by Carol Baxter
• • •
Shortly before five on the morning following the doctor’s third visit, Louisa slipped out of the house and hurried along Botany Road. The occasional square of light indicated that people were stirring. She wasn’t alone in these darkest hours before the dawn.
No welcoming lights beamed from grocer Charles Sayers’ house. She knocked gently on his front door, but he didn’t respond. Not wanting to wake all the residents—Sayers had a wife and large family—she stood near his bedroom window and called out his name. A moment later, the door opened. A tousled head peered through.
‘Can you come over?’ she begged. ‘Collins is bad.’
Sayers had been the most helpful of their visitors, dropping over multiple times each day, assisting Mick into a rocking chair, giving him sips from the drinks on the bedside box. Once or twice he had caught her crying. He was a kind man, the obvious person to turn to when Mick’s condition suddenly deteriorated.
Mick was vomiting every minute or so when the grocer joined them. Asked how he was feeling, Mick said, ‘I have been choking and feel like I have a lump in my throat. Can you look down my throat?’
Sayers looked but couldn’t see anything. ‘I think it’s the vomiting causing the soreness,’ he said. He remained for an hour, providing company for Louisa in her distress, then departed to open his store.
Grocery stores were focal points in every district. The lack of refrigeration and personal transportation meant that housewives made regular trips to the store, where they chatted with grocery staff and other shoppers. News of local happenings spread quickly—births and deaths, triumphs and tragedies. Word of Mick’s illness soon got around, and as the day unfolded, a number of well-wishers made their way to the cottage.
Around four-thirty pm, Louisa asked her fourteen-year-old son, Arthur, to help her lift Mick onto the chamber-pot. Arthur hadn’t assisted with Mick’s care during his illness. In fact, he hadn’t even spoken to or visited his ailing stepfather during the two weeks of his illness.
When Arthur entered the bedroom, he called out, ‘Hullo, Bill’—Mick’s nickname—in a bantering tone. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘All right, Coppers!’ Mick replied, attempting a similarly jocular tone. ‘I’ll be right. I’ll be up today or tomorrow.’
Louisa pulled back the covers. The trousers Mick was wearing created problems when they attempted to get him onto the chamberpot. Somehow, though, they managed.
Not long afterwards, Mick tried to get up again. As Louisa and Arthur moved to assist him, he started shivering uncontrollably. Alarmed, they helped him lie down.
‘Go to Dr Marshall,’ Louisa urged her son. ‘Tell him that Mick is no better, that I think he is dying.’
Arthur hurried out the door to catch the six pm tram.
Chapter 4
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Dr Marshall had remained troubled about his Botany patient. The continued vomiting despite anti-emetic medications, the conjunctivitis—both hinted at arsenical poisoning, yet he’d found no traces of the deadly substance in the samples he had tested. It was perplexing.
That Saturday morning he had decided to experiment further, using Friday’s vomited matter as his sample. Test tube . . . spoonful of dark green vomit . . . splash of water . . . dash of hydrochloric acid . . . a quick stir. He was more confident after carrying out the Reinsch Test four times the previous day. Bunsen burner . . . strip of bright copper foil . . . a close inspection. Nothing but a slight discolouration again. It was most perplexing indeed.
Early in the evening, a messenger arrived on his doorstep, a boy who identified himself as Mrs Collins’ son Arthur. He said, ‘My mother has sent me to say that her husband is dying.’
Mrs Collins had come herself on all previous occasions so her decision to send the lad lent credence to her claim that Collins’ condition had deteriorated—and indicated that she had ignored his advice to send her husband to the hospital. He should probably attend Collins again but first he would discuss the case with Dr Martin. Perhaps it was time for a second opinion.
• • •
Among the visitors to the Collins house that same evening were neighbours Margaret Collis and Ellen Pettit, the latter accompanied by her son and an elderly friend. When they knocked at the door and asked how Collins was getting on, Louisa seemed unwilling for them to enter. She stepped onto the verandah and pulled the door partly closed behind her. One of the women said, ‘We have come to see Mr Collins.’ Only then did Louisa open the door—reluctantly, they noticed—and direct them to the bedroom.
