CHAPTER 16
Tennant looked around the doctor’s study.
For the second time, the shabbiness of Scott’s furnishings surprised him.
That, and the nautical touches, reminded the inspector of the man’s seedy medical office.
Odd because suits from a storied Savile Row tailor filled the bedroom wardrobe, and Tennant had unearthed Scott’s financial documents from a desk drawer.
The doctor had over ninety thousand pounds invested in securities, and his liquid resources amounted to another ten thousand.
A well-dressed miser. Tennant was never surprised by the contradictions in human nature.
The inspector circled an upended chair. Scott had fallen from it to the floor and died in agony. He’d clawed away his cravat, torn off his collar, and crawled a few feet before collapsing. Tennant crouched and retrieved a shirt stud from the middle of the carpet.
The doctor who had pronounced Scott dead looked at his contorted frame and twisted face, frozen in the grimace of death. “Strychnine poisoning, I’d say.”
Tennant had asked, “Suicide?”
“Doubtful. It’s a horrible death. No sane physician would use it when he had a chemist’s shop of poisons at his disposal. There are easier ways to exit this world.”
Tennant had asked the doctor to look through Scott’s medications cabinet. On a middle shelf, he found a half-empty bottle of strychnine tablets.
“More than enough to do the job,” the doctor had said. “But so would a half dozen other pills and potions.”
Two bottles of expensive whiskey stood on the side table: two bottles of the same eighteen-year-old single malt, Royal Lochnagar.
Scott drank as well as he dressed. One was empty; the other was missing about an inch of liquid.
They would send them for analysis along with the glass from the floor.
The D Division coppers had removed the body to the police station on Marylebone Lane, and Tennant had sent for Julia to perform the postmortem.
O’Malley returned from his reconnoiter of the house, waving a book. “From the doctor’s bedside drawer.” He passed it to the inspector.
Tennant opened to the title page. “Well, well. Pleasure Gardens,” he said, then flipped through the rest of the book. “Pleasures indeed. All the altered Chinese paintings gathered between two covers.” Tennant returned it to O’Malley. “It’s evidence that Allingham’s collection was published.”
“An easy guess who printed them, I’m thinking.”
“Did the servants have anything useful to say?”
“The doctor wasn’t one for keeping a large staff. There’s no cook. The man was eating his meals at the Topkapi most nights. The housekeeper would leave a sandwich on the evenings he stayed home.”
“Is she a reliable witness?”
“Ancient and deaf as a post. Heard nothing in the night and didn’t go downstairs after eight o’clock.”
“Other servants?”
“A young housemaid. She’s the one who found him, poor lass.”
“And the front door?”
“Locked but not on the chain. They’d fastened the windows and bolted the back door.” O’Malley circled the stained carpet. “Are we thinking the creature knew we were closing in and took the easy way out?”
“Not a painless death, according to the doctor. Perhaps someone removed a weak link in the chain.”
“There’s the single glass and no evidence he had company.”
“There are three others on the shelf. Someone might have replaced their glass and slipped away, leaving the door unchained.”
“’Tis possible.”
“Still, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, Paddy.”
“Sir?” A young constable with an empty crate came into the room.
“Pack up the bottles and the glass,” Tennant said. “And take the three clean ones as well. Have them tested for traces.”
Tennant ran his finger along a line of navy-blue, leather-bound casebooks. He stopped at the end of the row and slipped two volumes from the shelf, the record of Scott’s patients for the past two years. He looked around a final time and opened the door for the officer with the crate.
“We’re finished here, Paddy. Let’s hear what Doctor Lewis has to say.”
* * *
Julia stood at the head of the autopsy table. Her gaze flicked to Inspector Tennant and back to Dr. Scott’s corpse.
The room was small, and the bulbous glass shades of two oil lamps glowed brightly over the examining table.
Julia had nearly reached the end of the procedure.
She listened to Tennant struggle to control his breathing.
He didn’t have to stand over her while she worked, but he did it time and again as if testing himself in a trial by ordeal.
Why? Julia wanted to ask him. She looked at his strained, pale face, and her heart ached.
Who shares your burdens? No one, she suspected.
She wanted to cross the room and take his hands. Draw him close and whisper, Tell me.
“Richard . . .” Her voice sounded strained to her ears.
He dragged his gaze from the body and looked at her. “Yes?”
“I . . .” She turned away to look in her medical bag. “I’m nearly finished. I’ll meet you outside, shall I?”
“Very well.”
