Chapter 9 #2
Lady Styles and Princess Louise had only gotten as far as the waiting room’s first bench.
The princess crouched to bring her eyes level with a little girl’s gaze.
They opened as wide as a pair of gold sovereigns when her mother whispered, “This is Princess Louise, Sally.” When the girl tried to wipe her nose with her sleeve, her mother stopped her hand.
“I had a bad cold before Christmas, just like yours,” the princess said. “And I never had enough of these about me.” She pulled a handkerchief from her muff and handed it to the little girl. She straightened up, saying, “I hope you feel better soon, Sally,” touching her lightly under the chin.
The mother tried to return the handkerchief, but the princess shook her head. “A gift.” Louise smiled as she passed two elderly men who struggled to their feet, doffing their caps. For her part, the doctor dropped a respectable curtsey and opened her office door.
Lady Styles gave Julia a card. “The photographers, Hills and Saunders, sent Her Royal Highness a box of these.”
It was a carte de visite, a photograph the size of a calling card, a head-and-shoulders picture of the princess.
PHOTOGRAPHERS TO THE QUEEN and the royal crest were printed on the back.
Louise had signed, starting with a bold “L,” the tail of the ending “e” in “Louise,” extending like an underline beneath her name.
“I never know what to do with them,” the princess said. “I thought perhaps your patients? A token of apology for disturbing their rest. Susan thought twenty-five was about the right number, but I could send more if they’re needed.”
“We have eleven patients occupying beds today. Twenty-five are enough for my staff.”
“Oh, that’s splendid, then.”
Julia said, “Shall we begin our tour?”
They started with the two wards, the princess chatting easily with the patients bold enough to speak to her. Lady Styles trailed behind, handing out the cartes de visite. After that, Julia explained the workings of the outpatient dispensary and showed the princess their well-equipped fever room.
“Empty just now, thank heaven,” Julia said. Then they returned to the doctor’s office for tea. “Oh dear. I meant to add some coal to my fire.”
“Please,” Louise said quickly. “Not on my account.”
Lady Styles smiled. “Like the queen, the princess prefers a room to feel like January, not July.”
“It’s true,” the princess said. “It’s the one thing Mama and I never quarrel about.”
Louise walked to a poster illustrating the body’s muscular structure. “Fascinating,” she murmured. Then the princess took her seat, accepting a cup and saucer from Julia.
Lady Styles said, “Princess Louise visited Elizabeth Garrett’s dispensary for women and children last year.”
“She’s accomplished wonders in Marylebone,” Julia said. “Especially during last year’s cholera outbreak.”
“Oh yes,” the princess said. “And Doctor Garrett told me she visited your dispensary before setting up hers. After that, I knew I wanted to meet you, but I wasn’t able …” The animation vanished from Louise’s face, and she looked away.
Lady Styles’s gaze shifted from the princess to Julia. She set down her cup and saucer.
“One had such a sense of life amid death at that dispensary. So many fell ill with cholera and succumbed, yet the work continued, and lives were saved.” She glanced back at the princess; Louise stared into her teacup.
Julia wondered at the alteration in mood.
Susan pressed on. “Life and death. As a physician, you must understand its mysteries better than most, Doctor Lewis.”
“The cause of a life’s end is sometimes clear,” Julia said. “Often, it’s not. For me, the greater wonder is the life force in a living being. What impels it, keeps it surging, keeps the heart beating, day after day? That’s the mystery.”
“Yes … the life force.” The princess sat forward, animated once again.
The ‘aliveness’ of living beings is something I struggle with …
it’s a challenge for a sculptor. Oh, for painters, too.
” She waved her teaspoon. “But to take a lump of clay, to chisel a piece of marble. To animate it, make it seem to breathe …”
Lady Styles smiled. “You’ve gathered that Her Royal Highness is an ardent student of the sculptural arts.”
“If only Mama wouldn’t stand in my way. The queen would prefer I paint flowers or sketch landscapes.”
“I understand Her Majesty is a talented painter,” Julia said.
“Yes, she is. But Mama thinks sculpture is unladylike because sculptors carve and hammer. And she doesn’t like that it requires a close study of the human body.
Something she deems inappropriate for females.
But I will wear Mama down.” The princess put her cup and saucer aside.
“Now, Doctor, before I forget. You asked about poor Lizzie.”
“Anything you remember might be useful.”
“She came to us shortly after dearest Papa died, so I’m afraid it is no use asking the queen. That time is a blank to her. My brother doesn’t remember—”
“The Prince of Wales?” Julia asked. Good Lord. Had her request become a general discussion?
“Yes. Bertie said if anyone knows, Alice will.”
Lady Styles said, “Princess Louise’s sister, Princess Alice of Hesse.”