Standing by Collins’ bedside, they asked how he felt—a social nicety more than anything else as it was obvious he was suffering greatly. He responded politely, saying that he had a pain in his left shoulder and in his throat. Then he lapsed into silence.
As the women hovered, Louisa used the opportunity to send Ellen’s thirteen-year-old son to the pub for beer. When he returned, she poured some of the beer into a glass and the remainder into a jug. She sipped from the glass throughout the evening. Her neighbours weren’t surprised to see her drinking alcohol. She had a reputation for enjoying a tipple.
Then Collins asked for a drink. Louisa lifted a large, almost empty tumbler from the bedside box and gave him a sip of its milky contents. Soon, he asked for another drink, indicating that he wanted milk. Louisa collected the big tumbler and went out to the kitchen.
While she was absent, a confused Collins asked where she was. He seemed desperately thirsty so Margaret Collis offered him a drink of tea. He rejected the offer, saying he didn’t want any. ‘It makes me sick,’ he explained. ‘I want milk.’
Louisa returned a moment later, carrying the big tumbler. It was now three-quarters filled with milk. She raised his head and let him drink from the glass.
Not long afterwards, he began to convulse. His eyes rolled into the back of his head leaving only the whites showing. His body arched as if stretched taut around a bowstring then began to shudder. For minutes his body waged a battle against itself until the spasms eased and his body relaxed to a state of limpness. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘Oh, look at all the lights and stars. Blue lights. I can see one that is green.’
Around ten-fifteen pm, more visitors arrived. Two gentlemen strode into the bedroom as if they owned the house. The Collinses’ friends and neighbours didn’t recognise the pair. Who could these men be?
• • •
The crowd of visitors at the cottage served as confirmation that Collins had indeed taken a turn for the worse. Still, the two doctors were startled by the extent of his deterioration. He was in a stupor, taking little notice of the goings-on around him. His eyelids were still inflamed, but his eyes were now sunken and his cheeks hollow. His lips were covered with sores and his breathing was laboured.
Dr Martin stood to the side watching while Dr Marshall took his patient’s pulse. Collins’ skin was cold and clammy and his pulse weak, almost imperceptible; however, he wasn’t unconscious. He was still capable of being roused to answer questions.
Marshall asked if he had any pain.
‘Yes,’ Collins answered slowly, ‘in my stomach and in my left shoulder. And I have a feeling of tightness in my throat.’
‘This morning he vomited a lot of dark brown matter,’ Mrs Collins reported, ‘but the vomiting has ceased and since then he has kept everything down that I have given him.’
Marshall said that he didn’t think there was any connection between the cessation of vomiting and the collapse. Collins might simply be too weak to vomit.
‘I would like you to see him raised up in bed,’ Mrs Collins continued, trying to lift her husband into a sitting position, ‘as you will see that he trembles all over and is unconscious-like.’
Marshall stopped her. It was clear that Collins was too weak to raise himse
lf. He probably couldn’t even turn himself over or reach the items on the bedside box without assistance. Under the circumstances, it was unnecessary to make him suffer any further.
‘How did your illness commence?’ Marshall asked again, curious to know if Collins would answer differently. He didn’t.
There was no point in prescribing any further medication. Instead, Marshall told Mrs Collins to mix some eggs and brandy and give her husband frequent sips. ‘He is dying,’ the doctor said gravely. ‘He will not live many more hours.’
She seemed agitated but offered no response.
‘Let me know in the morning how he is,’ were the doctor’s final words as he and Dr Martin departed.
As the doctors walked back to the tram stop, they discussed the case. They agreed that Collins’ symptoms were common to many diseases. They also agreed that, if they took his symptoms only as they saw them, they could come from a gastric complaint and a concurrent attack of conjunctivitis. But that didn’t explain the suddenness of his collapse. Moreover, there was more to this medical puzzle than these pieces alone, as Dr Martin could attest.
