by Carol Baxter
• • •
When Sherwood returned to the Collins cottage just after eleven am, he noticed that Louisa was looking distressed. She was sitting on the side of Collins’ bed saying, ‘Poor Mick! Poor Mick!’ as she curled his moustache and rubbed his face and hair.
Collins seemed not to notice his visitor until Sherwood asked how he was feeling. Focusing his gaze on the senior constable, he said, ‘I am bad, but I expect to be all right in a couple of days.’
‘Have you taken any medicine other than that given by the doctor, or anything that could make you sick?’
‘No.’
Louisa spoke up, repeating her comments of the night before. ‘I am the only one that gives him medicine and drinks. He could not have taken anything without my knowledge.’
Sherwood ignored her intrusion and directed another question at Collins: ‘Do you suspect any person might have given you something to make you sick?’
‘No,’ was the simple response.
Again, Louisa said that Mick couldn’t have taken anything unknown to her. Picking up his hands, she rubbed them as if to warm them.
‘Are the doctors coming again today?’ Sherwood asked.
Collins had lapsed into a stupor, but he roused himself at the sound of Sherwood’s voice and asked Louisa: ‘What is Sherwood saying?’ After she repeated the question, he replied, ‘No, the doctor is not coming anymore.’
‘The doctor did not say that, Mick,’ she chided gently.
‘Yes he did,’ came the irritated response. ‘The doctor said so last night. He said he need not and would not come anymore.’ Collins then stretched out an arm and shakily lifted a small teacup from the bedside box. After taking a sip, he put it down again.
‘What does the cup contain?’ Sherwood asked.
‘Cold tea,’ said Louisa.
Sherwood looked back at the bedside box. He saw a tumbler half full of a milky-white liquid, one that was probably too far away for Collins to reach. Among the other items was a box of matches. Gesturing to the half-burnt matches scattered on the floor near the bed, he asked Louisa what they had been used for.
‘I had to light them for Mick a short time before you came in because he complained that the whole place was in darkness.’
After ten or fifteen minutes, Sherwood headed home. There he was told that Mrs Collins had left a message earlier that morning saying that she wanted to see him. He wondered why she hadn’t mentioned this summons while he was at the cottage. What had she wanted to communicate?
• • •
Dr Marshall wasn’t surprised when Louisa didn’t send word of Collins’ condition. She must have realised he was responsible for the late-night visit from the police. Still, he was curious to know how the case was unfolding. Payment of his fee no longer mattered. With Dr Martin in tow, he returned to Botany at noon to see his patient.
Louisa was alone with Collins. He was still alive, although in a state of collapse. His breathing was heavy and laboured, his pulse weak. His extremities were cold and his core temperature only 96 degrees instead of 98 or 99. Death was imminent.
‘Why didn’t you send him to the hospital as I urged?’ Marshall censured Louisa.
‘If you were sick yourself, you wouldn’t care to go into a hospital,’ was her indignant reply.
He didn’t respond. What could he say? Instead, he asked if she had been giving her husband the recommended egg-and-brandy mixture to keep up his strength. She said nothing. He repeated his question.
‘I suppose you think I would not give it to him?’ she replied bitterly. ‘Mick knows I would, don’t you, Mick?’ She went over to the bed and put her arm around his neck. He took no notice, having lapsed again into a stupor.
Calling his name, Marshall managed to rouse him. He asked how his illness had begun and whether he had taken anything likely to make him ill. Collins replied as before.
The doctors remained for only a short time. When they departed, they knew they would not be returning.
• • •
Around two-thirty pm, Louisa sent a message to her next-door neighbour, Catherine Mudge, asking if she would come over as Collins was dying. Catherine arrived a short time later, accompanied by Johannah Bartington. They joined Louisa and two of her children, who were maintaining a bedside vigil. Looking at Collins, they could see that his time had come.
