Beloved Poison (12 page)

‘Why not come for supper tonight?’ said Dr Bain. ‘You and Mr Quartermain? Perhaps we might examine these peculiar little relics together. The light is better in my study. Besides, I have something else I need your help with. You’ll understand when you come. But I’ll take them now, if I may.’

Without waiting for my answer, Dr Bain took a sack from beneath the apothecary table and loaded the coffins inside. Suddenly he seemed anxious to be gone. He glanced at the window, as though distracted by a movement, but there was nothing to be seen but brown fog, as thick and dense as the flank of a giant beast. ‘Pity about that fog,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t see a damn thing. Still, can’t be helped.’ He adopted a brisk tone that was at odds with his obvious feelings of unease. ‘Come over directly after your rounds, Jem. Earlier if possible. You too, Quartermain. We shall uncover the secrets in these boxes before the night is out.’

B
y the time my evening rounds were over the fog was so thick that we could barely see to the ends of our noses. We had a lantern each, but it made little difference. Once we were outside on St Saviour’s Street it was as though we were walking along the bottom of the Thames. I could feel the squelch of ordure beneath my feet and the rustle of refuse though I could not see where to step that I might avoid it. We had covered our mouths and noses with scarves, but still the fog tickled our throats and coated our tongues with the taste of sulphur and effluent. Beside me, I heard Will retch and cough. I was glad that Dr Bain’s house was so close to the infirmary, as it was not a night to be out.

It was peculiar for a gentleman to open his own front door, and I could see Will’s surprise, but Dr Bain was not a slave to etiquette. When he wished to have an evening of experimentation he would send the servants out for the night. It was easier than having to explain the smells and noises, and servants, once acquired, were hard to keep even in the most respectable households. Supper would no doubt be some cold meats and cheese, set aside by the housekeeper before she went out, though Dr Bain may well have forgotten about supper altogether, and we would end up going to Sorley’s chop house.

Dr Bain shook me warmly by the hand. ‘Good to see you, Jem,’ he said. ‘And you, Quartermain. You’ll be glad to hear that I’ll not be excising any hip joints tonight. Just a little taste of something to see what its actions might be. Jem knows the drill. We’ve done it before, haven’t we, Jem?’

Dr Bain led us down the hall and into the drawing room. I saw Will wrinkle his nose at the smell of the place – the ammonia reek of rats’ piss and spirits – and stare in surprise at the scorch marks on the carpet, the table covered with glass retorts, beakers and condensers, crucibles . . .

Unrestricted by the expectations of a wife or the demands of propriety, Dr Bain conducted his life as he chose. If he wanted a laboratory in his sitting room then he could have one. If he wanted to keep a cage of rats on the floor there was no one to stop him. And yet, his mode of living was not without difficulties: he was forever looking for a new housekeeper, as they appeared unwilling to preside over so unorthodox a household for long. Servants too were in short supply, and Dr Bain was obliged to turn a blind eye to all manner of insubordination, laziness and pilfering, simply so that he might have someone to kindle his fire and get him his breakfast in the morning. It always surprised me how well turned out the doctor was, given how often he had no one to clean his shoes and brush his clothes for him.

‘Dr Bain and I are working on a treatise on poison to rival Christison’s,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ Will raised his eyebrows.

‘Yes,’ said Dr Bain. ‘The art of the poisoner has become quite the fashion – if the penny broadsheets are anything to go by. More favoured by women as a means of murder than the knife, the bludgeon, or the pistol.’

‘Are you including physicians and surgeons in the tally?’ said Will. ‘I’m sure your fellow medical men are most adept.’

‘Oh indeed,’ I said. ‘With a death rate at St Saviour’s of ten patients in every one hundred, the men here show an unusual degree of expertise in the use of physic as a means of despatch.’

Dr Bain laughed. ‘How dare you deride my brilliant and gifted colleagues, Jem Flockhart,’ he said. ‘And you a mere apothecary. As for you, Quartermain – I can’t imagine who you might be referring to.’

‘I would not presume to name names,’ said Will. ‘The question was general, rather than specific.’ He looked askance at the cage of seething rats. ‘But what of this evening—’

‘Well.’ Dr Bain rubbed his hands together. ‘I thought we might examine the actions of spindle tree bark. I believe it may have tonic and diuretic effects. I tried a little yesterday – no more than five grains. But we need a proper experiment. I have a dog at the ready and have prepared a decoction—’

‘Dr Bain, I am always telling you.’ I sighed. ‘You will kill yourself and I will have no way of knowing what finished you off.’

Dr Bain appeared not to have heard. ‘We tried bloodroot last week,’ he said, addressing Will. ‘The tubers weep sap like blood. Quite alarming to see – especially for a chap like you, Quartermain. Good job we did it last week and not tonight – might have had you fainting at the sight of a severed tuber! Ha, ha!

‘But one can’t allow oneself to be deceived by appearances, can one? The thing might look like something from the Devil’s banquet, but we are men of science here and as such we grasp superstition and turn it on its head. We had a right old time of it, didn’t we, Jem?’

‘Yes, Dr Bain.’

‘Of course, I gave the stuff to a dog first—’

‘A dog?’ said Will.

‘Christison tells us that the responsiveness of dogs to medicines and toxins most closely resembles that of man,’ I said.

‘The streets are full of stray dogs,’ said Dr Bain. ‘What better use for them than to be the assistants of scientific inquiry? There are suggestions that bloodroot might exert a powerful effect on the heart and lungs.’ He shrugged. ‘How else might we find out more unless we try the stuff? But most physic is poison, Mr Quartermain. Did you know that? That’s where the dogs come in.’

‘And so the dog was given fifty grains of powdered bloodroot,’ I said.

