The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery, and Myth

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “I always come to this house with great pleasure and fond memories, Mr. Wythe. How may I assist you? Is it a case of law?”

  Wythe gestured Tom toward an empty chair and returned to his desk, stacked high with papers. “That is for you to tell me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Allow me to set forth the facts of the matter, beginning with a question. How well were you acquainted with the affairs of Robert Bracewell, who was taken by death only two days since?”

  “More by reputation and rumor than by actual discourse,” Tom answered. “I confess it is his younger brother’s reputation of which most rumor has reached my ears.”

  “There is no surprise in that,” said Wythe, “when Peter has spent a rather longer time than most young men in sowing his wild oats.”

  “And so has found himself without the means to reap them?” Tom returned. “Mrs. Skelton, with whom I was conversing most amiably at the Governor’s palace last week, said she should not be surprised if Peter had married the former Mrs. Allen so that the property left to her by Mr. Allen might assist in the payment of his debts.”

  “Be that as it may, debts Peter has yet, many contracted upon the expectations of an inheritance from his brother.”

  “Have you then read out Robert’s will and made an inventory of his personal property? Has something gone amiss with one or the other?”

  Wythe leaned forward. “Something has gone amiss, yes. Not with the will or the inventory but with the heirs themselves. And with, I fear, the circumstances of Robert’s death.”

  “Indeed?” Tom frowned, not caring for the direction of Mr. Wythe’s conversation but intrigued nonetheless.

  “Three days since, Robert sat at his desk tending to his accounts, as was his habit of an evening, when he was afflicted suddenly by a severe gastric fever. Mrs. Bracewell assisted him to his bed and summoned Dr. de Sequera, but the usual remedies availed nothing, and Robert died soon after dawn, may God rest his soul.”

  “Fevers are not infrequent this time of year.”

  “Neither are disputes between heirs, at any time of the year. This one, though, goes well beyond most such quarrels. Both Mrs. Robert Bracewell and Mr. Peter Bracewell have waited upon me, separately, each to accuse the other of murder by poison.”

  “Murder!” exclaimed Tom.

  “Disagreeable as we may find it to be, that is the word exactly. At root, as you may expect, are the contents of Robert’s will.”

  “And, I would presume, the contents of his last meal as well?” Tom smiled, thinly, as befit the circumstances. “Has Robert left Eliza less than her widow’s third, so that she intends to renounce the will for her dower rights?”

  “Not at all, no. He has left her the majority of the estate, property and business both, and Peter but a small settlement. Peter asserts, however, that Robert intended writing a codicil to his will that would ensure him a full two-thirds of the estate. He suggests that Eliza killed her husband before he could do so. Eliza, in turn, asserts that Peter killed Robert believing that the codicil had already been written, reluctant to wait til nature had in the course of time worked its will upon his brother.”

  “Many a man has teased his family with implications of the contents of his will,” offered Tom.

  “True enough.”

  “But are these infamous charges true? Have you any evidence that such a terrible crime as murder was actually committed?”

  “Not one jot or tittle of evidence, no. This is why I sent for you. I know how you enjoy digging into a case and discovering evidence.”

  “And yet no case is to be seen, Mr. Wythe, only the suspicions and accusations of dissatisfied heirs.”

  “As yet, yes. But if the citizens of Virginia are to live under the rule of law, as is their right, then such suspicions must be answered. I’m asking you to research the matter, Mr. Jefferson. Then if you believe that no case exists to be brought before judge and jury, there the matter will rest.”

  “Very well.” Tom returned. “As reason is the only sure guide which God has given to man, I shall apply my reason to the problem.”

  “Good,” said Wythe. “I trust you to find its solution.”

  * * * * *

  Tom made his way up Duke of Gloucester street, envisioning himself a small boat tacking against the wind. His cloak fluttered like a sail. He secured his hat with one gloved hand. What he at first took to be a swirling red leaf settled upon a fence and revealed itself as a redbird.