It wasn’t long before one of them aired what both were thinking, ‘He is dying under very suspicious circumstances.’
They decided to make a detour—to the Botany police station.
• • •
Peeping through the Collins’ bedroom doorway, Ellen Pettit and her companions had watched the two gentlemen inspecting the room as if the items on display were part of a job lot being sold at auction. One man had opened the dressing-table drawer and peered into it, while the other had picked up a bottle and smelt it.
After the pair departed, Margaret Collis asked Louisa who they were. Louisa said that they were doctors. ‘I do not know why they came out,’ she added. ‘I sent the boy in to see if I could get anything to make Mick sleep and the doctor did not send anything. I do not know why they followed the boy out in the next tram when they sent word that they could do no more for him and to send him to the hospital. I cannot send a dying man to the hospital.’
Collins’ voice broke through with a request for another drink. Louisa looked at Ellen, who was standing near the bedroom door, and said, ‘Would you mind handing me a glass off the mantelpiece in the front room?’ Ellen went into the sitting room and picked up a small, plain tumbler—a nobbler glass—that was sitting upside down on the mantelpiece. Lifting her apron, she wiped the tumbler carefully, both inside and out, then held it up to the light to make certain it was clean. Satisfied, she passed it to Louisa.
Louisa turned to Margaret Collis. ‘The jug of milk is on the kitchen table. Can you hand it over?’
Margaret went into the kitchen and found the requested jug. It was filled with milk, about a pint’s worth, and was yellowish in colour like condensed milk. As she reached to pick it up, little May said: ‘Do not take the milk. It is only for Mick.’ Margaret explained that she was collecting it at Louisa’s request.
Louisa took the jug from Margaret and poured some of the contents into the glass tumbler, adding a dash of brandy. She lifted it to Collins’ lips and he drank half the contents. A short time later, he asked for more milk and drank that glassful as well. All that remained were some dregs at the bottom of the tumbler.
Chapter 5
When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks.
William Shakespeare, Richard III
Poisoning?
The two police officers who manned the Botany station were startled by the doctors’ suspicions. Of course, crime was not unknown in their district, particularly in recent times. Businesses were struggling and families suffering, so theft, drunkenness and violence were not uncommon. Still, the doctors were alluding to something much more serious: to murder—or at least attempted murder, since Collins was still alive.
Both officers knew the Collinses. Constable George Jeffes had served at Botany for three of his six years as a policeman. He regularly encountered members of the Collins household while tramping his beat. In fact, he had spotted them waiting at the tram stop only twelve days before, on the morning of Monday, 25 June. Pausing for a moment to make conversation, he had asked if they were heading to the city. Mrs Collins said that they were, that Collins needed medical attention. When Jeffes asked what was wrong with him, she again spoke for her husband, saying that he had a cold.
As Jeffes and his superior made their way to Pople’s Terrace to investigate the doctors’ allegation, Jeffes remarked that he hadn’t been surprised to hear that Collins was seeking medical attention. He had often noticed, over the past two or three months, that the man seemed to have a sore throat.
Jeffes’ superior, Senior Constable Abraham Sherwood, had served at Botany for a similar period, although his own rise through the police ranks had been faster because of his previous service with the Irish constabulary. He wasn’t as familiar with the Collins family; nevertheless, he knew that Mick Collins was a quiet, inoffensive man. As for Mrs Collins, he had heard the gossip but had no reason to notice anything . . . officially.
Sherwood had also encountered the Collinses in recent times—on Thursday, 28 June, to be precise, the day Marshall said the pair first visited his surgery. He remembered seeing them on the tram from Sydney. Collins had been lying on a seat, clearly unwell. Which raised the curious question: if the Collinses had first visited Dr Marshall on Thursday, 28 June, what doctor had they seen the previous Monday when Jeffes met them? Perhaps they hadn’t made it as far as the city for some reason.
Jeffes reported that he’d also spoken to the Collinses in the past few days. Mrs Collins had been standing in her front doorway when he passed the house, so he had stopped to ask how her husband was faring. ‘Very bad,’ was her reply. A voice had rung out, Collins’ voice, inviting him in. After venturing inside, Jeffes had asked the patient how he was getting on.
