Chapter 27 #2
“When arsenic is administered in small doses, over a long period of time, it produces jaundice and episodes of gastric distress. From those symptoms one might make an assumption of gradual arsenical poisoning, although I must warn you, those findings are my own. I hope to publish them one day, but they are not universally accepted in the medical community.”
“It does not matter,” I said, jubilant. “Edward did not suffer from gastric distress, and he certainly was not jaundiced. Magda is acquitted,” I finished with a jerk of my chin at Brisbane.
He ignored me, which was probably for the best. “What could it be, then?”
Doctor Bent shrugged. “Without a proper postmortem, I can only offer the broadest suggestions. Perhaps some sort of plant poison. But I cannot tell you how it was administered. If I had seen the contents of his stomach, or the pallor of his skin…” He threw up his hands helplessly.
“What about Doctor Griggs?” I put in. “Surely he would know those things. I mean, not the stomach, of course—” I felt slightly queasy discussing this, but I pressed on “—as there was no postmortem. But he might have noticed something during the examination that would shed some light on matters.”
Doctor Bent and Brisbane shared a look.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“Mordecai wrote to Doctor Griggs regarding another patient. I had him test the waters a bit to see if perhaps he could form some sort of professional relationship. A means to eventually questioning him informally about Sir Edward.”
“And?”
I looked from one to the other. Doctor Bent did not meet my eyes. Brisbane’s handsome mouth had curled into a sneer.
“Doctor Griggs does not associate with Semites, professionally or otherwise,” he said flatly.
I swore softly and Doctor Bent’s head came up. He smiled.
“Thank you for that,” he murmured. “But really, it is nothing new to me. Besides, there are many others who do not share his views. The real difficulty is that it means we are at a loss. We have no way to proceed without some detailed knowledge of the state of Sir Edward’s body.”
I looked again from one to the other.
“Why not ask Mrs. Birch?”
Brisbane pulled lazily at his cigar. “Who is Mrs. Birch?”
“The parish worker who washed his body, of course,” I said impatiently. “Really, you didn’t think I did it, did you?”
Slowly, dazzlingly, a smile—a real, bone-deep expression of violent joy spread across Brisbane’s face. It was perhaps the first time I had seen him really smile. I had been so accustomed to his scowls and frowns that the effect was rather unsettling.
“And you know how to find this Mrs. Birch?”
“I should think so. She is on the charity list for Grey House.”
“The charity list?”
I waved a hand. “Yes, of course. There are a number of people within the parish who are what the vicar calls the ‘deserving poor,’ you know, people who work, but who still half starve. Those of us who have the means send along blankets, meat, soup, clothes for the children, that sort of thing. Mrs. Birch has been receiving baskets from Grey House for years.”
Brisbane stubbed his cigar out slowly. “Then we shall call upon her at once. Well done, madam.”
I preened a little. Doctor Bent rose, a trifle uncertainly. “I suppose I had better be off, then. I’ve left a clinic full of patients. They’ll not thank me if I stay away longer.”
I rose and extended my hand. “Doctor Bent, I know you are quite busy, but I wonder if you could perhaps see your way to taking on another patient? I am in need of a doctor, my own has proven unsatisfactory.”
He patted his coat, finally extracting a creased, grimy card. “There is the address of my rooms,” he said, flushing a deep, becoming red. “I know you will not wish to go there, but if you will send for me, I will come.”
I smiled. “You are very kind.”
The blush deepened and he stammered a little as he let himself out. Brisbane sat, regarding me thoughtfully.
“I rather think you’ve made a conquest of poor old Mordecai,” he said finally. “Pity you are not a daughter of Leah. You might have made him a rather fine wife.”
“Do not be nasty, Brisbane,” I returned, refusing to rise to the bait. “It does not suit you.” I rummaged in my reticule. “Here is the completed inventory of Grey House. It is the only copy.”
He took it from me and scanned it quickly, thumbing through the pages. “Good. Not that I think it will lead us to anything, but one never knows.”
I felt a rush of irritation. That inventory had taken hours to complete, dreary, dull hours of copying out endless lists of what Aquinas and I had found in every room.
To have those interminable hours referred to so lightly was more than I could stand.
