Antidote to Murder

by Felicity Young

  “Well, yes, no. I saw ’er, too, yes.” Robinson swayed, became flustered, and tangled his words. Dody suspected he was drunk, drunk and unreliable—couldn’t the jury hear what she was hearing?

  “Coming out from the Women’s Clinic she was, that old warehouse what was done up, near the fishmonger’s,” Robinson said.

  Dody glanced along the line of sombre jurymen and felt a rush of nausea. She looked at Dr. Burton, sitting beside her. He pulled his eyes from hers and let out a breath. She turned quickly to her sister, desperate for the touch of a comforting hand, a whisper that everything was going to be all right.

  But everything wasn’t all right; she could see now exactly the course this inquest was taking. She fought the urge to call out to the court in her defence, knowing full well that a protest now would not help her cause. Besides, she had not been accused of anything yet. She would have to wait until she was called to the stand and meanwhile watch this bitter performance through to the very end. But at least she still had some time to prepare, to consult the Book of Lists and prove that someone was selling a unique form of abortifacient, and possibly performing physical abortions, too. A police constable approached Mr. Carpenter and handed him a note. The coroner sighed and looked at his fob, then back at the witness. “Thank you, Mr. Robinson, you may step down.” He addressed the court. “The court will adjourn until three sharp.”

  Dody took hold of her sister’s arm and steered her through the crowded hall entrance and into the street in search of a hansom or taxi.

  “Please tell me we are going for tea. I’m parched,” Florence said as they stood on the pavement not far from the hall, trying and failing several times to hail a cab.

  “No, first we have to visit the mortuary and fetch the Book of Lists. There is something in it which will back up my theory about Esther’s death.”

  “Then tea?”

  “Then tea.”

  Florence told Dody to wait where she was while she reconnoitred the street at the back of the building in search of a taxi rank. The sound of a man clearing his throat startled Dody. She turned to find herself staring into the round face of Borislav. He lifted his hat. For once he was not smiling. “I heard it all from the back of the court. The girl Esther picked up your prescription for the lead antidote from me. I had not put two and two together until now. I’m not sure if it is of any relevance, but I will let the police know.” Dody could not see what good that would do, but thanked him all the same. “I will also tell them about the foreign doctor. They may have a record of him if he has been seen in the brothels. If there is anything else I can do to help, Dorothy, you know where to find me. May I fetch you a cab, perhaps?”

  “No, I’m quite all right, thank you; my sister is bringing one from the other street.” Dody hoped she was correct. While she usually enjoyed Borislav’s company, she could not bear the idea of polite conversation at this moment.

  He touched the knot of his blue-and-white-spotted bow tie. “I have been keeping my eyes out for tablets similar to those that killed the boy, but to no avail, I’m afraid. Also, no more sign of the foreign doctor in my shop.”

  “It was worth a try. Thank you, Mr. Borislav.” A motorised taxi pulled up at the kerb. Florence called from its dark interior for Dody to climb in.

  “So that’s your Mr. Borislav,” Florence said as they merged into the traffic. “Can he do anything for you?”

  Dody said nothing for a moment. Her head felt as if it were being squeezed in a vice. “Not now, please, Florence. I need some time with my thoughts. We will talk when we reach a teahouse.”

  Florence stayed in the cab while Dody hurried into the mortuary to collect the Book. In the autopsy room, she used more force than was needed to open the drawer in which the heavy tome was kept, wrenched it from its runners, and stared with surprise at the empty drawer in her hand. She slid it back in situ and opened the remaining drawers in the cabinet, finding an assortment of stationery items, but no book. The Book was her responsibility; she was the only member of staff who handled it regularly and she always put it back where it belonged. She hurried into Spilsbury’s stark office and saw at a glance that it was not there.

  She met Alfred on her way out. When she asked if he had seen the Book recently, he answered that he had not, but volunteered to ask Everard on her behalf. He returned saying that Everard had not seen it since Monday. Dody all but threw her hands in the air, barely suppressing the curses that wanted to escape from her lips.