‘Mrs Collins, his mouth looks awfully dry,’ said Johannah. ‘You might get something and wet it.’ Louisa agreed that it was a sound idea. Johannah suggested brandy and water. Louisa left the bedroom and returned with some brandy in a little cup and water in a dipper. She poured the water into the cup and held it to his lips. He was too weak to drink it.
‘Perhaps you should get a quill and wet his lips with some brandy through it,’ Johannah suggested helpfully.
Louisa collected a quill and brought it back to the bedroom. Johannah dripped some of the brandy-and-water mixture into it, then used it to moisten Collins’ lips. A moment later, without saying another word, he took his last breath.
Chapter 7
Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just.
Hosea Ballou, Treasury of Thought
Clouds were mushrooming as Constable Jeffes made his way to the Collinses’ place around three o’clock that afternoon, heralding an ominous change in the previously fine weather. Arriving at the cottage, he saw Louisa standing at the front door. He asked after her husband.
‘He is dead,’ she said baldly.
Jeffes pushed past her into the bedroom. He saw Collins lying on the bed with silver coins over his eyes—the customary mourning tradition. Few remembered its pagan origins: the ancient Greeks had believed that the souls of the dead must cross the river Styx to reach the underworld and needed two silver coins to pay the ferryman.
‘When did he die?’ he asked.
‘About ten minutes to three this afternoon.’
‘Have you sent for the doctor?’
‘Yes, I have sent my son by the tram just gone.’
Immediately after Mick had passed away, she had dispatched Arthur to the city to obtain a death certificate from the doctor. She had also sent May to request the services of local grocer and midwife Ellen Price, who supplemented her income by washing the dead.
‘Put a sheet over his face,’ Jeffes ordered. He stood there for a moment, thinking about what he should do next. He decided to stay at the cottage until Arthur returned to see if he would bring back a death certificate. At this point, the responsibility for initiating an investigation lay with the attending physician. If Dr Marshall signed a death certificate, it would signify his satisfaction that Collins had died of natural causes. But if he refused . . .
• • •
The crowd hanging around the Collins cottage had increased by the time Mrs Price arrived. Louisa’s neighbour Rosetta Mapstone offered to assist the body washer. The two women cleared the odds and ends from the bedside box to make room for the water container. Louisa, dry-eyed, stood at the foot of the bed watching them.
Mrs Price removed Collins’ shirt and washed the upper portion of his body. As she pulled off his dark brown trousers, she noticed they were filthy, only partly because of his post-death secretions. She passed them to Louisa, who dropped them on the floor near the foot of the bed. Tugging down Collins’ socks, Mrs Price saw a six-inch wound on his leg. Although unprotected by bandage or plaster, the wound was dry enough that his sock hadn’t stuck to it.
The two women tried to wash the lower half of Collins’ body but found Louisa’s vantage point an inconvenience. Rosetta asked her to move but she ignored the request, forcing the women to work around her. When they finished, Louisa gave Mrs Price a pair of new white stockings and told her where to find a shirt so they could dress him.
Afterwards, Louisa asked some of her neighbours to put together two tables in the sitting room. They carried Collins’ body from the bedroom and laid it on the makeshift bench. Louisa stared at her husban
d’s corpse for a while then looked at Mrs Price in despair. ‘I’ll not stop here tonight,’ she said. ‘I’ll go for a walk.’
‘If I thought you were going to talk like that, I would not have come to you,’ Mrs Price responded.
‘Don’t you think it would do me good to go for a walk?’
‘Don’t do anything of the kind,’ Mrs Price said firmly. ‘If you do, the police will lock you up.’
She knew her suspicions were correct when Louisa said bleakly, ‘I don’t want to live any longer.’
• • •
Constable Jeffes was still waiting outside the Collins cottage when Sherwood joined him. He told his superior that the local clergyman was attending Louisa and that Arthur hadn’t yet returned from the city. As it was teatime, the two policemen decided to return to their homes and to leave questioning Louisa until later that evening.
