Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

  Nate was glad to hear that Mitchell was involved. Although he knew some people found the man’s constant jokes off-putting, beneath the light-hearted exterior, he was solid. Nate knew from personal experience that he was a good man to have at your back. And, if there was the slightest chance there was someone trying to poison Mrs. Truscott, he felt a lot better knowing that the leg work was being done by Mitchell. Or even Miss Sutton, who was an unlikely co-conspirator. On the other hand, last spring during her investigations with Laura, she’d proved that she was a sensible woman.

  “Did you hear what I said, Nate?” Annie said, looking at him quizzically.

  “Pardon me, I was thinking about what a strange pair of investigators Mitchell and Miss Sutton make.”

  Laura laughed. “I know, but then I never would have imagined that someone as serious as Caro would become my best friend. And there’s already an upside to the two of them working together. Seth told me that Mitchell told him that he was going to make sure that none of the male students in the medical school think they can get away with hazing Caro.”

  Annie said, “Oh, that’s kind of him. And kind of her to put her carriage, which she stables on Powell, at my disposal. That’s what I was telling you, Nate. She said it would be her contribution to the dispensary cause, as she put it.”

  Nate was pleased to hear this and said how generous he thought Miss Sutton was being. He knew from experience that Annie wasn’t going to leave the whole question of protecting the dispensary alone, and he hadn’t liked the idea of her going back and forth to that part of town, even with Kathleen as a chaperone. Not when the sun set so early, not while there were rumors of some man loitering in the area.

  Bringing his attention back to his wife and sister, he could tell from Laura’s expression that she was bursting with some news of her own.

  She said, “You will never believe this coincidence. Just proves what a small town San Francisco is. Today, as I was putting away my type and cleaning up my station, Iris’s friend Nellie came in. Do you remember me telling you about Nellie, the engraver who does illustrations for books and newspapers and magazines?”

  “Yes,” Annie said. “You even showed us some of her work, truly impressive. You said she has her own art studio around the corner from the Women’s Cooperative Printers Union?”

  Laura nodded. “She recently moved in with Iris. They’re inseparable, so she was stopping by the print shop before going on up to the apartment upstairs.”

  Nate, who saw that Abigail was getting restive on Annie’s lap, probably because it was getting time for her to nurse, said, “So what’s the coincidence?” Laura could spin out a story if you let her.

  “Well, she came over to say hello, and all of a sudden I remembered her last name…which is Granger. I asked her if she was any relative to a Dr. Granger who was connected to the Pacific Dispensary. And guess what? Nellie’s his daughter!”

  Laura went on to tell them that when she mentioned that Annie was looking into some problems the dispensary was having, Nellie was interested to know the details. Said her father had seemed worried about something recently, and Nellie wondered if this might be the cause.

  Laura said, “She believes her father is working too hard. I guess he’s in his late seventies, and she wishes he would either cut back on his private practice or resign his position as dean at the Medical College of the Pacific. Said it was past time for him to hand over more of his duties to her brother, that her father’s earned the right to spend his time on the memoir he’s writing.”

  Annie said, “Well, I imagine she wasn’t pleased to learn about what was going with the Truscotts and the possibility that her father is the target of some campaign to ruin his and the dispensary’s reputation.”

  “You better believe it. She said that if there was anything she could do to help you resolve the dispensary’s problems, spare her father additional worry, to let her know.”

  “That was nice of her, although I’m not sure what she could do.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Laura said. “But isn’t it funny that she’s related to someone involved in your latest investigation? I don’t know if you remember, but there was a brief time during the whole thing with the Rasher murder that I thought she might have been the killer!”

  Chapter 26

  Friday evening, March 3, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  Ella pulled two of the office’s chairs in front of the fireplace. She asked Dr. Granger to please have a seat while she poured him some coffee from the pot she had asked the cook to send up to the office at eight, so it would be ready for them when they finished evening rounds. He’d often joked that he lived on coffee, couldn’t imagine how any doctor could do otherwise.

  He sat down with a sigh and stuck his hands out to warm them, while she apologized for the chill in the air of a room that had been closed all day. Thank goodness, she had asked that the fire be started when the servant brought up the coffee, but it was still much colder than the rest of the dispensary. He looked tired this evening, and she regretted having accepted his offer to do this end-of-the-week rounds with her while Dr. Brown was out of town.

  As she handed him his coffee, he said, “Tell me, what is the status of the mess Mrs. Branting left behind when she resigned? Has that charming Mrs. Dawson had any success untangling things?”

  “I believe she has made good progress, although she has discovered some problems that she is going to discuss with Mrs. Stone and Dr. Bucknell on Monday.”

  Ella had already decided not to bring up her failed visit to the Truscotts’ home last Sunday with Dr. Granger—it would only upset him. And she agreed with Mrs. Dawson, who had said she shouldn’t tell anyone at this point about what Joan shared with them. But she did feel she should tell him about the Chronicle article and the loitering man, since one of the staff might mention this to him.

