blood to be paid for what I have suffered. I should have done this long ago anyway, you irritating old cow. Listening to you blathering on and on about nothing is enough to drive anyone insane. I should receive the keys to London for dispatching you.”

  Her voice woke Alice, whose eyes flew open at the hideous apparition over her. She made a strangled noise, and it seemed to please Jarrett, for she relaxed a moment and laughed. It was a maniacal sound that made my scalp tingle. “Perhaps it was better that I waited until now. The fear on your stupid brainless face is worth it. I—”

  “Stop!” I commanded loudly from the doorway. “Put that knife down, Persimmon Jarrett, or I swear I will, will…”

  She turned to me but still kept the knife poised over Drayton. “Or you will what, Miss?” Jarrett’s voice was both derisive and sneering. “If you step into this room, I will plunge Nurse Harris’s knife straight into the biddy’s heart. She’s a weak thing; it should take only a moment before it stops pumping blood. I won’t even need to cut her wrists afterward, will I?” Her face glistened with sweat, but she was smiling in malicious pleasure. Her eyes were dilated, with a glimmer of absolute evil in them. It was a frightening visage.

  I remained still, fearing that any movement on my part would cause her to carry through with her threat. She laughed again, this time in a higher pitch. “You are not the important woman you thought you were, now, are you, Florence?” She enunciated my first name very deliberately and mockingly.

  “There is no need to harm Miss Drayton,” I reasoned. “She has done nothing to you.”

  “No?” she replied, now looking back down at her intended victim. “She chattered on about Nurse Bellamy trying to poison her, didn’t she? I thought she might expose me with her foolish talk, somehow make people think I was the one doing the poisoning.”

  Alice whimpered like a scared child but remained instinctively still herself.

  How had Jarrett gone from a sheepish, ridiculous fool to this insane harridan in mere moments? Of course, she had probably been unhinged for much longer but been able to cleverly conceal her true self.

  I was desperate for a weapon. I glanced furtively around. What was there?

  In that moment, though, salvation arrived in the form of a bundle of gray fur. Jasmine came casually strolling through the corridor in her usual way, tail twitching as she looked this way and that, probably wondering who might drop a little food down to her. It gave me the only idea I had in my panicked mind. As she rubbed her face down against my booted foot, I slowly leaned down, keeping a wary eye on Jarrett the entire time. The librarian, however, was paying no mind to me and Jasmine. She was instead wholly focused on Alice Drayton, hissing final threats to the poor woman.

  “Be yourself,” I whispered, picking the cat up and tossing her at Jarrett. Being a feline with a finely honed sense of well-being, the cat ensured she landed upright, all four sets of claws firmly entrenched in Jarrett’s back.

  A dead-center hit.

  Jarrett howled in pain, letting the knife clatter to the floor. I confess it gave me great joy to watch as she performed a bizarre, wriggling dance to try to remove Jasmine from her back. The cat did not appreciate being frenetically tossed to and fro and dug in deeper, which only resulted in Jarrett screeching and cursing even more loudly. I was emboldened enough to enter the room and hastily grab the knife from the floor while the librarian lurched and swayed her way out of the room and down the corridor.

  I looked down at Alice Drayton, tucking the knife securely into my dress pocket so she could no longer see it. “Are you all right?” I asked quietly. Her eyes were round globes of horror.

  She nodded her head as she settled down, blinking several times as if to erase the past few minutes from her mind.

  “Miss Nightingale?” she said.

  “Yes, Miss Drayton?”

  “That woman is barmy.”

  I laughed. “That she is, dear lady.” She joined me in nervous laughter.

  Jasmine must have remained lodged in Jarrett’s skin, for her piercing cries of pain reached us from the entry hall. Except now I heard a plethora of other voices, which I assumed was the gaggle of everyone residing or working at the Establishment coming up to see what had happened. Then I heard the sound of the front doors flying open and what almost sounded like a melee of shouting.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured Alice, squeezing her fleshy shoulder reassuringly. I then headed out to the entryway.

