Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

  Annie nodded. This would explain why she sensed some concern from Lydia and Nellie about how their brother’s interview with the police had gone. But they’d also been worried over the possibility that the police were focusing on the morning nurse’s son. So she said, “Last time you made it clear that the afternoon nurse had an alibi; what about Granger’s other nurse?”

  “Freddy Tobin?” Thompson sounded surprised. Then he laughed. “Mrs. Dawson, you’ve been talking to the daughters, haven’t you?”

  Annie felt her cheeks redden. “They did come to see me last night. They were concerned that, because this young man had difficulties in the past, the police would concentrate on him to the exclusion of others. I assured them that this wasn’t your way of doing things.”

  “Well, you can tell them that as far as Tobin is concerned, he’s pretty much off the hook. His employer vouched for him, and he has a rather hefty bank account—saving up so he can marry this summer. In addition, if Blatch is right about the time of death, both Tobin and his mother were seen sitting in their parlor, playing dominoes, all evening. Nosy neighbor walking their dog, got to love them!”

  Annie felt a wave of relief on behalf of this young man she’d never met. But it was time to confess to Thompson what she’d promised to do for Granger’s daughters.

  “Sergeant, when Lydia and Nellie Granger came by to see me, it wasn’t just to express concern about Freddy Tobin. They also wanted to ask me to do something that they hope will expose a possible motive for their father’s murder.”

  Thompson stared steadily at Annie and said, “Something? They didn’t possibly ask you to do your own investigation, did they? You know how Chief Jackson feels about amateurs, even talented amateurs such as yourself.”

  Annie stared steadily back and said, “I know. But I think what they have asked me to do may actually help, and I don’t see that it will interfere in any fashion with any of the steps you are taking. You see, it turns out their father was working on a memoir. Their grief is still too raw for them to read it themselves. Nevertheless, they felt that there might be a clue in it of some conflict their father had with someone, a conflict that might be motive for murder.”

  Thompson frowned, and Annie went on hurriedly, saying, “I told them I would need to tell you about the existence of this memoir.”

  There was a long pause, and Annie continued, “Don’t tell me you or one of your men have the time to spend parsing through hundreds of pages of minute details about the doctor’s entire life this weekend? I do have the time, and if I read anything I think might be relevant, I will tell you.”

  “Relevant?” Thompson said. “And just how are you going to judge that?”

  “What you’ve told me tonight will help. For example, I can be looking for any mention of this Tessa Wheeler who came to get Hilda. And I can see if there were any other confrontations between Dr. Skerry and Dr. Granger, apart from the conflict over her application for membership to the California Medical Society.”

  “And Granger’s son? You’d tell me if you found anything about him?”

  “Yes, I would. I can assure you I will follow any leads. Someone killed a good man. I won’t hesitate to notify you right away if I find anything that might help you untangle this mess.”

  “Even if it might hurt the reputation of the Pacific Dispensary?”

  Without hesitation, Annie said, “Even if it might hurt their reputation.”

  Annie felt herself being judged by the sergeant, but he’d been right to question her. There had been cases when investigations she and Nate had been involved in had not led to arrests—in order to preserve certain reputations. But that had never been their decision alone, but that of their clients, and even, sometimes, the police.

  And those decisions had never led to a murderer going free and unpunished.

  She just hoped for the sake of Jocko and all the people the dispensary served that there wouldn’t be any conflict between finding Dr. Granger’s murderer and keeping the dispensary open for business.

  Chapter 47

  Saturday morning, March 11, 1882

  O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse

  * * *

  Last night, after Sergeant Thompson left the boardinghouse, Annie went down to the kitchen to visit with Beatrice, while Nate stayed in the office to put in an hour of work. He said he needed to have some documents ready for Seth Timmons, who now worked a full eight-hour day on Saturdays before going off to work his night shift running the big Babcock printer.

