Beloved Poison (23 page)

‘He weren’t a ghost at all, then?’ whispered one of the virgins.

‘That’s right, my dear,’ said Mrs Roseplucker. ‘They saw him from afar, a dark, hooded shadow drifting through the fog and so he seemed a ghost more than a man. They said those who saw him hadn’t long for this world, as the Abbot had seen their sinful ways and had marked them out for death.’

I recognised Mrs Speedicut’s version of the tale, and thought of my own bald and colourless rendition, delivered to Will in the chapel beneath the herb drying room. But Mrs Roseplucker’s adaptation was vividly coloured by the bloodthirsty realism of Reynolds’ Penny Weeklies. A mere ghost story would never do. I glanced at Will. Were we wasting our time here? But he was listening intently.

‘Carry on, Mrs Roseplucker,’ he said. ‘You are quite the Scheherazade.’

Mrs Roseplucker frowned. ‘The what?’

‘Do get on,’ I said. ‘The Abbot. You say he wasn’t a ghost at all?’

‘Who was ’e then?’ cried the other girl. ‘Who was ’e, Mrs Roseplucker?’

‘Nobody knows,’ said Mrs Roseplucker. ‘But he were a man right enough. And he liked young girls too. How do I know? Cause I were one of ’em, that’s how!’

‘
You?
’ The word burst from me before I could stop myself.

‘I weren’t always like this,’ snapped Mrs Roseplucker. ‘I were a beauty once. Men called on me day and night. The King himself asked who I was!’

There was a moment of silence while we all looked at the wretched pox-ridden Mrs Roseplucker and tried to imagine beauteousness. It was too much for the imagination.

‘Never mind about that,’ thundered Mrs Roseplucker. ‘I were a beauty and that’s all you need to know.’

‘So what happened?’ I said.

‘I was walking towards Fishbait Lane. It was dark that night, dark as pitch. No moon, and the fog was up, thick as you like – great curtains o’ the stuff, sometimes lifting a bit, then falling thicker than ever. It choked me to breathe and neither light nor lantern made no difference to how far you could see.’ Her voice dropped to a low and husky whisper. Her eyes were wide in her skeleton face, her arms stretched towards us, bony hands projecting from the stained flounces of her crimson sleeves as though she was back in the past, groping fearfully through the Georgian fog. The effect was both unnerving and dramatic. ‘I was lost,’ she whispered. ‘Lost in the very streets I knew as well as I knew my own body.

‘I stopped and waited for a moment. Perhaps the fog would lift and I would be able to get my bearings. But it was too thick. And cold! Cold as the grave.’ She shivered. ‘And that’s when I felt it.’

The clock ticked. Mrs Roseplucker looked around at the faces turned towards her, allowing the questions to grow in our minds.

‘Felt what, Mrs R?’ cried one of the virgins, unable to bear it any longer. ‘Felt what?’

‘I knew there was someone nearby,’ whispered Mrs Roseplucker. ‘I could feel him. And if I listened hard enough I could hear him too.
Breathin’
. In and out. In and out. In . . . and out. Close, but invisible. And his breath was shaking, like from excitement, or fear. And I heard his steps. Quiet, they were, and slow; creeping footsteps as though he were walking on the very edges of his shoes. Coming closer? I couldn’t tell. Behind me? I couldn’t tell that neither. I cried out. “Who’s there?” No answer came. But I weren’t alone any more. I knew it from the chills on my neck and the feel of my hair standing on end.

‘I waited. Nothing happened. No one came at me, and after a while I says to myself “Well, my girl, are you going to stand here all night like a dog tied to a tree? Get home to your bed right this minute!” I took five paces – and as soon as I did, I knew he was there. I heard those footsteps again. Faster now and nearer, nearer all the time, no matter how I ran. Behind me!’ Mrs Roseplucker’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘I turned, and there he was. Tall and black as night, cloaked from head to foot, bearing down on me in his terrible dark hood.’

‘It were the Abbot,’ shouted Mr Jobber suddenly. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak. His voice was a great, deep bellow, his eyes wide with horror as he rose to his feet. ‘Run, Mrs Roseplucker! Run for your life!’

‘I tried to run, my dear,’ said Mrs Roseplucker. ‘I tried to run but it was too late. He had his hands on me, round my throat, then over my mouth and nose. But I was young and strong then and I’d been expecting him, and, bless you, but it weren’t the first time I’d had to fight a man off. He held me tight, but I wriggled like an eel. I stamped my feet and jabbed my elbows. I had a hat pin in my pocket and I poked ’im,
hard
! Lord knows but that ghost could scream, and scream he did. He let me go just a bit and I got away, and I’ve never run so fast in all my life. I ran and ran, and as soon as I saw the infirmary lights I knew where I was.’

‘So who was he?’ I said.

‘No one knows,’ said Mrs Roseplucker. ‘They kept seeing him, though, when the fog was up. For years he came and went. And the girls disappeared. Street girls. No one cared whether they lived or died, and maybe they’re alive still, somewhere about, but they disappeared from St Saviour’s parish all the same.’ She shrugged. ‘Then he vanished.’