  “Could it have been stolen, do you think, Alfred, by that little man who took Everard’s bag? The bag was taken from the autopsy room, after all.”

  “I suppose it could have, miss, and been placed in the bag. But what would anyone want with the Book of Lists?”

  Indeed.

  Everard entered the autopsy room. The only thing Dody did to acknowledge his presence was to straighten her posture. She would not grant him the satisfaction of seeing her in a panic.

  “Never mind,” she added to Alfred. “As to the Book’s contents, I’m sure my memory serves me correctly.”

  As she exited the room, she heard Everard instruct Alfred to call the police and notify them about the stolen Book.

  * * *

  It was some time before Dody and Florence found a respectable teahouse, an Aerated Bread Company shop in the courtyard at Fenchurch Street Station.

  “Dody,” Florence said as they settled at a table underneath the spread of an exotic palm. “Am I allowed to speak now?” She did not wait for an answer. “I don’t like the way this inquest is going and I think I should call Mother and Poppa. If they are not told soon, they will read about it in the newspaper.”

  “No, Florence, they are run off their feet with their strike fund.”

  “I heard people in court saying the strike is about to end.”

  “There will still be hungry bellies to be filled for a while yet. I don’t want our parents involved; they have enough on their minds.”

  “They always put family first; you know that.”

  True, Dody thought, they never hesitate to act when Florence is in trouble. Until now, though, Dody had never given them cause for concern. Typical that when she did it, she did it properly. This was no mere girlish scrape.

  Florence reached for her hand. “Are you feeling all right? You look ghastly.”

  “I’m fine,” Dody lied. It seemed she was not as immune to the English cholera as she had thought. Ever since her visit to the Kents’, she had been feeling off colour and hoped this was not a precursor to another full-blown attack. Thank goodness she had dissuaded Florence from accompanying her to the tenement.

  A waitress offered them menus. Emblazoned in red letters across the top of the card was an advertisement for Dr. Dauglish’s healthy ABC bread, made with aerating carbon dioxide instead of yeast. Dody baulked at the thought—she had enough gas in her stomach already—and waved the menu away.

  The tearoom clientele was predominantly female. The few gentleman customers sat with young ladies and were preoccupied holding dainty gloved hands and peering into fluttering eyes. The incongruity of the two gentlemen, one of them a uniformed policeman, striding purposefully around the table clusters to where the sisters sat, was noticed at once by even the most love-struck of patrons. All murmuring ceased; the only sounds were the rustling of gowns and the shift of chairs.

  Dody recognised at once the bulky frame of Pike’s former sergeant, Walter Fisher, a giant of a man in a badly cut suit. Fisher gave the sisters a small bow, attempted and failed to keep his voice low. “I’m glad I’ve found you, Dr. McCleland,” he said, twisting his bowler in fighter’s hands.

  “You followed us?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I tried to catch you outside court, but just missed you. I was sent to tell you that the inquest is to be delayed until tomorrow so certain items of, er, evidence can be processed.”

  T
he sisters spoke at once: “What evidence?”

  “Oh, Sergeant Fisher, this is my sister, Miss Florence McCleland,” Dody said.

  “How do you do, miss?” Fisher paused to shake Florence’s hand across the table. “It’s Inspector Fisher now, Doctor,” he said with an awkward smile.

  “Of course, my mistake,” Dody said icily. Pike had not told her in so many words, but she understood Fisher’s promotion had something to do with his own move from Scotland Yard to Special Branch. “Congratulations, Inspector.”

  “I’m stationed in Whitechapel now, Doctor, and I am running the investigation into the death of Miss Craddock.” He looked at Dody with an expression that was hard to place: part sympathy, part embarrassment, countered with more than a little officiousness.

  “How unpleasant for you,” she said.