Jeffes was nearing the police station, where he lived, when he spied Arthur alighting from the tram. He asked the lad if the doctor had signed a death certificate.
‘No, he won’t give one,’ was the response. ‘He told me to report the matter to the police.’
Jeffes sent Arthur on his way and hurried to Sherwood’s home with the news. Sherwood said that he would alert head office but, meanwhile, Jeffes was to return to the Collins house and take possession of all the bottles he could find.
Neighbours Johannah Bartington and Charles Sayers crowded Jeffes when he arrived back at the cottage around six pm, saying that they were worried about Louisa. Johannah had remained at the cottage after Collins’ death to comfort his heartbroken widow. She had noticed that Louisa seemed even more upset—indeed angry—after Arthur reported that the doctor wouldn’t provide a death certificate and wanted the matter reported to the police. Louisa had spat, ‘If I had sixty sovereigns in my pocket, he would not get a penny of it.’
‘You had better stop at the house,’ the neighbours urged the constable. ‘She wants to get out. We’re afraid that she will do some harm to herself.’
Jeffes saw that Louisa’s face was red and her manner excited, the result, no doubt, of the alcohol he could smell. He sidestepped the neighbours and made his way to the Collinses’ bedroom. Louisa followed, seating herself on the bedside box so she could watch him. Sayers and Johannah also slipped through the door while others thronged behind them, wondering why the police were so interested in this particular death.
Jeffes began searching the bedroom, looking for anything that might contain poison, medicine bottles included. He opened all the drawers and peered into the corners to see if anything was hidden. He looked at the items on the dressing table, recognising that some had previously been sitting on the bedside box. He picked up a small tea cup about half full of a brown liquid.
‘That’s brandy and water,’ Louisa said. It was the drink Johannah Bartington had given Mick just before he died.
Jeffes poured the cup’s contents into the brandy flask then placed the flask and cup on the dressing table, ready to be taken away. He added to his stash a chipped box containing a white ointment. As he lifted a small glass tumbler that was about three-quarters full of white liquid, Louisa leapt up from her seat and caught his arm, nearly tipping the glass over. ‘That’s milk,’ she said. ‘I have been giving it to Mick. It is nothing.’
‘Sit down and keep quiet!’ he admonished. ‘I want everything in the place. I must take it.’
‘There is no medicine here. Dr Marshall has taken all the medicines away, hasn’t he?’ she said, as if appealing for support from the neighbours milling around the bedroom door. She fell silent again as Jeffes continued searching.
Pushing aside a looking-glass, he reached for a small paper package lying underneath. It contained a white powder.
Louisa jumped up again. ‘That’s a powder I got for him. It’s all right.’
‘Sit down and keep quiet!’ Jeffes ordered again. ‘I want everything.’
He picked up a square medicine bottle and looked at Louisa. ‘I thought you told me that Dr Marshall had taken all the medicine away.’
‘That’s a bottle of medicine which was ordered by the doctor,’ she said. ‘I got it at Mr Hamilton’s.’
As Jeffes added it to his pile, he realised that he had too many items to stuff into his pockets. The ever-helpful Charles Sayers left the room and came back with a small cigar box.
After Jeffes indicated that he had completed his search, Louisa left the bedroom and slipped through the front door clutching her purse. The clouds had dissipated and the night sky was brilliant with stars—a beautiful night for a walk. Before she could go far, Jeffes stopped her, demanding to know where she was heading.
‘I want to go down to the beach for a walk—or to the brickyards.’
Jeffes knew that the brickyards contained waterholes. ‘What for?’ he asked.
‘It’s where Mick and I used to walk,’ she said, adding sadly, ‘I don’t care about living now that he is dead.’
‘Go inside and keep quiet or I will take you down to the police station!’