‘All right,’ was the valiant response. ‘I will be up in a day or two.’
Jeffes recalled this ill-founded optimism as the two policeman regarded the man in the bed. Collins did indeed look dreadful, on the verge of death, as the doctors had reported. Nevertheless, that mustn’t deter them from their investigation. It was better to question him while they could.
‘What is the matter with you?’ asked the forthright senior constable.
There was a long pause as Collins struggled to answer. ‘I have a bad cold,’ he finally said. ‘I can keep nothing in my stomach.’
‘Do you have any pain?’
‘I feel a joint pain in my left shoulder.’ He slowly moved his right hand to point to the spot. Then he began picking at the bedclothes.
Neighbours thronged the bedroom doorway, eager to know why the law was making a late-night appearance. The small bedroom was so crowded that Jeffes eased back through the doorway, leaving Sherwood to continue his questioning alone.
‘Have you had any other medicine but what the doctor ordered?’ Sherwood asked.
‘No.’
‘No,’ repeated Louisa. ‘I gave him the medicine and I know what he has taken. He could not have taken anything without my knowledge.’
Sherwood turned to Collins again and asked bluntly: ‘Do you suspect that anyone has given you anything to make you ill?’
‘No,’ the sick man said, adding with attempted firmness, ‘I’ll be up and all right in a few days.’ Then he indicated that he wanted another drink.
‘Why don’t you give him some brandy?’ suggested neighbour Johannah Bartington.
‘Give him as much brandy as he likes,’ ordered Sherwood. ‘It will do no harm.’
Louisa left the room and came back with a half-filled tumbler of white liquid, saying that it contained milk. She added half a teaspoonful of brandy. Johannah raised Collins’ head while Louisa put the glass to his lips. Afterwards, she placed the glass on the bedside box.
Soon, Sherwood signalled that they were departing. As he and Jeffes left the house, he said to Louisa, ‘If he dies before morning, you had better let me know.’
• • •
A visit from two policemen late at night? Louisa was troubled. ‘Why do they want me to let them know when Mick dies?’ she asked. She slumped onto the bed, her gaze unfocused.
Ellen Pettit attempted an answer. ‘It is very likely the doctors sent them in.’
‘I do not know the cause of that,’ was her bewildered response.
‘Don’t be uneasy,’ Ellen soothed. ‘It may be for the best that they came.’
‘I cannot understand them coming here at all,’ Louisa countered. ‘They must have felt suspicious of me or they would not have come into the house.’ She paused again, seemingly lost in her thoughts. Then she added fervently, ‘I have done my duty by him, God knows. They need not suspect me of giving him anything.’
Gradually, the neighbours drifted away. By the witching hour, only Ellen Pettit remained. She sat with Louisa during the eerie silence of the early-morning hours, leaving around two-thirty am to return to her home. Only one other person seemed to be awake: Louisa’s son, Arthur, who was hovering in the kitchen.
Chapter 6
We see death coming into our midst like black smoke . . . a rootless phantom which has no mercy.
Ieuan Gethin
Across Sydney and its suburbs, church bells summoned their flocks. Fathers prepared to enjoy their only full day of leisure. Mothers, who had none at all, tweaked skirts and bows and used a dab of lick-and-spit to restrain unruly locks. As the peals grew more demanding, families ventured into the warm winter sunshine and trooped to their local place of worship—perhaps a spire-topped wooden box or a majestic cathedral or some other structure that provided the spiritual comfort or social engagement they craved.
The less devout, who found the services boring and the collection plates an affront, knew more enjoyable ways of spending their time and money, like picnicking at the Sir Joseph Banks Pleasure Gardens at Botany.
The Botany police rarely had a day off, either. There were only two officers manning the station and they had to be available whenever the public needed them. The wicked saw no need to rest on the Sabbath while the starving had no choice. And the doctors’ concerns about Michael Peter Collins meant that this particular Sabbath might prove busier than most.