I would not be made to feel like his pet clerk.
“Brisbane, you are being churlish. Now, if you mean to call upon Mrs. Birch, get your coat. I will wait.”
He arched an imperious brow at me, but obeyed. I had not liked his little jest about Doctor Bent. I knew it was intended flippantly, but why then had I felt a thorn beneath the smooth words?
He returned a moment later, shooting his cuffs.
“My lady?” He lifted his hand, indicating the door.
I preceded him out and into the hansom that he hailed.
I gave him the address to give to the driver and we proceeded in silence, the air thick with questions that went unasked.
Brisbane said not a word, but sat like a great black bird of prey, watching out the window of the cab.
His pose was relaxed, but his hands were tensile, clenching his walking stick until the knuckles went white.
In the end, I could not bear the silence.
“You are angry.”
He sighed. “I am not. I am intensely irritated. If a quantity of poison is discovered amongst the private possessions of a suspect, it should bloody well be the murder weapon, don’t you think?”
It was a symptom of his mood that he swore.
Brisbane had frequently been quite rude, but he rarely cursed in my presence.
Most ladies would doubtless have been horrified by such a breach in manners.
I did not mind. It made me feel more of a comrade-in-arms. “Don’t be peevish.
I know you wanted Magda to swing, but you will simply have to knock your arrow in someone else’s direction. ”
He flicked me a cool, almost dismissive look.
“Your metaphors are deplorable, my lady. I assure you I had no evil intentions toward your laundress.”
“Former laundress,” I said without thinking.
His gaze sharpened, and I spoke quickly to extricate myself.
“She left Grey House. So it is just as well that she is not the murderer,” I said lightly. “As a Roma, I imagine she could hide herself quite handily. I would not have relished smoking her out once she’s run to ground.”
“Indeed not,” he said finally. “Were you planning to keep that little nugget of information to yourself?”
“Of course not,” I said sharply. “Had the arsenic been the cause of Edward’s death, I would have told you instantly. But it is all very much moot, as Doctor Bent has just informed us.”
He was silent a long minute, and I began to feel uncomfortably warm in my new finery. He was staring out of the window again, but I felt quite certain he was not seeing the streets outside. When he spoke, he kept his face turned toward the glass.
“If I find that you have hidden anything else from me, hindered me in any way,” he said softly, “I will not be responsible for my actions.”
I did not reply, but merely turned my head to look unseeingly out of my own window.
And between us the silence grew thick again.
He did not speak when I ordered the hansom to stop at a bookshop, nor did he say a word when I returned to the cab a moment later with the parcel I had purchased.
He kept silent until we reached the modest home of Mrs. Birch, and it occurred to me then that Brisbane might be a prodigiously good holder of grudges.
Yet something else to worry about, I thought irritably as he reached out to knock at the peeling door.
The fact that Mrs. Birch washed the bodies of the dead of the parish speaks eloquently to her financial necessity.
She was a widow of little means, with seven children to bring up, and she applied herself diligently to whatever work could be found for her.
Mending, charring, brewing and a little baking kept her children fed and clothed and with a dry roof over their heads.
She was not above any honest work that might purchase a scrap of beef or crust of bread for them or, to my delight, a book.
Once I discovered her determination to educate her young, I made a habit of tucking an inexpensive volume or two into her baskets from Grey House.
A costly book would have brought with it the temptation to pawn it for the cash.
A cheap edition could be kept for the pleasure of reading alone, by Mrs. Birch as well as her children.
She spoke plainly, her speech liberally sprinkled with the profanity she had learned from her sailor husband.
In all, she was rough and crude and common. I liked her immensely.
And most of all, I liked her for her naturalness.
It would have been a great day for her if the vicar himself called, rather than sending the curate.
But faced with a gentleman of Brisbane’s elegance, and myself, she did not turn a hair.
She simply threw open the door, smiling and motioning us inside.
“Good day to you, my lady—that is quite a fine hat if I may say it.”
“You certainly may, Mrs. Birch, and I thank you. I hope you are well?”
She stepped aside, letting Brisbane enter the narrow hall.
“As well as God ever made a body,” she said heartily.