Part 12 (1/2)
Then Rossi burst in, almost triumphantly. ”I know it. It's garlic!”
Owens turned to Elsie. ”Did Madame habitually eat garlic-you know what it is? Did she have some today?”
”No, sir. She would never eat”-she looked sideways at Captain Rossi-”begging your pardon, sir, foreign muck.”
The doctor laughed and clapped his hands. ”I rather thought that was the case.”
Before anyone could ask the significance of this exchange, Madame Greene moaned and swayed alarmingly.
”Enough,” said Owens. ”Now we must get our patient to the hospital.”
The patterer managed to interpose one question. ”Is there any danger of contagion to others?”
The doctor paused. ”I'm beginning to think not, almost certainly not.”
While the distraught maid was gently urged to return to the High House, Rossi rigged up a hammock stretcher from some theater canvas and recruited two reluctant stagehands to carry the woman to a carriage. Attended by Dr. Owens, Madame Greene, now drifting in and out of consciousness, was transported the four or so blocks to the Rum Hospital.
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THE CAPTAIN CALLED for his carriage and offered to take Dunne, Miss Dormin and Elsie, who was still standing, dazed, in the corridor, to their respective homes.
With four pa.s.sengers, a driver and a large theatrical costume hamper that Rachel Dormin had commandeered to carry away Madame Greene's bulky discarded clothing, plus luggage of her own, the patterer was glad that Rossi's choice of transport was a brisky, and not a smaller vehicle. The popular open curricle, for example, even with two horses, had room only for two, with a seat at the back for a groom. The brisky, however, was a versatile vehicle that enjoyed widespread approval (the real name was britzka britzka, reflecting its Polish origins). Two horses gave it power and its light body, made largely of woven wicker, gave it roominess and speed. It was tough, too. A groaning, st.u.r.dy brisky had carried Governor Macquarie and his lady on the first vice-regal traverse of the rocky, precipitous road across the just-conquered Blue Mountains.
The captain announced he would first drop off Miss Dormin.
d.a.m.n, groaned the patterer inwardly. He had hoped to sit beside her for longer, pressed close together as they were under the darkened privacy of the closed calash top. Dunne was to be delivered next and then Elsie.
When Rachel Dormin stepped down they waited until she was safe at her front door. As Dunne handed over her bulky luggage-she refused any further a.s.sistance-Elsie called, ”Good night, miss. Thank you again for what you have done.” Then she burst into tears.
Rossi urged his departing companion always to be careful when she was out and about alone after dark. She nodded and spoke softly up to the carriage: ”I will not concern myself about calling for the police.”
”Well, always think about it; we are here to help,” advised Rossi, and was rather put out when all Miss Dormin seemed to do in reply was to frown at him, then hide a smile. The young seem to think they are invincible, he thought testily, as the door closed and the brisky rolled on into the chilly night.
Elsie the maid was still weeping and locked in her private world of misery when she was finally delivered into the sympathetic arms of the girls on Gallows Hill.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.
Physicians, of all men, are most happy; what good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.
-Francis Quarles, Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man (1638)
MADAME GREENE DIED DURING THE NIGHT. NICODEMUS DUNNE heard the news when he was summoned to the hospital at about ten A.M. Dr. Owens, his eyes shadowed with fatigue, met him at the front entrance.
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”She was too far gone.”
”What was it?” asked the patterer. ”Dysentery?”
Owens shrugged. ”Well, there was a flux, as you well know, but not because of one of those tropical or other febrile scourges. There was ma.s.sive purging and dehydration. And organ failure; her liver and kidneys failed-among other things.”
He caught the surprised look on Dunne's face. ”Oh, yes, I have already anatomized her. Why? Because, from the start, something about the case troubled me mightily.” He took his companion's elbow in a gloved hand. ”Come.”
”Where to? Not to that death-house again!”
Owens did not answer, just continued to propel the patterer along the corridor. They entered the dissecting room, which looked much as the unwilling visitor recalled from his earlier encounter. There was only one change: The sole examination table now in use had a fresh occupant.
Madame Greene lay under a sheet with only her head exposed, her outlined body seemingly shrunken to a size that didn't tally with Dunne's recollection of her living bulk. Her head was grotesquely haloed by her shock of green hair. They approached the table, Dunne hesitatingly.
