A Fatal Four-Pack

by P. B. Ryan

  It was that, his willingness to trade the silver spoon he’d been born with for an opium pipe and a deck of cards, which baffled and disturbed Nell most. He’d chosen to embrace the low life, whereas she had striven for years to put as much distance as possible between herself and the morass of poverty and crime that had once held her captive. His path in life was the direct opposite of hers, a fact that distressed her more than it should.

  Equally distressing was the extent to which she found herself tapping into old instincts and street lore she’d long assumed—indeed, prayed—she would never need again. How easy, and ingenuous, it had been to think of the old Nell as dead and buried. Like a grimy street blanketed by snow, her past could be cloaked in a pristine mantle of respectability, but it would forever be there, lurking just beneath the surface.

  And sooner or later the snow always melted.

  Stripping off one cashmere-lined kid glove, she rapped on the leaded glass door until her knuckles were red. Finally accepting that he either wasn’t home or was choosing to ignore her, she tugged the glove back on and headed back the way she’d come.

  She’d rounded the corner of Commonwealth and was halfway down Arlington—passing beneath the shop canopies to avoid a trio of fur-swathed matrons laden with hatboxes and shopping parcels—when she stopped in her tracks, turned, and retraced her steps about twenty feet. A flash of someone’s black coat in a store window had caught her eye. It shouldn’t have—nine out of ten Bostonians, male and female, dressed in black for the street—but there was a certain quality to the movement, a presence to the anonymous figure...

  Yes, indeed. It was William Hewitt, in overcoat and low top hat. He stood at a glass-fronted counter with a huge scale on it, signing a slip of paper, as the proprietor wrapped up something small in brown paper. The gold and green sign on the shop door, shaped like a mortar and pestle, read:

  JOSEPH MAYNARD & CO.

  — Boston —

  Offering all pure MEDICINES, ESSENTIAL OILS, EXTRACTS, POWDERS,

  French and English DRUGS and CHEMICALS at WHOLESALE to Druggists and Physicians, at the lowest prices for goods of fine quality.

  Open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.

  Saturday, 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

  In the window to the left of the door was a placard that read:

  Proprietors of

  COCOAINE, ORIENTAL TOOTH WASH,

  SYRUP OF POPPIES, LAUDANUM, PAREGORIC, DOVER’S POWDER,

  WISTAR’S BALSAM OF WILD CHERRY

  for the treatment of coughs, colds, consumption, and lung diseases,

  PERUVIAN SYRUP, AN IRON TONIC

  for the treatment of dyspepsia, debility, dropsy, and humors,

  DR. WALKER S CALIFORNIA VINEGAR BITTERS,

  the great blood purifier.

  Nell tapped on the window. Will glanced toward her, looked pleasantly surprised, and motioned for her to come in. The man behind the counter—white-haired and goateed, with a starched apron tied over his frock coat—smiled and nodded as she entered. Will removed his hat as he bowed, tucking it under his arm. The shop, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with bottles and jars, reminded Nell of an Occidental version of Deng Bao’s.

  “Thank you, Dr. Touchette,” said the apothecary as he handed Will the paper-wrapped parcel. “I hope you’ll rely on us for all your medical supplies.”

  Nell slid her gaze toward Will, who was smiling in that private way of his as he tucked the parcel into his pocket. “I expect I will. By the way, Mr. Maynard, this is my assistant, Miss Sweeney.”

  Nell mumbled something innocuous as the pleasant old gentleman greeted her. She waited until they were outside on the sidewalk to say, “So I’m your assistant now, Doctor?”

  Will shrugged as he replaced his hat. “The professional discount is really quite remarkable, and they’ve started an account for me. It’s not too difficult to convince people you’re a physician if you know the right things to say.”

  Nell didn’t bother pointing out that he actually was a physician, like it or not.

  “I must say it was a pleasant surprise running into you today,” he said. “Dare I hope you’ve wandered into the Back Bay in search of me?”