Meekly, Louisa returned to the sitting room and sat near Mick’s corpse. After a while, she turned to Arthur and asked him to fetch Mick’s vest and trousers from the bedroom. Arthur collected the clothing and handed it over. She pulled Mick’s watch and chain from his vest pocket then dropped the clothes onto the floor. Clutching the much-loved item, she headed towards the door again, saying firmly, ‘I want to go out!’
Before Jeffes could say anything, Arthur planted himself in front of her, asking: ‘What do you want to go out for?’
‘I want to go to the brickyards! I want to go to the beach!’ she cried.
‘What for?’
‘I love the ground Collins put his feet on.’
Arthur grabbed his mother’s arm and urged her towards her seat. As she sat down again, she said: ‘I’m tired of life. I shall not live after tomorrow.’
‘You did not seem to get so excited on Father’s death,’ Arthur said. ‘What are you to do with the children?’
‘What do I care for the children now?’ But she subsided once more.
Jeffes remained at the cottage throughout the evening to guard against Louisa’s endeavours to leave the house. He mentioned her state of mind to Sherwood when the officer returned around eleven pm.
Sherwood turned to her and asked, ‘What do you mean by wanting to go out?’
She ignored his question, acting as if he didn’t exist.
He too could smell the alcohol seeping from her pores. He organised for another constable to remain at the cottage overnight so that Jeffes could be relieved.
Jeffes returned to the police station carrying the cigar box. He inscribed a number on each collected item and tucked them away safely. If the doctors’ suspicions were correct, one of them might provide a clue to the cause of Collins’ death.
Chapter 8
Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.
Lao-Tzu
Still no telegrams from abroad—and more cricket games had been played in the intervening week. To offset his readers’ frustration, the Evening News’ editor decided to treat Sydney to some tongue-in-cheek offerings from his pressmen’s mischievous imaginations. Supposedly, the Australian eleven had triumphed, so much so that marriage offers were flooding in. Its six-foot six-inch star, George Bonnor, had declared that nothing less than a duke’s daughter and a £100,000 dowry would secure his affections; however, the remainder of the team would be content with commoners and £50,000. As for blowing up the derelict ship off Newcastle, the exercise had proven so difficult that British naval experts were recommending that, in the event of war, Australia should devote a portion of its naval budget to buying derelicts and mooring them outside Port Jackson, Newcastle and Port Phillip. Evidently, a properly fitted-out derelict would have defied all efforts to destroy it, making it more beneficial for defence purposes than the vessels of war financed by the British Admiralty.
Soon,
though, the blanket of international silence would be lifted. A ship sailing to Banjoewangie in Java was under orders to collect all the international cablegrams and transport them to Port Darwin. From there, the continental telegraph would transmit the news around Australia. No longer would its citizens feel so blind and vulnerable, uncertain if something might have happened in the interim that meant that life would never be quite the same again.
• • •
For Dr Marshall, the cycle of life and death continued on the Monday morning: new patients to meet, new illnesses to diagnose—or old ones to continue treating. One face he didn’t expect to see in his waiting room was that of Louisa Collins. He asked why she had come.
‘The constables told me to meet you here at ten o’clock. My husband is dead, and I need a certificate.’
‘I will not give a certificate,’ he said bluntly. ‘I have reported the matter to the coroner and he must give the certificate.’
Mrs Collins seemed unable or unwilling to understand. She said she would wait for the police. He gave up trying to explain the situation and allowed her to bide her time at his premises.
She was a puzzling woman—quite odd, in fact. During their previous encounters, he had noticed that she often seemed apathetic. Instead of meeting his eyes when he spoke to her, she looked down as if she wasn’t listening. Sometimes, she ignored his questions altogether as she was now doing. Of course, this might reflect absence of mind rather than apathy. Yet this morning she seemed different, as if she was buoyed by excitement—or, more likely, the alcohol he could smell on her breath. Everyone coped with death in different ways, of course. For some, a few stiff drinks were necessary to endure the pain.
An hour later, when the police hadn’t arrived, he told her to go home. She didn’t argue the point. She just stood up and left.