  It took several moments to take in what was happening. Jarrett was curled up on the floor with a constable standing over her, his foot on her arm as if daring her to move. Douglas Lyon was also in attendance. Jasmine was back in Ivy Stoke’s arms and the woman was cooing at the feline, who reached up and affectionately licked her owner’s face.

  As far as I was concerned, Ivy Stoke and Jasmine could remain lodged at the Establishment forever.

  Nurse Harris had been brought up and was also on the floor where John Wesley had once lain. While she moaned, Marian Hughes was on her knees, bunching up linens to put at Harris’s neck to staunch the bleeding. Who knew how much more damage had been done to the poor woman by dragging her up the stairs, but there was no point in thinking about it now.

  Hughes looked up at me, again seeming to read my mind. “It’s not a deep cut,” she said succinctly before returning to her work.

  Mary stood in a corner, turning ashen as she observed blood spattering on Hughes’s hands, face, and clothing.

  Charlie Lewis was at Lyon’s side and had seemed to take on a newfound confidence. Charlie was busy pointing out Roper, Frye, and Wilmot, all of whom began wailing and casting blame on each other as they were rounded up for arrest.

  This wasn’t a hospital for the sick; it was absolute Bedlam.

  Conspicuously absent now were Lady Canning and Roderick Alban. I presumed Lady Canning had scurried Alban out the rear servants’ door to prevent him from doing anything he might later regret. And how he would keep this from his wife, I had no idea.

  I cleared my throat to make my presence known. Lyon looked away from what he was doing and smiled. “Miss Nightingale, I wondered where you were.”

  “How did you know you were needed?” I asked in amazement.

  “Mr. Herbert sent for the police. He said you might be in serious trouble. I volunteered to come. Seems like you’ve had considerable excitement here today. We had planned to come through the rear so as not to alarm your neighbors, but then we heard screaming in here and decided that saving someone was more important than propriety.”

  I thanked him and joined the rest of the patients and staff in gawking at Jarrett’s sorry, caterwauling removal from the premises. Then I ensured that John Wesley was brought upstairs and that Harris was transferred to a room. Finally, I sent Charlie Lewis out for Dr. Killigrew. Charlie was more than eager to perform the task. I only hoped it was the last time I would need Killigrew in such a hurry.

  The inmates returned to their rooms, and no doubt they would wish to gossip all about this as I went around to see them later in the evening. However, I felt as though I were finally in charge of what was happening inside the walls of the Establishment.

  I walked back into the entry hall, where Mary remained. She had barely taken two frightened steps.
/>   “Well, Goose,” I said. “It’s all over now. There’s nothing more to fear.”

  Clearly I had no idea what I was talking about, for Mary promptly turned around and threw up in the corner.

  CHAPTER 22

  Once more I had a member of the Establishment in a hospital bed. How fortunate Nurse Harris—and I—had been that Jarrett was sometimes sloppy in her methods.

  I stood at Nurse Harris’s bedside, where she sat up against plumped pillows, her hands clasped on top of the neatly made coverlet. Despite the horrific attack on her and the bandages now adorning her neck, she was still and composed. How did she manage that?

  I confirmed that she was comfortable, then decided it was time to have the truth from her. “I have never understood why you are so secretive, Nurse. Your husband is dead, you carry a sharp knife about you, you skulk about with Charlie Lewis while avoiding the other nurses … What is this all about?”

  Nurse Harris sighed and turned her somber green-eyed gaze to me. “I do regret that Charlie believed me to be interested in him. He was quite persistent in his attentions, and I truly didn’t wish to hurt his feelings.”

  I frowned. “Did you believe Charlie would become angry?”

  “Not really, not him. Although I couldn’t be sure. I certainly could never predict my husband’s anger. Regardless, I could not allow myself to find anyone else. I’m not free to marry, and if Ralph were to find me…” She let the words trail off.