Chapter Thirty-Two
Tobias walked back into Dr. Nicholson’s office after finishing explaining to the local constables what had occurred, and immediately, his eyes were drawn to Jack as she stood by the window staring off into the distance.
He had to fight the urge to stride over to her and embrace her.
She wouldn’t appreciate it, he was certain, and he didn’t want to push her any further away from what he already sensed she was doing herself.
The doctor sat at his desk, his head buried in the baron’s file notes as he muttered to himself, but then as if sensing Tobias there, he glanced up at the door. “Ah, Inspector, did the police need anything further?”
“No, they’ll accompany the body back to the local mortuary for examination,” Tobias replied. “Did you discover what happened regarding the medication?”
“I’ve called Dr. Patterson.” He nodded down to the telephone on his desk.
“And he’s adamant he left no such written instructions, and I tend to believe him, given he’s been a regular consultant here for years without any issues.
” He held out a piece of paper towards Tobias.
“However, the writing in the notes is almost identical to his. Which means either he’s lying, or someone was able to mimic his hand very well. ”
Tobias strode over and took the paper, noting that Jack took in a deep breath and turned to face them, clearly interested in also finding out what had happened.
“It does look very similar to the other entries on the page,” Tobias commented, trying not to be distracted as Jack came to stand next to him and the smell of soft jasmine from her perfume filled his nostrils.
She leaned over his arm and glanced down at the paper too, and Tobias was stuck by an intense awareness of her.
Even with everything going on, he was still so conscious of this woman, and he could see the pain shining in her eyes, despite her attempt to hide it.
“A magician is often very good at mimicking writing,” she said.
“Is there nothing a magician can’t do?” Tobias asked, thinking that in her case, such a fact was probably quite true.
“They can’t bring the dead back to life, Inspector,” she replied.
“A much as they might pretend to be able to. But mimicking writing is a handy skill many perfect, especially when performing card tricks where an audience member writes on a card themselves, and the magician has to produce that very card, in a seemingly impossible position, such as in the audience member’s jacket pocket. ”
“Do you think this is actually the doctor’s writing or is it forged?”
Jack peered down closer to the scrawl. “It’s very similar, but there are some slight differences to the loops in some of the lettering. I’d say it’s an exceptionally well-forged entry.”
“Who had access to this file apart from Dr. Patterson?” Tobias glanced over at the doctor.
“Any of our staff. Each patient’s file is kept in the file holder on the outside of the door to their rooms,” the doctor explained.
“Our orderlies write down any unusual observations of the patient, or when they administer their medications. Our nurses and treating doctors also make annotations in the file, too, so that everything is kept track of.”
“Would visitors have access to the files?” Jack asked.
“No,” the doctor replied. “Patients are only ever allowed one family member to visit, and even then, it’s dependent on the patient’s behavior that day as to whether it’s safe for the visit to be allowed.
But all visits are supervised in visitation rooms, like the room where I took you to speak to the baron.
Visitors don’t have access to the patients’ area or their rooms, and they most certainly don’t have access to the any of the patient files. ”
“What about the medication given to the baron?” Tobias asked. “Was it poison?”
“Until the autopsy is done and the organ tissue is examined, we won’t know for certain.
But my suspicion is that he might have been given a dose of liquid cocaine, or some similar stimulant.
In a normal dose, it would simply have made the patient feel euphoric, but with too much, it would firstly induce mania, followed by heart failure and a shutdown of the body’s organs. ”
Tobias’s ears perked up at this. “Liquid cocaine?”
“We use a lot of it here to help calm our patients, as it’s relatively cheap and easily available.”
It was a possible link to the other case, but a tenable one. “Has the baron had any other visitors in the past week?” Tobias thought to ask.
“Just his wife,” the doctor said. “She visits him once a month like clockwork, always dressed in full mourning. It’s all she’s worn since her son died.”
“Is her face hidden behind a veil?” Jack asked, clearly thinking the same thing Tobias was.
“Yes. From what I gather, she’s very religious and took her son’s death extremely hard. He was all she had left after the baron was sentenced to spend the rest of his life here. I can only imagine how distressed she’ll be to hear of his death.”
“Did you speak to her at the time of her visit?” Tobias asked.