  “Yes, Doctor, it is—”

  “And you found it necessary to break this news about the abeyance with a uniformed constable in tow?” Florence cut Fisher off, causing the young officer in question to lower his gaze to his shiny boots. “Drawing unnecessary attention to us in such a public place?”

  “I’m sorry to cause embarrassment, Miss McCleland, but this procedure is necessary, I’m afraid, to inform Dr. McCleland that I will be searching her rooms at the Women’s Clinic, and to invite her to accompany me.”

  The sisters exchanged glances. There was a moment of pin-dropping silence. A train rumbled from a nearby platform, accompanied by the sound of a cheering crowd celebrating the end of the strike. For many, their immediate troubles were over, but Dody knew hers were just beginning.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nurse Daphne Hamilton was sweeping the waiting-room floor when Dody, Florence, and the two policemen entered through the front door of the Clinic. Fisher asked Daphne for the patient register and spent some minutes examining it, the younger policeman reading the list of names over his shoulder.

  Dody approached Daphne, laid her hand gently on her sleeve, and tried to smile, but her face felt like a wax mask. The waiting-room benches were askew, rubbish bins overflowed, and there was an odour of vomit in the air. “Lord, what a mess,” Dody muttered.

  The nurse blew hair from her face. “We’ve been run off our feet, Doctor, I’m so sorry. If you’d only left off visiting for half an hour, I would have had the place spick and span.”

  “No matter,” Dody said, knowing that it did matter. She needed to prove to these policemen that she was not involved in some kind of shoddy, backstreet practice. “I want to show them my surgery. I’ll have the keys, please.”

  Once the policemen had finished with the registry, she beckoned them to follow her. Leading them to one of several closed doors, she unlocked it, saying, “I share this room with two other doctors.”

  “Female doctors?” Fisher asked.

  “Naturally,” Dody replied tersely. “It’s a women’s clinic run by women. It is a place where female patients can come for free treatment and understanding.”

  Fisher cocked his head to one side.

  “When I say understanding, I do not mean abortion, Inspector.” There. She had spoken the unmentionable and felt surprisingly stronger for it. She gestured around the immaculate surgery. At least the staff had managed to get this room clean. “You’d better get on with it.”

  The sisters stood in the doorway while Fisher and his constable rummaged through the desk drawers and instrument cupboards.

  “You need help,” Florence whispered to her sister.

  Dody stiffened. “I have done nothing wrong.”

  “We know that, but I know how the police work and I think they are out to frame you.”

  “You read too many detective books.”

  “Enough to know you need a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer is unusual for a coronial inquest. It would prove nothing at this stage but a guilty conscience.”

  “Pike, then.”

  “I don’t know what he could do. If anyone, I need Dr. Spilsbury and he is away. I will fight this by myself.”

  Florence rolled her eyes.

  Fisher straightened from his position at the instrument cupboard. “This cupboard does not seem to have much in it in the way of surgical instruments.”

  “We have our own instruments, Inspector. I bring mine from home when I work at the Clinic,” Dody said.

  “I would like to have a look at them then, if I may.”

  “And I would like to have a look at your warrant, please,” Florence said.

  “A search ordered by a Coroner’s Court does not require a warrant, miss.” Florence flexed her fingers, but thankfully remained calm. “Doctor,” Fisher went on, “if you will be so kind as to open the medicine cabinet for me.”

  Dody moved to the corner cabinet and turned the key in the lock. Fisher reached for one of several brown bottles. “What’s this?”

  “What is written on the bottle: bromide.”

  The inspector unscrewed the lid, sniffed the bottle’s contents, and passed it under the constable’s nose. The young man nodded as if he recognised the odour.

  “What is this bromide used for?” Fisher asked.

  “It calms the nerves. It also provides relief for epilepsy.”

  “Miss Craddock was an epileptic?”

  “No, in her case it was merely nerves,” Dody said. “I also prescribed a chloroform mixture for the lead poisoning, which she picked up from the High Street chemist. Mr. Borislav remembers serving the girl: perhaps you should ask him about it.”