  After praising Tilly for doing such a good job serving dinner without Kathleen’s help, she had sent the poor child upstairs to the nursery to bed. Annie didn’t know when she had been able to have a cosy chat with Beatrice alone. They discussed Abigail’s ability to pull herself up to a standing position, had a laugh over Nate’s unpleasant two hours with a crying baby, and Annie filled her in on where the police were, or weren’t, regarding the investigation into Dr. Granger’s death.

  That’s when she had gotten up the nerve to ask Beatrice, who was the closest person to a mother she’d had since she was twelve, whether she thought Mrs. Stein was right to insist that Annie shouldn’t make a habit of taking jobs that required her to leave the home for any length of time. Beatrice had been indignant. Giving Annie a warm hug, she told her that, as much as she respected Mrs. Stein, it wasn’t any of the woman’s business how Annie ran her life. Then she’d made Annie laugh when she pointed out that she knew for a fact that Mrs. Stein would give anything if her spoiled grandson, Georgie, Jr., whose mother Hetty hadn’t worked a day in her life, had turned out to be as lovely a boy as Jamie Hewitt, whose mother Barbara had always had to work.

  This remark had put Annie in such a good mood that she’d gone to the study and persuaded her husband that he had to put his work away and immediately retire for the night with her.

  Nate hadn’t needed much persuading.

  As a consequence, her husband had gone off to work this morning smiling.

  In addition, a much rested Tilly was able to report that Abigail had slept through the night, and Kathleen, who’d apparently had a lovely evening out, had some very interesting information to give Annie about what Hilda had told her yesterday when she was able to get the girl alone.

  According to Kathleen, Hilda confessed that she hadn’t been completely honest with Kathleen, for fear that the staff wouldn’t want to keep her in the dispensary if they learned the truth. The young girl said she was so grateful for how everyone had treated her, saving her life and that of her child, that she felt awful keeping anything from them. Kathleen assured Hilda that no one would judge her, and the whole story then spilled out.

  Hilda admitted she had been flattered by Charlie McFadyn’s attentions at first; he was so handsome and charming. She also insisted that, at the start, he’d acted more like a doting uncle, teasing her and telling her how she’d turn the young men’s heads if she would stop acting like such a scared mouse and go have some fun on her nights out. Then he told her and the servant next door, a slightly older girl named Patsy, who according to Kathleen sounded sort of dim, to check out a restaurant that was only a couple of blocks south. He said there was a dance band there every night and free beer on Saturdays.

  She and Patsy started going there, and that’s where she met the woman, Tessa, who’d tried to get her to leave the dispensary. Hilda said this Tessa seemed to run the restaurant, encouraging girls to dance with the young men who lined the restaurant’s bar. There also appeared to be some “private” rooms in the back of the establishment where older, more posh men went to have champagne dinners with some of the girls.

  Hilda told Kathleen she never went into these rooms or accepted a beer from the young men, but she’d had a good time dancing. Then, she said, one of the men tried to get her to leave the restaurant with him. When she refused, he’d gotten nasty, so she didn’t go back.

  A couple of weeks later, Charlie McFadyn showed up at the place she was working, said he’d been o
ut of town and that he’d been disappointed to learn from Tessa that Hilda had stopped coming to the restaurant. Hilda tearfully explained to Kathleen that McFadyn had gotten really angry with her when she said she didn’t intend on going back to the restaurant and that was the night he’d forced himself on her.

  Annie agreed with Kathleen that it sounded like McFadyn had hoped that Hilda would eventually end up in one of those private rooms, maybe with him, or maybe he just wanted a new recruit for his little enterprise. Either way, Hilda had unexpectedly stymied his plans. Everything then went forward the way Hilda had earlier described it. Her mistress discovered she was pregnant and threatened to throw her out; McFadyn intervened and promised Hilda he would take care of her when the baby came. Later, she learned he was married. The only new detail she offered was that it was Patsy, the servant next door, who’d given her the bottle of what the girl called pansy juice, to help end her pregnancy.