‘It died, of course,’ said Dr Bain. ‘When we cut the beast open we found its heart and liver engorged, the blood thick and sluggish, and copious in the heart chambers – just what we expected—’

‘I think Mr Quartermain has heard enough,’ I said, perceiving Will’s growing pallor.

Dr Bain blinked. ‘Oh! Yes, well . . . Well, after that I
had
to try the stuff. Took half a drachm.’

‘Far too much,’ I said.

‘I nearly died,’ said Dr Bain.

‘You
did
die.’ I turned to Will. ‘There was no evidence of pulse or breath. I had to beat the life back into him. Thumping on his chest like a monkey on a drum . . .’ I stopped. I did not like to think of it. Dr Bain was my friend. Time and again I had sat with him while he spewed and retched, his bowels gurgling, his skin sweating, my fingers clamped to his pulse. And always we were observing, noting down, comparing – how else might medicine move forward? That evening, however, he had gone too far. I had forced an emetic between his lips; blown lungfuls of my own breath into him, sobbing as I applied my lips to his, my face salty with snot and tears, willing to try anything to bring him back. How we had clung to one another when he had finally gasped and coughed back into life, asprawl on the floor of his drawing room surrounded by mess and filth, our arms around each other like lovers.

‘An exciting evening, what?’ cried Dr Bain now.

‘You shouldn’t make light of it,’ I said. ‘I saved your life that night, and not for the first time. You should treat it with more respect.’

Dr Bain seized me by the hand, his expression suddenly serious. ‘So you did, Jem, so you did. And I thank God for your prompt action that night.’ He wrung my hand. To my surprise, his eyes shone with tears. ‘You’re a true friend. God knows, I don’t have many of those at St Saviour’s.’

‘Well then, perhaps you will do as I ask, for once.’

‘But of course—’

‘And tonight we will examine the coffins Will and I found, as we agreed.’

‘Oh.’ Dr Bain’s glance strayed to the sack containing the coffins which lay on the table top. For a moment, I thought I saw a look of apprehension cross his face. ‘Is that what we agreed? But I already have the dog.’

‘The dog can wait,’ I said. It was only afterwards that I had cause to reflect upon his reluctance. But by then it was too late.

I cleared a space amongst the books and papers on the table top. Dr Bain rummaged in the drawer of the desk and produced a large ebony-handled magnifying glass. ‘You’ve already looked at them?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I told him what we had found – the blood, the flowers.

‘I doubt there’s much else to see.’

‘I wanted to look at the lining paper,’ I said. ‘Some of them are lined with notepaper, foolscap – something. There’s writing.’

‘Mm,’ said Dr Bain. He poured himself a glass of Madeira.

I opened the first of the coffins – the smallest and most crudely formed – and emptied the contents onto the table. I took the magnifying glass and peered at the paper. There was definitely something written there. A phrase? A name? Perhaps a date? I handed the glass to Will.

‘The words are back to front,’ he said. ‘On the other side of the paper. Far too faint to read. And the paper is too old to peel away.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Dr Bain. ‘Shall I get the dog—’

‘Steam?’ I said.

‘But the paper is too thin,’ said the doctor. ‘Too brittle.’

‘What about oil?’ I said. ‘Oil changes the properties of paper, so that it doesn’t reflect the light. The paper becomes translucent. It might be possible to read the words on the other side of the page.’

‘The writing would still be back to front,’ said Dr Bain.

‘Then we must use a mirror.’

‘Dr Bain,’ said Will. ‘Do you have any oil?’

‘No,’ said Dr Bain.

‘Turpentine?’ I asked.

The doctor rubbed his chin.

‘Dr Bain?’ I said.

‘Yes, yes.’ He went to a glass-fronted cabinet that stood against the wall. We heard the chink of glass as he searched amongst bottles and jars. I knew the turpentine was in there. Was he about to say he did not have any?

‘It’s at the back,’ I said, determined not to be forestalled. ‘I saw it last week.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He held up a bottle containing a brownish coloured liquid. ‘There’s not much of it.’

‘And a mirror,’ I said, plucking a pipette from amongst the table-top apparatus. ‘Do you have a mirror?’

‘I don’t think I do.’

‘You must have!’ I cried.

‘Perhaps upstairs.’ He vanished into the hall. We heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs.

Will was regarding a pair of wing-backed armchairs, one on either side of the fireplace. Both of them were blighted with scorch marks and loaded with books and papers. ‘Why does he bother to have chairs if he has no intention of sitting on them? Why not simply get another book shelf? I don’t know how he lives like this.’ He looked in distaste at a pair of bloody aprons draped over a brocade-covered screen that was folded against the wall. ‘Is this his drawing room?’

‘I suppose it is rather disorganised,’ I said. The room was furnished as one might expect, with well-stuffed chairs and an ottoman, and a fire burning in the grate. There was a heavy Persian rug on the floor, and framed paintings on the walls. But the paintings were indifferent – dark and formless landscapes, chosen to fill up the walls rather than to reflect taste. The hearth was littered with clumps of dried masticated coca leaves and the mantelpiece home to an eclectic mixture of medical paraphernalia – a gas jar, a phrenology bust, the skull of an ape. In the corner beneath the window a cage of rats squeaked and rustled.

Will ran a finger across the rim of a picture frame. ‘Dust an inch thick,’ he muttered.

‘So?’

‘And what are these black blobs on the hearth?’

‘I can’t remember,’ I said.

We heard Dr Bain thumping about overhead. I began to wonder whether he would return with a mirror after all. Perhaps he was preparing for bed. Will went over to the cupboard beside the fireplace and looked along the shelves, peering at the exhibits in their dusty jars. He held up a large, wide-necked bottle filled with a viscous yellow fluid. Inside, something bobbed, grey and wrinkled. ‘A brain?’ he whispered.