  So were man’s senses deceived. Had the Bracewells allowed such distasteful motives as jealousy and greed to deceive them as well? Indeed, Tom himself had wondered at the stiffness between Eliza and Peter after Robert’s funeral, each offering the other courtesies so exaggerated as to be mocking.

  Death struck too easily and too swiftly to hasten anyone into his arms. Murder must out. Tom must not only prove a case of murder but bring its perpetrator to justice, lest doubt besmirch the community as surely as mist had smeared the streets the day of the funeral.

  He turned into Dr. de Sequera’s gate. There was the man himself, plucking globes of red, yellow, and green from several windblown bushes. “Doctor!”

  De Sequera looked around. “Mr. Jefferson! What brings you out in such a gale?”

  “A serious task. Eliza Bracewell and her husband’s brother, Peter, are each accusing the other of the murder by poison of Robert.”

  “Well, well, well.” De Sequera’s thick black brows arched upward. He picked up a basket that was half-filled by smooth round fruits. “Come inside.”

  The two men walked up the steps and into the still silence of de Sequera’s house. Tom looked about as eagerly as he always did when waiting upon his friend, finding great interest in the array of scientific instruments and medicines in their glass bottles. One of de Sequera’s refracting lenses had so intrigued Tom he’d ordered a copy from England for himself, to magnify the vexatiously small print in his books. “What have you there?” he asked, indicating the basket. “Tomatoes?”

  De Sequera held up a rosy red globe. “Yes. I eat them often.”

  “But are they not of the nightshade family?”

  “They are, yes. And yet despite their mimicry of less salubrious fruits, they are tasty and nutritious. The food we eat determines our state of health. And nowhere more so than with Robert Bracewell, it appears. Tell me what you have heard.”

  “Very little, in truth.” Tom repeated what Wythe had told him and concluded, “You treated Robert. What symptoms did you observe?”

  “During the autumn I see many fevers of the remitting and intermittent kind. Robert was taken by a very sudden fit of gastric fever, vomiting so severe I had no need for the usual vomits and purges. I administered snake root and Peruvian bark, but to no avail. This particular fever did run its course uncommonly swiftly, but each body is heir to its own.”

  “Vomits and purges. Those would also be the symptoms of some poisons.”

  “So they would.”

  “I should hate to ascribe to malice what could have occurred by accident. Could Robert have eaten food unsuitable for consumption? Not tomatoes, I warrant,” Tom added with a smile.

  “According to his relations, he took his dinner with friends at Weatherburn’s Tavern, then supped lightly on the same bread and cheese eaten by his wife. If poison had been introduced into either meal, Robert should not have been its only victim. Tis more likely the poison found its way, by whatever means, into a cup or glass from which he and he alone drank, not long before he was struck down.”

  “I see.” Tom nodded. “Arsenicum produces such symptoms, does it not? And antimony, the favorite of Lucrezia Borgia?”

  “Both are elemental metals. Antimony, though, does not dissolve in food or water and tastes bitter. If Robert were indeed poisoned, I should think arsenicum a more likely means, as it readily dissolves and leaves no taste.”

  Tom knew he must not be afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead. “Is it possible that
Robert dosed himself, thereby taking his own life?”

  “Tis possible. But if I were to make my own end, I should choose a method much quicker and tidier. Tis certainly against our deepest instincts to cause ourselves suffering.”

  “Yes,” Tom agreed. “How unfortunate that it is not always against our deepest instincts to cause suffering to another. Thank you for your help, doctor.”

  “If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.” De Sequera hoisted his basket onto his arm. “Til then, I have a recipe to perfect, a sauce of tomatoes and herbs, served over fowl, perhaps. Will you join me in such a culinary experiment?”

  “If you can eat tomatoes with a smile upon your face, then I shall gladly join you, and prove scientifically that they are a wholesome and delectable fruit.” Shaking his head—the good doctor might be somewhat eccentric, but his methods were sound—Tom walked back out into the cold.

  So Robert had indeed been hurried to his grave by poison. Now to discover whence the poison and how it was dispensed. Those considerations must, Tom hoped, bring him in due course to the hand that had dispensed it.