  So courtly was the greeting—surprisingly so, given Nell’s past interactions with Will Hewitt—that she was momentarily at a loss for words. It wasn’t only his manner that was unexpectedly civilized, but his appearance. The cut near his eye had almost completely healed, and the bruises had faded to mere shadows on his smooth-shaven jaw. His hair was well-groomed, his shoes like polished onyx, his attire neat and smart.

  “You see?” He leaned close, as if sharing a confidence. “You’re not the only one who can look disconcertingly respectable.”

  She took a step away, discomfited as much by his closeness as by the illusion that they were just ordinary acquaintances having a nice little chat on the sidewalk. There was nothing ordinary about William Hewitt, regardless of how conventionally he chose to dress or act. He might not have killed Ernest Tulley. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still dangerous.

  “I was looking for you,” she said. “There are some things we need to discuss. You should know that—”

  “Would you like to take a walk in the Gardens?” he asked.

  She hesitated, nonplused by the invitation.

  “I want to do it before the ice melts. Here.” Taking her by the elbow, he started guiding her across Arlington, toward the entrance to the Boston Public Gardens. “You can interrogate me while we walk.”

  o0o

  “They look like spun glass,” Will said of the leafless, ice-glazed trees bordering the path along which they strolled, his limp keeping them to a leisurely pace. “The lower the sun sinks in the sky, the prettier they look.”

  There was, indeed, a crystalline majesty to the Gardens today, and a blessed sense of exile from the buzzing city that surrounded them; they’d passed only two other pedestrians since entering the park. Nell was glad she’d let Will talk her into coming here. Indeed, she was enjoying herself so much that she’d almost forgotten her purpose in seeking him out. “I don’t know whether Jack Thorpe told you this, Dr. Hewitt, but Pearl Stauber has disappeared.”

  “I haven’t actually seen much of Jack. We keep different hours. Who’s Pearl St—” Recognition lit his eyes. “Ah. Yes,” he said, a little sadly. “Pearl.”

  So. He had remembered her—not just from Flynn’s, Nell realized, but from their encounter twelve years ago.

  Nell said, “She left her flat, apparently of her own free will, late Sunday night or early Monday morning, and hasn’t been seen since. Detective Cook is determined to find her, and it will go badly for you if he does. She’s the one who heard you threaten to make Ernest Tulley ‘pay with his life.’ Her testimony could send you to the gallows.”

  “Look at the icicles on that fountain,” he said, pointing. “They reach almost to the ground, and some of them have merged together. They put diamonds to shame, don’t they?”

  “Why did you tell me you were fighting over Kathleen Flynn,” she asked, “when in reality, you were trying to keep her from being raped by Ernest Tulley?”

  “You assumed I was fighting over Kathleen Flynn. Bad habit of yours, those assumptions.”

  “You confirmed them. ‘Clashing horns over a female,’ you said. ‘Oldest story in the book.’”

  “Was I smoking gong at the time?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Well, then.”

  “You must think I’m a very great fool, indeed, if you expect me to believe that it was the opium that made you say that.”

  “You have many and various facets to you, Miss Sweeney,” he said with a smile, “but foolishness is not one of them.”

  “Seamus Flynn says he saw you murder Ernest Tulley.”

  “Really? The evidence certainly seems to be piling up.”

  “You deliberately misled me,” she said testily. “You’ve been toying with me all along, withhol
ding the truth and letting me stumble round in the dark—Jack, too—when all we’re trying to do is keep you from being hanged.”

  “I told you once before, Miss Sweeney—some people are meant to hang.”

  She stopped walking. “Not you.”

  He turned to face her. Gravely he said, “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Tell me the truth, for once!” she demanded. “Did you kill Ernest Tulley because of what he did to Kathleen?”

  He closed the space between them, seizing both ends of her loose scarf to halt her when she tried to back up. Tugging her none too gently toward him, he bent his head until his face filled her field of vision, his gaze searing, his vaporous breath mingling with hers. “I am growing weary, indeed,” he said quietly, “of your refusal to tuck in your scarf. One would think a grown woman would have more sense.”

