Chapter 27 #2
“All Johnson need do is scribble a signature he doubtless had time enough to perfect after years in Von Hilsing’s employ. By such a stratagem, Johnson could take over the man’s entire life!”
“And Von Hilsing needn’t have died naturally for such a thing,” Stoker pointed out.
“In fact, it rather suggests poisoning as a likelier occurrence. Even with the considerable effects of decomposition, I noted that Von Hilsing’s skin was darker, thickened, and the skin of the palms and soles of the feet were toughened.
Furthermore, he had remedies for sore throat and indigestion in his cabinet of medicaments.
Alone, they are common treatments anyone might have for minor ailments, but a troubled stomach and persistent sore throat, coupled with the changes to his skin, are classic signs of arsenical poisoning.
To be certain, I have taken the fingernail that dropped off for testing.
Come. I am eager to set the experiment.”
He rose from the bench, removing his caressing hand, and I felt a sudden rush of cool air where the warmth of his flesh had sustained me.
“Very well,” I said in resignation. A lady might have appetites, but they must never supersede justice, I reflected.
* * *
Once back at the Belvedere, Stoker cleared away several stacks of Wardian cases to make room for his investigations. I glanced idly at the shrouded corner. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do this in your part of the workspace?”
Only the tiniest twitch of his mouth betrayed his unease with the question. “Not at all. The specimen I am working on is delicate. I cannot take the chance of damaging the scales.”
Scales! When only the day before he had made reference to fur. I could not imagine what benighted sort of creature he was wrestling if it had both scales and fur, but I was burning to know.
Before I could task him further on the subject, he had gathered his equipment and set to work, assembling a rudimentary form of Marsh test. Unlike many poisons which were still undetectable in the human body, arsenic had been successfully identified by a procedure developed by James Marsh in 1836.
He had built upon the work of several German physicians in the previous century, but it was Marsh’s definitive analysis which served to isolate that most convenient and treacherous of toxins.
Used by incalculable numbers of villains to dastardly effect, arsenic was the very queen of poisons.
Until the Arsenic Act, passed nearly half a century previous, it had been readily available from any chemist’s shop, a friendly solution to the problem of an abusive husband or aging parent who would not obligingly pass from this mortal coil.
So popular was it that it had been known as “inheritance powder,” and one shuddered to imagine how many people had been hastened to their ends by its deadly powers.
A pinch in a cup of tea would be enough to see off the hardiest soul, and the effects were often mistaken for cholera.
Both wreaked unpleasant havoc in the bowels, and if a doctor were not astute enough to detect the telltale garlic stench from the effluvia of an arsenic patient, the death would most likely be attributed to natural causes.
Even the introduction of the Arsenic Act merely blunted the demand, for it only required chemists to keep a record of purchasers, and there were any number of legitimate uses for the stuff.
Poisoners learnt to be more cautious. Rather than slaying their victims through acute poisoning—administering one fatal dose which progresses rapidly from violent digestive unwellness to cessation of cardiac activity—the crafty killer chose to murder through chronic poisoning, the doses administered incrementally over a longer period of time, thus weakening the victim until one last pinch tipped them into immortality.
This latter approach left distinctive traces upon the body, traces Stoker had already identified in the corpse of Von Hilsing.
The skin itself would change as the poison was absorbed, giving rise to the darkened appearance and thickening skin Stoker had noted, as well as causing the painful throat and unbalanced stomach for which Von Hilsing had obviously procured the usual remedies.
The case might not have stood a barrister’s scrutiny in one of Her Majesty’s courts of law, but it was enough to persuade me—provided the Marsh test on the fingernail was conclusive.
Stoker was busy about his test tubes and flasks and an early Faraday burner he had unearthed from a crate of laboratory equipment donated to the Rosemorran Collection by a scientific widow.
(It was not as elegant as that developed by Bunsen some years later, but it was near at hand and surprisingly effective.) Stoker provided a running commentary of his efforts, explaining the chemical properties of the zinc and acid he had added to a flask.
He handed me a pair of wide, tempered spectacles to wear and donned a pair himself.
“Do not take these off,” he cautioned. “Now, if arsenic is present in the fingernail, it will be isolated in the form of arsine gas. Once ignited, the gas will leave traces of—”
“Ignited?” I asked. But before I could query him further, he had bent to his work, and a pretty little jet of flame erupted.
(I have often observed that most men, however grown, never lose the rather boyish enthusiasm for fire.
This was no less true of Stoker. Any attempts on my part to deal with the rather temperamental Swedish stove were always met with firm resistance.)
Stoker had reached for a china bowl and held it up as the flame burst forth. When the little fire had died away, he looked into the bowl, grinning. “There we are.” He pointed to the smudge inside, black but with a curious, silvery quality. It shimmered in the light of the Faraday lamp.
“Arsenic?” I asked.
He looked persuaded, but with a scientist’s caution, he temporised. “I cannot swear to it. I have isolated this substance and it appears to be arsenic, but until it is compared to a control, it is still only a theory. Wait here.”