  * * * * *

  Robert Bracewell’s parlor was small but in every particular fashionable. The porcelain figurines lining the mantelpiece were as superior a quality as any found in the best houses in Williamsburg. Tom doubted Robert, a pleasant but less than polished individual, had selected such tasteful furnishings. As the daughter of a small planter possessing no more than an acre or two, it was Eliza who had by marrying a merchant risen above her origins.

  Mrs. Bracewell’s countenance was colored prettily now, but her fine dark eyes displayed a rigidity approaching haughtiness. In her black silk dress, its bodice softened by a white fichu, she reminded Tom of a magpie. “Allow me to offer you refreshment. Tea?”

  Tom held that the present tax on tea was not so much an absurd expense as an affront to colonial rights. Bowing, he refused the tea but accepted a chair. After a few moments of polite conversation he came to the point of his visit. “Mr. Wythe has told me of your allegations against Mr. Peter Bracewell. And of his corresponding allegations against you.”

  Eliza flicked open her black-trimmed mourning fan and with it concealed her lips as she spoke. “He cannot even present you with a reasonable falsehood. Why should I kill my husband and render myself a femme sole, alone in the world?”

  “Was the poison introduced into Robert’s food, do you think?”

  “No. No one else fell ill. I expect it was mixed with his wine.”

  “Wine?”

  “Twas his custom to take a glass or two of wine in the evenings as he looked over his accounts. He fell ill with the bottle and the glass still before him, or so I found him when I answered his cries of distress.”

  “You were not with him when he was taken ill?”

  “No. I was here, endeavoring to learn the words of a new song. My husband took pleasure in my singing, whether or no I had the advantage of tutors in music and deportment in my youth.” Her voice took on a mocking edge.

  Tom nodded. “May I see Robert’s office, please, Mrs. Bracewell?”

  “Surely.” Furling the fan, Eliza led the way down a narrow hall to a closet at the back of the house.

  A bookcase, a desk, and a chair filled the tiny room. Two ledger books lay upon the desk next to an inkwell and pen. A blue wine bottle and a glass occupied the far corner, beyond several bills of lading. A child’s toy horse lay next to the door. “This is how the room appeared when Mr. Bracewell was taken ill?” Tom asked.

  “Twas necessary to wash the floor,” said Eliza.

  “Ah.” Tom had no wish to press Robert’s wife as to the unfortunate details of his illness. He picked up the bottle, recognizing the same vintage he kept for his own use. Twas merchant Josiah Greenhow’s best, evinced by Greenhow’s seal, a glass medallion, affixed to the bottle just beneath its shoulder. The cork that plugged the bottle’s mouth was still damp and firm. A small amount of wine splashed back and forth inside. “This bottle is new, is it not?”

  “I purchased it at Mr. Greenhow’s store little more than an hour before my husband drank from it.”

  “Did you first draw the cork? Did you note whether it were sound?”

  “I drew the cork, which was quite sound, with my own hands, to ease my husband’s way for him.”

  And so was his way eased across the Styx, Tom said to himself. “Who, then, could have entered the room between the time you brought the bottle home and the time he drank from it?”

  Eliza’s plump face took on the appearance of a dried apple. “Our cook and housekeeper, Sylvia, was away that night. But Peter lives just there, on my husband’s sufferance, and comes and goes in this house as though we lived here on his.” She gestured toward the window.

  It overlooked the house’s dependencies, kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, and privy. Beyond the small structures lay a garden, set out with a trellis and a row of fruit trees in design very like to the Wythe’s garden. Over the few remaining leaves of the trees rose the roof of Peter Bracewell’s cottage. A narrow path ran between the two properties, for the convenience of the servants, no doubt. “Robert owns the house where Peter and his wife make their home?”

  “He did, yes. Now Peter owns it, for it and it alone was left to him in the will.”

  Tom set the bottle back down. “What then, could be the motive for murder, Mrs. Bracewell?”

  “My husband’s other properties, not to mention his business, all of which have now come to me. Peter desires to live in leisured dignity but has not the means to do so. I must confess he is no stranger to the gambling tables, and in other ways lives well beyond his income. All is status and show to him.”