  He crossed her scarf as if preparing to tuck it in himself. She snatched it away from him, stumbling back. “I am sick to death of playing these games with you, of begging for a shred of cooperation, only to have you laugh in my face! There are people who want to execute you for what they think you’ve done, Dr. Hewitt. You could die. If you do nothing to help yourself, you probably will.”

  “And you think I don’t realize that.”

  “You don’t seem to, not really.”

  He gazed upward, into a tangled network of ice-dipped branches ignited from within, spectacularly so, by the setting sun. “If only I didn’t.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew the little paper-wrapped bundle he’d purchased at the apothecary. “Do you mind if we sit?” he asked, nodding toward a nearby iron bench. “My leg. It’s...”

  “Of course.” She sat next to him, not too close, and watched him unwrap the brown paper, revealing a little cobalt blue bottle. “What’s that?”

  “Black Drop.” He held the bottle so she could read the label, engraved JOSEPH MAYNARD & CO. across the top. Handwritten beneath that in blue ink was:

  Vinegar of Opium

  1.5% Morphine

  Dosage: 5 - 10 drops

  2 oz.

  Uncorking the bottle, he said, “It’s the strongest opiated tonic I know of. I’ve run out of gong, you see, and it’ll be late tonight before I can get back to Deng Bao’s for more.” Tilting the bottle to his mouth, he shook out a rapid stream of reddish brown elixir—far more than ten drops.

  “Should you be taking so much?” she asked.

  He chuckled drunkenly, his head lolling back as he recorked the bottle. “I shouldn’t be taking it at all.”

  “You might consider—”

  “Shh.” Shifting sideways on the bench, he pressed his gloved fingertips to her mouth, his half-closed eyes as glassy as if they, too, were sheathed in ice. “Five minutes of peace, Miss Sweeney. That’s all I ask.”

  Exactly five minutes later, she said, “You’re a slave to that stuff. A man like you shouldn’t be a slave to anything.”

  He opened his eyes, muttering “Jesus” under his breath when he saw her snapping her pendant watch shut. “I’d forgotten what a damnable shrew you turn into when I indulge this particular appetite. Don’t you worry about seeming unsophisticated?”

  “Is Mathilde Cloutier unsophisticated? She cast you out of her home because of opium.”

  “It wasn’t the opium,” he said through a yawn. “She always finds some excuse to stage one of her little melodramas when her current protector is due to return.”

  “You know about Edmund?”

  “Is that his name?” Will tucked the bottle back in his pocket. “She isn’t normally so forthcoming with strangers. You seem to have a way of drawing people out.”

  “It doesn’t bother you...sharing a woman with another man?”

  He laughed drowsily as he opened a Bull Durham tin. “How else could she afford to live in the Pelham? Do you mind?” he asked, sliding out a cigarette.

  “No, of course not, but don’t let the police catch you smoking in a public park.” A true gentlemen wouldn’t ask; he would simply refrain. But it was a nod in the direction of courtesy, and a meaningful one, given that he’d never hesitated to smoke in her presence before without asking permission.

  He lit the cigarette and took a deep, tranquil draw. “I’m certainly in no position to keep Mattie in the style she deserves, even if I were so inclined—which I’m not. Why take on the care and feeding of such an exotic specimen when I can simply swoop in from time to time, disport myself for a few days or weeks, then fly away free and unencumbered? The arrangement suits her as well, and don’t think for a moment that I’m the only diversion she seeks when the cat’s away.”

  They both fell silent for a minute. Nell wasn’t always good about holding her tongue, as Dr. Greaves had often pointed out. Yet even she knew better than to question whether William Hewitt was actually capable of “disporting” himself with any woman, given the apparent effect of all that opium on his body. She’s miffed because I can’t rouse to her...

  He leaned forward, elbows on knees, the cigarette hanging limply between his fingers. That he had discerned her train of thought became clear when he said, hesitantly, “The thing one must understand about this drug... Once it gets its talons into you, you don’t even care about the rest of it.”

  “The rest of...?”