  Annie had felt like crying when Kathleen told her that, imagining these two young girls feeling reassured by how innocent the stuff sounded. Who could be afraid of something made out of pansies? What Hilda had taken was probably made out of tansy, a well-known substance that was used to cause spontaneous abortions. Tansy, taken in too high a dose, could be lethal.

  As soon as she got Abigail settled in the office at her feet, Annie wrote a letter to Thompson, detailing what Kathleen had learned, including the address of the restaurant and the last name and address of Hilda’s former employers. Such a sad little affair, but she trusted that this information might help Thompson track down both the missing dispensary laundress, Brenda, and this Tessa. Maybe even lead to charges against McFadyn. She put the letter in the letter basket to be picked up by the early morning post, feeling confident this would reassure Sergeant Thompson that if she found anything important in the memoir, she would tell him.

  So it was with a good deal of satisfaction that she opened the box and started to look through the volumes it contained. If all went well, she should have a good couple of hours to work before it was time to get Abigail ready for her morning nap. However, not fifteen minutes had gone by, and she had only had a chance to put the volumes in some sort of order by date, when there was a knock on the study door.

  Kathleen came in and handed her the letters that had come in the early post, pointing out that there was a letter from Phoebe Truscott.

  Opening the letter with some trepidation, Annie saw that Phoebe was begging her to come to the dispensary this morning by ten. Her husband was coming to the dispensary to meet with her, and she wanted Annie’s support in this face-to-face meeting with him. This would be the first time Phoebe would have seen her husband since she’d made her escape from her home nearly a week ago, so Annie quite understood the young woman’s trepidation. Under the circumstances, Annie didn’t know how she could refuse her request.

  Chapter 48

  Saturday morning, March 11, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  Annie made it to the dispensary by a little before ten, although it had meant she had to weather Mrs. Stein’s frown when she asked if Mrs. Stein could watch Abigail until it was time for Kathleen to put her down for her morning nap.

  Megs, the downstairs maid who’d let her into the dispensary, told her that Dr. Blair was downstairs seeing patients and Dr. Brown was doing rounds with the matron, Mrs. McClellan. Annie supposed that Phoebe may have planned that this meeting would happen when all these women were otherwise engaged. Probably smart to have this first conversation between husband and wife without the complications of any of the dispensary staff being present.

  As Annie passed through the reception room to the office, she saw that the volunteer, Miss Keene, was telling a small group of women about the mission of the dispensary before leading them on a tour. Everything seemed so peaceful, as if none of the events of the past two weeks had happened.

  Joan Carpenter appeared with her mistress at the door of the office, giving Annie a brusque good day and then saying that she would wait by the dispensary front door for Mr. Truscott to arrive.

  After Joan left, Phoebe said, breathlessly, “I’m so glad you were able to make it. Dr. Blair said she would attend me if you didn’t come. But Richard’s been so dismissive of Dr. Blair that I thought it better for her not to be here. And you know all my particulars and can reassure him about the dispensary. I don’t know why I am so nervous.”

  “Mrs. Truscott, you may be nervous, but you look radiantly healthy. Do sit down. There’s no reason for you to tire yourself out needlessly.”

  This was the first time Annie had seen Phoebe Truscott out of a dressing gown. The rich color of the dark raspberry silk she was wearing brought out the different shades of rose in her lips and cheeks.

  Phoebe smiled shyly at Annie’s compliment and sat down quickly in the chair by the fireplace. She then said, “I hope that seeing me will finally end Richard’s fears about my decision to come to the dispensary. I could tell from his letters that he thought that I might have been saying how much better I felt because I didn’t want to worry him.”

  Annie hated to add to the young woman’s nervousness, but she really felt she needed to tell her before he showed up about the evidence that her husband had written one of the letters to the newspapers. She just wished she’d cleared this with Thompson first. But she didn’t know last night that she would be speaking with Phoebe this morning.