  Tom offered no response to that statement.

  “The evening before the one my husband was taken from me, he and his brother fought most bitterly over Robert’s refusal to pay Peter’s debts. They spoke so loudly I could not help but overhear, walking as I was outside the door.”

  “Did Robert advise Peter that he intended to make his will more favorable to him?”

  Eliza’s chin went up. “Robert told him he had already made the change, hoping to encourage Peter to mend his ways and turn his hand to business.”

  “But Robert did not in fact write the codicil?”

  “No. He did not. Twas Peter’s pride and avarice that led him to believe Robert’s ruse, as though Robert would compromise his own son’s inheritance in favor of a blaggard such as Peter!”

  “And so you believe Peter hastened Robert to his grave.”

  “I do not believe it, Mr. Jefferson. I know it.”

  “The facts of the matter have yet to be proved,” Tom told her. “May I have the use of this bottle and its contents?”

  “To pour away, I should hope, lest some other unfortunate soul should drink from it.”

  Tom’s intentions were otherwise, but Mrs. Bracewell had no need to know his true purposes. “I should greatly appreciate the loan of a basket in which to carry the bottle. And may I interview your cook?”

  Eliza, her color high, stared him up and down for a long moment, then quit the room.

  Tom turned to the desk. Despite the sunlight outside, the room was dusky, and he had no means by which to light the lamp now sitting cold upon the desk. Still he inspected the desktop, books, and empty glass as best he could. Yes, by Jove, a few grains of a chalky white powder were caught in the hinges where the desktop could be folded away. Tom wet his forefinger at his lips and pressed it to the spot, so that a particle or two adhered to his flesh. Making a face indicative of doubt and caution mingled, he put his fingertip first close to his nostril, then passed it across his tongue. The substance had neither smell nor taste. It was neither sugar nor flour.

  The light from the door was blocked by a woman’s entrance into the room. By her simple calico garb, white headcloth, and ebon complexion, Tom deduced that she was the cook and housekeeper. She proffered a wicker basket filled with straw, her hands trembli
ng so severely the straw rustled. “Mrs. Bracewell sends you this, Mr. Jefferson.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and accepted the basket. “Sylvia is your name?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Were you in the house the night Mr. Bracewell was taken ill?”

  “No sir. Twas my night out, so I went visiting with my daughter at Mr. Randolph’s house. I was nowhere near this room, no sir.”

  As this statement could be readily investigated, and as Tom was eager to ascertain the cause of the woman’s agitation, he moved on to another question. “Do you have any knowledge of poisons, Sylvia?”

  Her eyes widened, surpassing agitation and achieving outright fear. “No sir. I never poisoned Mr. Robert. Why would I do that?”

  “Indeed, Sylvia. An excellent question.” As an enslaved person, Sylvia’s testimony would not be allowed before a court of law, giving her no reason to lie about the circumstances in which she found herself. Indeed, to murder her master would have gone against her best interests, for even with her inheritance Eliza might have found herself obliged to make economies, and an experienced cook like Sylvia would bring a good price in that market for human flesh Tom found so troubling.

  “Sylvia, you need fear no retribution if only you tell the truth. What do you know of Mr. Bracewell’s death?”

  “Nothing, sir,” the poor woman stammered. “Only that he was taken terrible sick just after I brought arsenicum and soft soap into the house.”

  “Arsenicum and soft soap?”

  “Mrs. Bracewell bid me buy them at the market, so as to clean the bedsteads and rid them of bedbugs. But within a day they was gone and Mr. Bracewell was dead.”

  “Did you by any chance overhear Mr. Bracewell and his brother in disputation over the younger gentleman’s financial situation?”

  “Oh no sir, I never heard anything of the sort. Not that I’d be listening, mind.”

  Nodding, Tom placed the wine bottle in the basket and slipped the handle over his arm. He found a small coin in his pocket and pressed it into Sylvia’s hand. “Thank you. Please give my respects to Mrs. Bracewell, and tell her that I am continuing my investigations into the matter.”