“No, not personally,” the doctor replied. “She would have simply signed in and been shown to the visitation room. All of the guards and orderlies know her by sight now after all these years of her coming monthly.”
“Do they recognize her face, Doctor, or rather her widow’s clothing?” Jack asked, glancing at Tobias, her eyes bright with anticipation.
“Well, her clothing, I suppose,” the doctor clarified. “Like I said, she always wears a veil. Is that important?”
“Do you have an address for Lady Denton, Doctor?” Tobias asked.
“Most likely.” The doctor leaned over and flicked through some papers in the baron’s file. “Ah, here we go. She resides over in Chesterton, at Milton Manor. Do you think she had something to do with this?”
“I’m not sure, Doctor, but whomever we’re chasing excels at costume changes and disguises,” Tobias replied.
The doctor nodded sagely and then his eyes glanced up in shock at Tobias. “You don’t think Lady Denton wasn’t actually Lady Denton, do you?”
“It’s a possibility, Doctor, and one that hopefully we can determine the truth of very shortly.” Tobias glanced to Jack. “I think a quick visit to Chesterton is warranted.”
*
Chesterton was only a twenty-minute carriage ride back towards London, and as they got out of the carriage, Jack looked up at Milton Manor, what was once, she imagined, a very grand manor house, which now lay in a pile of burned ashes and debris.
There were vines growing through the dilapidated remnants of the residence and creeping along the path, leading to what used to be the entrance. “No one has lived here in years.”
Tobias walked ahead of her to the entrance, which now consisted of burned bricks and ash.
“Can I help you two?” a man’s voice hollered from the street behind them.
Jack and Tobias both spun around. A villager had stopped on the footpath and was looking at them with curiosity in his eyes.
“We were hoping to speak to Lady Denton,” Tobias replied. “But clearly, she hasn’t lived here in a long time.”
“Aye, not since the fire about five years ago, I’m afraid,” the villager said. “Poor thing, to have died in such a blaze must have been horrible.”
“She’s dead?” Jack exclaimed.
“Aye.” The man then pointed beyond the manor. “Trapped in the fire, she was, when the whole house was ablaze. Everyone from the village was roused in the early hours of the morning to try to put it out, but it was too late. They found her upstairs burned to a crisp.”
“Do they know what caused the fire?” Tobias asked.
“Well, it’s not very Christian to speak ill of the dead,” the man replied, scratching his chin.
“But she’d sent her servants to have a night off…
which was unheard of for the lady. So, with them gone, she was alone in the house that night the fire started.
She’s buried in their family plot behind the house,” the man continued, “if you want to go see for yourself. It was a bit controversial, her being buried at all, given how they found her.”
“What did you mean by that?” Tobias asked. “How was she found?”
“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” the man replied.
“But you see, not only did the fire get her, but she was actually dead, they think, before the fire. Looks like she was the one to set her house on fire, and then she hanged herself from the wooden ceiling beam in her bedroom. The police found her with a noose around her neck.”
“Why would she kill herself like that?” Jake said.
The man shrugged. “They say she’d never been the same since her son died. Most people think her ghost still frequents the place, given she was buried on holy ground after committing a grave sin. But I think that’s hogwash.”
“Did she have any other relatives?” Tobias asked.
The man shrugged. “Not sure, to be honest. Like I said, her son died before her, and the Bloody Baron is still locked up in that asylum place, but as for other relatives? Don’t know, haven’t seen anyone else visiting the place.
” The man’s eyes darted around the unkept yard.
“Anyhow, my missus is expecting me, so I’d best be off. ”
With that, the man nodded and continued off down the footpath towards the main area of the town.
Jack turned to Tobias. “She killed herself by hanging. Do women really do that?”
“Not usually, no. However, it can’t be discounted,” he replied. “Let’s go have a look at the gravestone around the back.”
She followed him around the path, down the side of the garden, and into the large back yard, which was predominately an open grass field with a family plot at the far end of the grassed area up a slight hill.
As they crested the incline and walked into the picket-fenced cemetery area, she noticed about six headstones, and over to the right she saw the Lady Denton’s headstone, and next to that was her son’s.
“Here lies Thomas Clorren, son of Edward and Jane, taken too soon at the age of twenty-one, on the…”