  He listened attentively as she reported on the meeting Mrs. Dawson’s husband had with Richard Truscott and how this related to their suspicions that Dr. Skerry might be the one who had turned the Truscotts against the Pacific Dispensary. She then mentioned the piece in the Chronicle and the man who had been seen loitering outside the Dispensary.

  She said, “I thought that the man might be a reporter, but Jocko’s newsboy friend Sean says he saw the man downtown this week, going into a saloon that’s a place where hoodlums hang out. Sean asked around and learned his name is Charlie McFadyn and that he runs a boxing club. I don’t understand why someone like him would be interested in us…unless he’s trying to figure out if we have any drugs worth stealing. I thought I would mention this to the local patrolman, Officer Blakely. He’s always told us not to hesitate if we ever ran into any trouble.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea. This neighborhood is up and coming, but right now, with so many empty lots, and so near Woodward’s Gardens, you don’t know what kind of ruffian might be hanging around.”

  Ella thought it interesting that he didn’t follow up on her mention of the possible role of Dr. Skerry and wondered if she should ask him directly about the public feud the woman seemed to have had with him and his son. However, he interrupted this thought by changing the subject completely.

  “I’m worried about that child, Hilda. You should send a note around to my son tomorrow morning and ask him to stop by to check on her again. I’d like his opinion on how close to term she is.”

  “You fear a premature birth?” Ella asked, voicing her own concern.

  “Yes, it doesn’t help that we don’t have a good idea of when the pregnancy started or what substance she took to try to terminate the pregnancy.”

  Ella said to Dr. Granger, “You seem convinced that she did take something to abort. Did she actually tell you this?”

  “Not in so many words, but the symptoms were consistent with the administration of something that included tansy. Perhaps a home-made remedy. She still hasn’t confided to you any o
f the details?”

  “No, although she did open up a little bit to Mrs. Dawson’s maid the two times Miss Hennessey was here. Enough to confirm that Hilda had recently been in service in a private home. Also that she was an orphan, who stayed for awhile in the Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society home for girls.”

  Dr. Granger looked into the fire and shook his head. “There are hundreds if not thousands of girls like her in the city. No parents, or parents who abandon their children to charitable institutions when they can’t take care of them.”

  Ella remembered that Dr. Granger lived just a few blocks east of the girls’ home run by the Ladies’ Protective and Relief Society. She asked him if he thought it possible that Hilda had been heading towards there when his daughter found her.

  She said, “Maybe once she found herself in trouble, she wanted to go to a place where she thought they would help her.”

  Granger sipped his coffee then put the cup down on the table she had placed between their two chairs. “That’s a very good thought, Ella. I will ask my daughter Lydia, who has a friend who works there, to look up the girl in their records. Hilda Putki sounds like a Scandinavian name, pretty distinctive. If there is someone who remembers her, maybe they can come and visit and get more information out of her.”

  “It was your daughter who found her, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Lydia was coming back from shopping, heard a cry, discovered her nearly unconscious in a side alley. Thank heavens our gardener was working that day. He was able to help her bring the girl to our home. I was at my office, but Lydia called me right away, one of the few times I was glad she made me get a telephone. Even more importantly, once she got the girl to admit she had ‘taken something,’ she administered an emetic. Probably saved the girl’s life.”

  “Oh, I thought when you brought her to us, you’d been the one who had started that treatment.”

  “No. I don’t know if you realized, but Lydia spent the first decade we lived in San Francisco as my assistant, back when I ran my practice out of my home.” Dr. Granger shook his head. “Made a damn fine nurse. But then my wife got sick, and I moved into the offices I have now, and Lydia needed to stay at home to take care of her mother.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ella said. “That must have been a difficult time.”

  Dr. Granger stared into the fire a moment, then he said, “When my wife died, well…Lydia just continued to do what she had been doing, running my household. As you know well, a doctor never knows when they are going to have to get up in the middle of the night, when they will be home for dinner, or home at all.”

  Ella nodded; this was a theme he often harped on with his students in medical school.

  He sighed. “Lydia always gets up to see me off, make sure I have my bag, make sure I’ve a flask of hot coffee and a hard-boiled egg to tide me over. And, no matter when I get home, there she is, ready to feed me a hot meal, listen to me ramble on about my cases. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

  Then, as if he suddenly realized who he was talking to, he said, “I think that’s the biggest problem you’ll face, m’dear. Finding and keeping a housekeeper who will put up with you. Now that we are starting to train nurses at the dispensary, you should be able to find someone like my Lydia who can help you run your practice. But on the home side…that’s another story.”

  Ella didn’t think she had ever heard him be quite so forthcoming about his personal life. She didn’t know what to say. What she felt was sadness for poor Lydia and a fierce gratitude that she hadn’t ended up playing that role in her family. Something she easily could have done.

  He seemed to take her silence as a rebuke, as he went on to say, “I know, I know…it’s a damn shame I let m’girl become no more than a housekeeper. She should have gone to medical school, like her brother. She certainly had the aptitude. At the time, didn’t even occur to me to suggest it. At least, I supported my youngest, Nellie, when she said she wanted to go to that fancy art school. Even paid her way so she could take a year traveling around Europe, seeing all the museums and such. And that’s turned out well. She seems content.”