“During those black months, she relieved Mama of all domestic cares. I’ve written to her in Germany, but it may take some time to hear back.”
“Thank you, Princess Louise.”
She sighed. “It may come to nothing, but for Lizzie’s sake …” Then Louise brightened. “You would approve of my sister, Doctor Lewis. When Hesse filled with the wounded during the late war with Prussia, she took charge of the capital’s field hospitals.”
Julia looked away from the princess and spotted Tennant outside her door. “Will you excuse me for a moment? I see Inspector Tennant in the foyer.”
“No, no,” Princess Louise said, getting to her feet. “I’ve taken up too much of your time. Come, Susan. We’ll leave Doctor Lewis to get on with her day.”
Tennant joined Julia on the doorstep as the carriage rolled away. “A hired four-wheeler, not a royal coach,” he said. “I had no idea who was with you until Nurse Clemmie told me.”
“Princess Louise is astonishingly unroyal,” Julia said, smiling. “If that’s a word.”
“I thought the same thing when I met her at Osborne House.”
Julia glanced at the autopsy report in his hand. “You have questions?”
“Yes. Well, one.”
“Come inside, then.”
He followed her into her office and looked around. “It’s my first time back since—”
“Last June. Before you left for France.”
Tennant sighed. “Julia, I should have tried to see you and caught a later train. I owed you an explanation, not a rushed note scribbled in Kent. You had every right to be angry.”
“‘Deflated’ is a better word. We’d uncovered the truth together. I felt … dismissed as a colleague. And slighted as a friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My relief that you were safe after those silent, anxious weeks was …” Julia shook her head. “I know I didn’t sound relieved. More like a mother who shouts at her child for nearly running under a carriage.”
He took a step, closing the gap between them. “Forgive me.”
Julia looked into his gray eyes framed by dark lashes.
When she first knew him, Julia had called them “granite eyes.” But the emotions that flickered in them were new to her.
Relief? Something more? she wondered. Eyes that had once seemed cold looked lit from within.
Seconds passed, and the office that felt chilly earlier seemed warmer.
He offered his hand, palm up. “It’s a new year,” he said. “Shall we begin again?”
Julia placed hers in his. Her voice caught when she said, “Yes, Richard. Please.” He seemed in no hurry to take his hand away. Neither was she. Julia turned it over, traced the scar with her fingertip, and smiled. “This has healed, too.”
“Yes. Mended.”
Julia released his hand. “You said you had a question about the postmortem.”
“It relates to the man’s height.”
“He was about average for an English male. Five feet, six inches.”
Tennant asked, “Are you certain?”
She sat back against the edge of her desk.
“Within an inch or so. All the man’s bones were present, so it’s not hard to ascertain.
The broken teeth all along the left side of the mouth will be useful for identification.
They resulted from a fight or an injury.
They’re not from natural wear or poor nutrition. ”
“Something is wrong,” Tennant said.
“What is?”
“Sir Lionel called the arsonist ‘damnably clever,’ the way he disguised himself to gain access to the grounds. And the man who murdered Brigid and the cabbie was a cold-blooded killer, careful to an extreme.”
“True.”
“Yet, we’re meant to believe the same man who killed them made a careful plan to torch Marlborough House but burned himself alive by mistake?”
“When you put it that way …”
“O’Malley located a sharp-eyed sweeper who saw a tall man with Brigid Dowling. Someone over six feet got into the cab with her, not a man of average height.”
“So, the dead man at Marlborough House—”
“Is too short to be Brigid’s killer,” Tennant said.
“But her cabbie and the milkman in the back of the wagon were killed in the identical way.”
Tennant nodded. “By a tall man, wielding a thin blade, thrust under the chin. He’s still out there, Julia, committing murders linked to the royals. And he’s added paraffin to his arsenal.”
Raucous laughter erupted from the men’s ward. Julia and Tennant exchanged glances and walked into the foyer.
A burly man wearing the gaiters and leather apron of a brewer said, “Look at him, Tim. Blushing like a bleedin’ maiden.”
Nurse Clemmie said, “You’ll have to remove those trousers if the doctor is to take a look.”
The sandy-haired young man gripped his waistband, scowling. “I’ll ruddy well wait for him then.”
“The doctor is a ‘her,’ so there’s nothing for it.” Clemmie hooked a finger under one of his braces and pulled it off his shoulder. “You best get on with it, lad.”
“Come on, Freddie,” the brewer said. “Drop your drawers. Someone’s got to sew up that gash on your arse.”
“My cue, Inspector,” Julia said, smiling. “I’d best get on with it, too.”
“So must I,” Tennant said. “I’ve been summoned to a meeting at the Home Office.”