I did as instructed, admiring the lustrous sheen of the substance in the bowl until he returned with a second bowl and a sheet of flypaper. He repeated the experiment, snipping bits of the flypaper into a fresh flask with a new complement of zinc and acid.
“The flypaper is impregnated with arsenic,” he explained. “If this specimen matches the other, then we shall know for certain.”
Again there was a pretty rush of flame and a sooty deposit left on the inside of a china bowl.
It looked identical to the first to the naked and untrained eye—namely, mine—but Stoker carried on, carefully scraping a sample from each and depositing them onto glass slides.
These were slid under the lens of his microscope, an ancient and unwieldy thing, but suitable for our purposes.
He moved the slides back and forth, comparing them several times until he sat back with a wide smile.
“Arsenic,” he pronounced at last.
“You are certain?”
He waved me to his chair, and I peered through the scope. “They look identical to me, but I am no chemist,” I said.
“Neither am I, but there were one or two things I picked up on the Luna,” he told me, invoking the name of the ship to which he’d been assigned during his time in the Navy as surgeon’s mate.
“The surgeon was an amateur chemist by way of a hobby. He used to smear all sorts of nasty things onto slides and make me look at them. And he was forever blowing things up—not a habit calculated to endear him to the captain. The skipper forbade him from doing any experiments which were not absolutely necessary to the health and well-being of the crew, but before that, the surgeon taught me how to do the Marsh test. He said it might come in useful one day, and by god it has.”
“What now?” I asked.
He carefully wrapped the slides into two pieces of brown paper, labelling them with a grease pencil. “These ought to go to Mornaday. Along with the news of Von Hilsing’s death.”
“Agreed,” I said slowly.
Stoker quirked a brow heavenwards. “Agreed except for what? I can hear hesitation in your tone, Veronica. Surely you do not mean to conceal this death. We have established it is unnatural. Von Hilsing was murdered.”
“And his murderer ought to be brought to justice,” I said in emollient tones. “Just perhaps not tonight.”
Stoker folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. The gesture was not, I believe, intended to divert me from my purpose, but it very nearly did. The development of his pectoral and biceps muscles was admirable to the point of distraction. “Go on.”
“It did occur to me that if we take this matter directly to Mornaday, questions might be asked. Awkward ones,” I said.
“Awkward ones?”
“Yes, like ‘Why did you break into a millionaire’s mansion?’ and ‘Were you planning to steal anything?’ ”
“Of course we weren’t there to bloody steal,” Stoker thundered.
“You know that, and I know that, and we might even be able to persuade Mornaday of that, but what of his superiors? You must admit, dearest, it does look rather suspicious that we forced entry—quite illegally—into the abode of an American millionaire and now he is dead.”
“That is not our fault! Besides which, I have just established that he was poisoned over a long period of time. Arsenic is not stored in the fingernails from a single acute dose.”
“Yes,” I agreed soothingly. “But it might take some time to bring Scotland Yard around to our way of thinking. Once news of Von Hilsing’s death is known, the press will descend like vultures. Our British newspapers are bad enough, but just consider, dearest—”
“The Americans,” he said hoarsely. His face had gone very white, and he slumped into a chair. “It will be awful. They will accuse us of terrible things, and they shall do so ungrammatically.”
“Indeed. Now, I do not mean we should keep this from Mornaday indefinitely. I have perfect faith that the murderer will be brought to justice in due course, but in the immediate future, it is we who will be imperilled. Scotland Yard, if you will consider our personal experience with that organisation, require a little time and some guidance to find the correct solution to such mysteries. They are easily distracted—like magpies with a bit of gimcrack glitter. I do not wish to be glitter, Stoker, distracting professional detectives from their official duties. And I should most assuredly not care for incarceration, however temporary.”
“And it mightn’t be temporary,” he agreed. “Even if they are eventually persuaded that we had nothing to do with Von Hilsing’s death, we are certainly guilty of trespassing on his property.”
“Far worse,” I reminded him. “You could reasonably be charged with desecration of a corpse—you stole his fingernail.”
“For the purposes of science!” he countered indignantly.
“I do not think Scotland Yard care very much about science, my heart. It requires thought and comprehension.”
He threw his hands up in resignation. “What do you suggest, then?”
“As I have noted, the hour is late. A good night’s sleep should be our first order of business. After that, a conference with J. J. to discuss the best means of bringing Seward Johnson to justice.”
A slow smile spread over his features. “Then you agree Johnson is our villain?”
“I do not concede that he is the murderer,” I said with as much equanimity as I could muster. “But he must be involved in some capacity. Even the greatest dullard could not fail to notice his employer in such a state.”
“Even now you will not admit to losing our wager?” he teased.
“I am not convinced I have won it,” I maintained. “Johnson may be merely an accomplice.”
“To whom? You are thinking of Ruthven, of course,” he said.
I made no reply. Something was tickling the back of my mind, a pesky little mosquito of a thought which darted in to buzz annoyingly and then flitted away again before I could capture it. I could only hope to find it properly within my grasp before the killer struck again.