She heard the doors swing shut. What a coward I am. Then, she drew a needle from her bag, threaded it, and sutured the Y-shaped opening she’d cut into Scott’s cadaver.
Twenty minutes later, a pale but collected Tennant asked, “Have you any reason to doubt strychnine poisoning?”
“No. That twisted jaw is a telltale, and the body shows signs of asphyxia. There is no other obvious cause of death, although we’ll wait for the analysis of the whiskey and stomach contents to be sure.”
“Do you agree that suicide is unlikely?”
“I’ve never witnessed a strychnine death, but descriptions in the medical literature are harrowing. The victim suffers violent convulsions and suffocation as the drug paralyzes breathing.
“A horrible death.”
“Doctor Scott would have known what he faced. It seems an unthinkable choice.”
“Murder, then.” Color had crept back into Tennant’s face, and his expression darkened. “We’ve drawn our net carefully, but if someone killed Scott to silence him . . .”
“Could his murder be unrelated?”
“A fantastic coincidence, but I must consider it. Perhaps an angry patient?” He smiled. “Which leads me to beg a favor—a task outside your role as a medical examiner.”
“You intrigue me, Inspector.”
“I have Scott’s casebooks for the past two years. I’ve looked at last week’s entries, but nothing stands out. And some of the medical terms and abbreviations defeat me.”
“You’d like me to review them?”
“Yes.”
“A homicidal patient with a grudge? As a doctor, I confess, it’s an uncomfortable thought.” She held out her hands for the books. “I’ll take a look.”
“Thank you,” he said, passing them to her. “I may be wasting your time. I still think it’s Rawlings or Allen. Someone else tied to their foul business.”
“Seems likely, given all that has happened.”
“A request to carry out raids went up the Met’s chain of command. Yesterday, it was approved. We hope to drop the net tonight and bag the scoundrels.”
“Thank God. Finally, a measure of justice for Jin and Kathleen and all the other girls.”
“It comes in many forms.” Tennant’s eyes glinted. “I’m on my way to Fleet Street to see an old friend of yours. Someone who will mete out justice in his inimitable way.”
“Fleet Street? Not Johnny Osborne?”
“None other. God’s gift to journalism.”
“I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“Watch me.”
* * *
Julia had an hour before she had to be back at the clinic. She wanted fresh air, exercise, and time to think about Richard.
She knew he’d been injured in the Crimea. He mentioned recovering in the military hospital at Scutari. Julia remembered from childhood her grandfather’s friend who barely survived an artillery barrage at Waterloo. Forty years later, shaking still gripped him during thunderstorms.
She knew there were no ready cures for such injuries. Still, to bottle it up . . . She had to find the right time and place to coax him to confide in her.
Julia heard her name and looked up, surprised to find herself on Harley Street. A familiar figure descended a set of steps she knew well. Mister Lloyd had exited her Uncle Max’s offices.
He raised his hat and smiled. “Are you here to see Doctor Franklin?”
She shook her head. “Just hunting for a cab to take me to Whitechapel.”
Lloyd looked over her shoulder and raised his walking stick. “Shall we share this one? It can drop me at Carteret Street and take you to the clinic.”
“With pleasure.”
When they’d settled into the hansom, Lloyd said, “I had a note from Inspector Tennant. He asked if I’d make myself available tomorrow. He may need someone who can interpret Cantonese.”
“I was with him this past hour. He called me in to perform a postmortem on a doctor.”
“And I just spent an hour with a live one. Doctor Franklin. He performed some tests, but I’m afraid the results aren’t good.” He shrugged. “I was hardly surprised, but I consulted him at my sister’s insistence and on your grandfather’s recommendation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Scarlet fever leaves its damage behind. In my case, it’s severe. Still, I’ll depart this world knowing my brother-in-law left his family well-provided.”
“That is a comfort, I’m sure.”
The carriage trundled along. Lloyd broke a silence stretch.
“The source of his family’s wealth always troubled Gareth. They made their fortune in the sugar trade. Tainted money earned off Black backs and the sweat of enslaved labor. That’s why the trafficking of girls like Jin has a tragic resonance for my sister and me.”
“I understand all too well. The Lewis fortune has murky origins. It goes back several generations to a soldier-adventurer in India, so we’ve tried to put some of the money to good use.”
“Well, I hope I can do some good for Inspector Tennant tomorrow.” He touched her forearm to draw her gaze. “My dear, if I weren’t such an old crock with a dicky heart, I’d give your inspector a run for his money.”
Julia smiled with a slight shake of her head.