”I won't ask you to look at the body,” soothed the doctor. ”In any case, I imagine it would be a mark of disrespect if you did. My having to is enough. Many women in life are reluctant to let even a doctor see their mysteries. I suppose that one day there may be female doctors-and it will be the turn of the men to be shy. So, we will allow her modesty to remain intact. I will remark about the torso only that there is, and was earlier, an abdominal rash, apart from which the body's skin is as clear as a babe's. Nonetheless, you can directly observe some other important physical matters.” He pointed. ”For instance, look at the nails.”
Dunne looked. They were not worn, split or chipped as were many working women's. But they were not attractive or healthy, and were rather coa.r.s.e in texture.
”And the face.” Even in death her complexion was decidedly beautiful, that of a younger woman. ”I just don't know why she caked herself with all that muck,” sniffed Owens. ”Her eyes see nothing now, but even as I treated her last night they were wide and glittering; her pupils were dilated.” He then fingered her hair and remarked that it was s.h.i.+ny but thin to his delicate touch.
”What are you driving at?” asked the patterer, not really understanding what he was being shown. ”Exactly what disease are you talking about?”
”Patience,” begged the doctor. ”There's no hurry. Not now. She is not suffering by my deliberate manner.” Then his attention seemed to wander, for he went off on a tangent. ”Years ago, a French acquaintance, a very perspicacious artist named Horace Vernet, told me that in all matters-and I take this to apply to medical issues-when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. My examination shows that, despite some suggestive symptoms, she did not die of dysentery. The same goes for typhus. True, in Madame's case there was great prostration and a petechial eruption-the red spots I referred to on the belly-but that doesn't always attend typhus, and in this case certainly did not. And although I rule out cholera, there are some similar indicators-puckered lips and a hollow facial appearance-apparent in her case. Please remember that.”
”What then,” inquired Dunne, ”is the truth, the improbable that must be the truth?”
Owens grimaced. ”The truth is that she died of acute poisoning.”
”Why is that so improbable?”
”Because, my dear young man, I simply have no idea how it could have occurred. I suppose I was reasonably sure of the what-if not the why-when I realized what the unusual odor in the room was. You recall, I'm sure, the smell that Captain Rossi so acutely identified as garlic, which Elsie stoutly denied her mistress had ever touched. A reek of garlic can be a pointer to the presence of a.r.s.enic in a body. Very confusing in Latin countries, no doubt!”
”Could it not all have been an accident?” asked the patterer.
The doctor shrugged. ”Perhaps. A lot of women take small doses of a.r.s.enic to improve their complexion. And deadly nightshade can be used by the ladies to highlight the allure of their eyes. That poison's other name is, of course, belladonna belladonna-in words other than the Italian, 'fair lady.' Even the late king's doctors dosed him with emetic tartar during treatment for his madness. That nostrum contains antimony, which is commonly contaminated with up to 5 percent a.r.s.enic. So you can see that the toxin has respectable medical usage.”
”So, in a nutsh.e.l.l, she died by taking too much a.r.s.enic,” said the patterer.
”'Taking' is the problem word,” replied Owens. ”Yes, a.r.s.enic killed her, but did she 'take' it, in the conventional sense? I tend to believe what Elsie, her distraught lover, told us at the theater-that no contaminated or otherwise infected food or water pa.s.sed her or her mistress's lips. And the same must be true of poison: Ergo, there is no possible agent in that manner, unless the poison was self-administered.”
”You are saying she killed herself, either accidentally or deliberately?” Nicodemus Dunne was not especially religious, but he had a superst.i.tious dread of suicide and all it could mean, of bodies refused rest in hallowed ground and supposedly being buried at crossroads.
The doctor shrugged. ”This poisoning was a gradual process. A suicide would surely end it all with one large overdose. And I have recently treated Madame Greene for debilities I now realize were the symptoms of her progressive poisoning. But I believe she was a woman who wanted to live.”
Breaking the train of his discourse and pulling the patterer closer to the corpse, Owens poked a flat instrument into the mouth, between the slightly open lips. He withdrew it and remarked, ”Nothing.” He turned away and continued, ”So, to sum up, I have drawn your attention to the rash, the coa.r.s.e nails, the clear complexion, the once-glittering eyes, the thin, s.h.i.+ny hair-all symptoms of a.r.s.enical poisoning, which I have confirmed by postmortem. And ... ?” He paused and looked at the patterer inquiringly.
Dunne frowned. ”Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”