  “One’s needs, one’s desires...” He glanced at her, then away. “All those hungers that demanded appeasing in one’s former life fade into insignificance before the poppy. To smoke a bowl of opium is to...transport oneself, body and soul. The very ritual of cooking up a dose will make me drunk with anticipation. And when I finally take that smoke into my lungs, and it seeps into my mind and my body and works its magic...the flood of pleasure can rival the best orgasm.”

  Nell was rendered truly speechless. No man, even the two with whom she’d shared her bed, had ever used the word “orgasm” in her presence.

  “Physical passions become secondary,” he said, sitting back as he exhaled a lungful of smoke. “As for emotional passions, well...they are certainly more controllable.”

  Something about that statement sounded familiar. When she realized why, she couldn’t help observing, with a mischievous smile, “Wouldn’t your father be pleased that you’ve finally learned to command your passions.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. She laughed, too. It felt good, if strange, to share this moment with him, even if he was drunk on opium. She couldn’t remember having seen him laugh before—really laugh, like this.

  Will shook his head. “So all it took for me to finally live up to his standards was a steady ingestion of narcotics. Wish I’d known that when I was a boy.”

  Nell sobered, envisioning the photograph of Will at four, with his slick-combed hair, big eyes and guileless smile...and that arm curled so protectively over the golden baby boy on his mother’s lap...the doomed Robbie. Little William had been doomed himself, in a way, not long after that photograph was made. He begged me not to send him away.... He screamed and sobbed all the way up the gangway.

  “I know why you resent your mother as you do,” Nell said. “I think you should know that she deeply regrets having sent you to live in England.”

  “Is that what she told you?” he asked. “She always did have a knack for saying the right thing.”

  “She was weeping when she told me about it. All she can talk about is how this is really all her fault—what’s become of you, this arrest. She’s consumed by guilt, views herself as a terrible mother.”

  “As I’ve said before, she’s nothing if not perceptive.”

  “Jest if you must, Dr. Hewitt, but she’s in pain for you, and she really does want to help you. It’s not easy for her. She’s displayed a great deal of cleverness—and nerve—in defying your father without his catching on.”

  “I daresay you’ve displayed more. I’ve known Saint August to sack a kitchen maid for popping too many cherries into her mouth while she was making a pie. You’re taking quite a chance, doing Lady Viola’
s legwork for her—and brainwork, I might add. If my father finds out what you’ve been up to, you’ll be right back to wherever you were before my mother took you under her wing—or worse. You do realize that.”

  “One does what one must,” she answered evenly, though she’d lain awake just last night, fretting over that very thing. It was the prospect of losing Gracie, more than anything else, that she truly dreaded. “There’s something I’ve been wondering,” she said, eager to change the subject. “Why did you give a false name to the police when they arrested you?”

  His shoulders rose as he brought the cigarette to his mouth. “The Hewitts are one of the oldest families in Boston—in the country. It would have been on the front page of every newspaper from here to San Francisco if someone of that name were accused of murder. Why invite the press to make an already grotesque situation even more lurid and complicated?”

  “You did it to protect your family,” she realized with quiet astonishment.

  “I did it so as not to put myself at the center of some unseemly spectacle.”

  She smiled. “You must care about them a little.”

  “I care about my privacy, but believe what you like.” Dropping his cigarette butt, he ground it beneath the heel of his shoe. “Do you still have that photograph?” he asked, glancing at the slight bulge of her chatelaine bag beneath her coat. “The one you showed me the other day?”

  “That picture of Gracie? No, I... No. I can bring it next time I see you.”

  “Don’t.”

  “But you wanted to—”

  “I just wanted to know if you had it. I was curious as to whether you carried it around with you. Struck me as something you might do.”

  “I keep it on my night table.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “You...care for her, I take it. I mean, not just as your charge, but...”

  “I love her,” Nell said, “as if she were my own daughter.”

  He looked at her, seemed about to say something, looked away.

  “You should meet her,” Nell said.

  “Good Lord! And here I’ve been thinking you’re such a sensible woman.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have to ask? Look at me!”