  She said, “Phoebe, before your husband comes, I need to tell you that Sergeant Thompson has shared with me the results of his investigation into the letters that have started showing up at local newspapers. I know Dr. Blair told you about these and the way they are attempting to damage the reputation of the Pacific Dispensary.”

  Phoebe said, “Yes, and I overheard two of the nurses say that not just the Chronicle but the Bulletin seems to have been getting these letters. Such a shame. Why would someone do that? And the police are investigating?”

  “Yes, and it seems there is some evidence that Dr. Skerry…”

  “Dr. Skerry, I knew it! She has been behind everything. Turning Richard against the dispensary, making me ill…”

  “That could be true, but I need to tell you…”

  Annie stopped as Phoebe stood up in response to the sound of Joan’s voice and that of two others.

  She cried out, “Oh, no, Mrs. Dawson, he’s brought Aunt Ruby with him. I specifically told him not to do so.”

  A handsome young man hurried into the room.

  “Darling, let me look at you! I’ve missed you so dreadfully,” he said, his dark brown eyes filled with concern and his hands outstretched towards his wife.

  Annie could certainly see why Phoebe had seen Richard Truscott as her Prince Charming. His thick black hair framed a high forehead, his expressive eyes did nothing to detract from a mobile mouth with a well-trimmed mustache. He was exquisitely dressed in a sharply tailored suit, his top hat held in one hand and a dark ebony cane in the other. He threw these accessories down onto the top of the office desk so that he could place his hands gently on Phoebe’s shoulders as he looked her up and down.

  His wife blushed and said, “You see, I’m doing quite well. Everyone here has been so solicitous of my welfare.”

  “As they should be, given that they are the ones responsible for your ill health.”

  Annie saw that this comment had come from a white-haired woman, whose age and matronly figure pretty much assured her this was Richard’s Aunt Ruby. Trying to give the young couple a moment to speak alone, Annie stepped over to the woman to introduce herself.

  She said, “Good morning. I’m Mrs. Dawson, and might I presume that you are Miss Prentise, Mr. Truscott’s aunt?”

  With a frown and a quick assenting nod, Miss Prentise moved quickly around Annie so she could stand next to where her nephew stood smiling down at his wife. She said more loudly, “Richard, stand aside. Let me see how our sweet girl is really doing.”

  The older
woman scrutinized Phoebe closely, peering into her eyes, pinching her cheek lightly, and then clucking over the fact that Phoebe hadn’t yet gained all her weight back. Annie could tell how this comment embarrassed Phoebe, and the young woman murmured something about how the doctors felt she should be careful about how much she ate at any one meal.

  “Humph. You know that Dr. Skerry said the same thing, and she will be glad to know that her treatment of you has been so beneficial. But we really must get you home before the people here undo all her good work.”

  Phoebe said softly, “Aunt Ruby, I know you mean well, but I must disagree. Dr. Skerry’s medicine was not responsible for my recovery. In fact, I believe that her treatment may very well have been responsible for my illness. It’s Dr. Blair and the nurses here who have brought me back to health, just as they did after my operation.”

  “Foolish girl. I can see…”

  Richard broke in hurriedly. “Now, Aunt Ruby, you promised not to argue with Phoebe. You must admit that she does look well, much better than she did a week ago.”

  Ruby Prentise took a visible breath and said, “Yes, yes, Richard. You’re right.” She took one of Phoebe’s hands and squeezed it. “My dear, please forgive me. I’ve been so worried about you. Seeing how hard the past few years have been on you…and Richard.”

  Phoebe said, haltingly, “I know you’ve been worried, Aunt Ruby. I also know how much I owe you for all you have done for me. But I need to start to take responsibility for my own life, make my own decisions. That’s why I can’t expect you to shoulder all the tasks of running the house anymore. I know I will make mistakes, but I count on you to help me. Help me become the wife Richard deserves.”