  Ella said, “I’m sure Lydia’s glad to be such a help to you. And I can’t thank you enough for all the encouragement you have given me and the other women at the Medical College of the Pacific.”

  He shook his head and said, “At least you have a profession, a calling, even. And Dr. Brown talks about starting some sort of club just for women, a place where a professional woman like you can go for companionship. My poor Lydia. What will she have when I’m gone?”

  Chapter 27

  Saturday afternoon, March 4, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  Annie had gotten another telegram from Caro Sutton early this morning. It said that Mitchell and she were planning on going to the Pacific Dispensary this afternoon and she would have the carriage come by the boardinghouse at one to see if Annie would like to accompany them. The last sentence in the telegram was WE FOUND POSSIBLE POISON. Needless to say, wild horses wouldn’t stop her from coming.

  Nate, who was just about to leave for work, pointed out that the “possible” meant she shouldn’t assume that what they found made it any clearer if a crime was being committed. But he did admit that he was surprised they had found anything at all.

  When Tilly opened the door to Mitchell this afternoon, Annie was already in her coat, and Abigail was downstairs happily playing in the kitchen. He helped her into a small, well-appointed carriage, where Caro welcomed her and said that she had also sent a telegram to Ella, so the young doctor would expect their arrival.

  How nice it must be to have the kind of income that supported having your own carriage and driver at your command and being able to spend money on telegrams whenever you wanted.

  Annie then chastised herself for this misplaced jealousy. There was a brief time at the beginning of her first marriage when she had that sort of income and life…until her husband John ruined everything. In all honesty, she wouldn’t trade anything about her current husband or her current life for Caro’s inheritance, which Laura said her friend only got by threatening to take her own father to court.

  While Mitchell was fairly dancing in his seat with suppressed excitement, Caro was her usual phlegmatic self, although Annie did note that there was a bit of flush to her cheeks. However, when neither of her companions brought up the subject of poisons, she concluded that they were waiting until Ella Blair could be present.

  So, refraining from peppering them with questions, she carried on a polite conversation with Caro about how comfortable the carriage was and conveyed Mrs. O’Rourke’s willingness to find her a new cook. When that subject ended, she proceeded to tell them about the fact that her daughter appeared to have an upper incisor coming in. She felt that if they were going to withhold even the slightest hint of what they found, it was only fitting that they be subjected to a detailed description of the joys of teething.

  The trip to the dispensary took less than fifteen minutes, so Annie didn’t have to bore them for long. And Ella, clearly as anxious as she was to hear the news, was the one to swing the door to the dispensary open when they rang the bell, ushering them quickly into the office.

  She had arranged four chairs around a small table that held a tea pot, cups, and a plate of cookies.

  Annie introduced Caro Sutton to Ella, who warmly welcomed her and promised to give Caro a tour of the facilities some time, if she was interested.

  Then Annie said, “Mitchell, I believe you already know Dr. Blair.”

  Mitchell put his derby under his arm and bowed, saying, “Pleased to see you again, Miss…I mean Dr. Blair.”

  “You as well, Dr. Mitchell. Do be seated.”

  This awkward interaction confirmed Annie’s suspicion that there was some sort of history between the two. She hoped this wouldn’t interfere with them working together, since it seemed Mitchell was going to be crucial to resolving the poss
ible threat to Phoebe Truscott.

  As Caro and she took their seats, Annie noticed that Mitchell was pulling his chair slightly away from the fire so he could place the black bag he’d been carrying on the floor to the side of his chair. He noticed her puzzled glance and said, “I don’t want the bottles too near the fire.”

  As soon as Ella sat down and started to pour out the tea, Annie said, “All right, Miss Sutton, Mitchell, don’t keep Dr. Blair and me in suspense anymore. Tell us what you found.”

  Caro said, “One of the bottles contained Atropa Belladonna, in a concentration that could certainly be considered too strong for normal medicinal use.”

  Mitchell leaned down and pulled out a thick book from the bag. “I know you don’t want the full chemical description, Mrs. Dawson, but I do want you to have confidence in our conclusions.”

  He opened the book to where there was a bookmark, and he explained that he had decided to test for belladonna first because the symptoms that the servant Joan had mentioned—the confusion, dilation of pupils, and vision problems—were consistent with the effect of ingesting something derived from belladonna, which also went under the name of deadly nightshade.

  Caro added, “Since Dr. Mitchell has already taken the course in Medical Jurisprudence from Professor Shurtleff, he had a copy of the textbook he used, and this is where we found the description of belladonna and how to test for it.”

  Ella said, “Some doctors do use belladonna, in very a very diluted form, as a way to dilate a patient’s eyes to permit a more thorough examination. If I remember, it can also be used in a paste to put on a sore joint to lessen inflammation. But I believe it should never be taken orally.”