  Fisher said he would, replaced the bromide, and scanned the rest of the cupboard’s contents. “We also found tablets in the girl’s mother’s room, which analysis showed to contain lead. I can’t see a match for the tablets here.”

  “The girl was suffering from plumbism. I wrote that in her notes,” Dody said.

  “You don’t dispense lead tablets?”

  “Of course not—lead is a poison. Were these the tablets you found wrapped in cloth?”

  “Yes, Doctor, I have them here.” Fisher delved into his pocket and produced the muslin package, which he unwrapped, spilling half a dozen tablets into Dody’s palm. At last she was able to get a good look at them. They were professionally made, compact and smooth but for two identical nicks on the surface of each one.

  “Esther was carrying these tablets when she visited my surgery. She dropped them on the floor and I put them back in her pocket.”

  Fisher’s eyes gleamed with interest. Lord, perhaps she should not have said that—should instead have distanced herself from the tablets altogether.

  But it was too late now. “Tablets just like these were also found during a case of suspected infanticide,” she said. “There’s a criminal behind these tablets, Inspector, there has to be. I have seen reference to tablets like this in the mortuary records.”

  “That may be. But whoever gave her these was not necessarily involved in the surgical procedure that ended her life—which is what we are currently investigating,” Fisher said.

  “No, of course not; I am just urging you to see the bigger picture—that the person who supplied the tablets might also be the abortionist.”

  “Which, with all due respect, Doctor, is sheer speculation. That the tablets were not given to her by you and that you were in no way responsible for her death, is all I need to ascertain at this present point in time.”

  Dody felt the muscles tighten around her mouth, but tried to remain calm. This was as close to an accusation as anything she had heard so far. She had no memory of Fisher sounding so officious when he worked with Pike. His promotion had either gone to his head or he was mirroring his superiors’ resistance to “newfangled” ideas about detection. Pike had always believed that a broader mind-set was required to sniff out hidden links. “I do not dispense tablets wrapped in muslin or in matchboxes, Inspector. Nor would any reputable
doctor or chemist.”

  * * *

  When they returned to their townhouse, a telegram was waiting for Dody on the hall table. She handed her gloves to Annie, tore the yellow envelope open, and read the message aloud to Florence.

  HEARD ABOUT INQUEST STOP CEASE WORK FOR HOME OFFICE UNTIL MESS CLEARED UP STOP WILL RETURN TOMORROW TO SORT THINGS OUT STOP TAKE HEART STOP

  BS

  Despite what she had told Borislav after the ballet, she had not been sure how comfortable Spilsbury was with a female assistant, but this telegram vindicated her position. It proved that at least one man in the Home Office hierarchy considered her skills to be more relevant than her gender and that, above all, he believed in her. Dody felt weak with relief.

  Florence put her arms around her shoulders. “There, there—you see? Everything’s going to be all right now.”

  Dody tried to explain her feelings. “I think what has upset me more than anything is that they are trying to accuse me of something I would never contemplate unless to save the life of a mother. The oath I took compels me to preserve life at all cost.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me, Dody; the things I’m accused of are usually true.”

  “I’ve been to enough inquests to sense where this is going. It seemed to be moving too quickly, the suspicion well and truly focused on me when I’ve not even given evidence. To call in that Robinson man as a witness was ludicrous. He was obviously drunk and didn’t know what he was talking about.”

  Florence paused and placed her hand on her chin, her eyes sliding towards the telephone table. “Well, just in case Spilsbury cannot set things right immediately, perhaps . . .”

  Dody guessed what her sister was contemplating. “No, Florence, no.” Florence ignored Dody’s raised hand, lifted the receiver, and asked the operator to be put through to the Special Branch section of Scotland Yard. Dody collapsed onto the hall chair, hands over her ears—although in reality she had every intention of listening to the exchange. Her sister asked someone if she could speak to Chief Inspector Pike, listened for a moment, said thank you, and then carefully put the telephone back onto its cradle.