‘When did he vanish?’ said Will. ‘Can you remember?’

‘Years ago now. Some says they see him still. When the fog’s up. But I don’t believe it.’ She shook her head. ‘No one’s seen the Abbot for twenty years or more.’

‘
I’ve
seen him.’ We turned, all of us. Lily stood on the threshold in her shift and shawl, her face pale as a corpse beneath her tangled yellow hair. ‘I saw him,’ she said. ‘The Abbot. Out in the street. That night Dr Bain came.’

‘W
hy didn’t Dr Bain come to me if he was worried about something?’ I could not help but feel jealous. ‘Why did he choose a whore and a street urchin over his closest friend?’

‘Maybe there were things he didn’t want to talk to you about.’

‘That doesn’t make me feel any better,’ I said.

‘Well, as he’s not here to explain himself, perhaps, as his closest friend, you should do him the courtesy of trusting his motives.’

I fell silent. He was right, of course. How foolish I was to feel snubbed by a dead man.

‘So,’ said Will. ‘We must try to follow Dr Bain’s way of thinking.’

‘He might not have wanted to speak to me about his fears. I accept the point. But what other reasons might there be for his behaviour?’

‘Perhaps he was afraid that he would put you in danger if he told you anything,’ said Will. ‘So he took some precautions. He may well have resolved to explain himself the next day – I doubt he expected death to come quite so promptly, even if he was afraid of something, or someone.’

‘Mm.’ I was still not convinced.

‘You said it yourself,’ said Will. ‘A whore and a street urchin. Who would guess that a doctor might entrust anything to such an unlikely pair? Who would ever find out but you – assuming Dr Bain was not able to reclaim his secrets for himself.’

‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ I said.

‘I think we can assume Dr Bain found something in the coffins when he returned from Mrs Roseplucker’s. Then he split up his discovery, and deposited the knowledge with two separate people, so that if anything
did
happen, he might trust
them
to tell you, and trust
you
to figure it out.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that I had anything more than the most slender of acquaintances with Dr Bain, but despite his flaws he struck me as a good man – a good friend – and an intelligent one.’

For a while we walked together in silence. We were the same height, and our stride measured the same distance. We were hardly ever out of step when we were together. I said, ‘The woman who visited him the night he died – I wonder how on earth she got him to ingest aconite?’

‘Are you sure that’s what killed him?’

‘The signs are unmistakable. Surely he would not be so naive as to eat or drink anything she had given him. Unless he had no suspicions.’ I shook my head. ‘But perhaps we are trying to run before we can walk. The question is, who was she?’

‘She was Mrs Catchpole,’ said Will. ‘Remember what she said at Dr Bain’s funeral? “He has tricked them all. He was sleeping, only sleeping. I saw him, and I
knew.
”’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I heard that.’

‘Perhaps Mrs Catchpole killed him. She loved him. Obsessively, it would appear. Obsession is closer to madness than it is to sanity. You saw her that night at Mrs Roseplucker’s. And at Dr Bain’s funeral. She was capable of anything. Her actions might be motivated by love, certainly, but they were rendered murderous by obsession.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘But your explanation also tells us why that was
not
what happened. A jealous rage, especially one that borders on madness, is a spontaneous eruption of feeling and action, as violent and passionate as it is unexpected. But there’s nothing violent or unexpected about poisoning. It’s an act that must be coldly calculated and meticulously planned. Oh no, Will, Mrs Catchpole didn’t murder Dr Bain, though it’s quite possible that she knows who did. Did you notice that the grass outside the laboratory window was trampled?’

‘No. Was it?’

‘It was quite clear. Someone had been standing there. And more than one person, judging by the way the weeds were crushed. Joe Silks said there was a man, outside the window, while we were inside with Dr Bain examining the coffins, d’you remember? That was long before Mrs Catchpole appeared. And according to Gabriel a man was there
again
at midnight. At that time Dr Bain was still alive to answer the door and send Gabriel on his way. Unfortunately I could not make out the shape of his footprints, as the ground was too hard for the mark of a man’s heels.’ We turned out of Wicke Street. On either side, the houses grew more and more dilapidated, though it was nothing compared to where we were headed.

‘But a
lady’s
heels are smaller and sharper,’ I continued. ‘I could see indentations in the ground beneath Dr Bain’s window that I dare say would match the heel marks left by a fashionable button-sided ladies’ boot, not unlike those habitually worn by Mrs Catchpole.’

‘So we can be certain where she stood and looked in,’ said Will. ‘But if a woman was with Dr Bain that evening, is it not logical to assume that it was Mrs Catchpole?’

‘And yet the facts suggest quite the opposite.’

Will looked puzzled. He removed his tall hat and wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief of the kind favoured by Joe Silks. ‘But she had walked all the way from Wicke Street to find him,’ he said. ‘She may well have been at large in the city for hours after her escape from Mrs Roseplucker’s. Surely she
would
go inside.’

‘But if she had gone inside she would have discovered that Dr Bain was dead,’ I said. ‘When she barged into Dr Bain’s funeral she said that he was “only sleeping”. Unless she was simply raving – there is always that possibility – my feeling is that she spoke the truth, as she saw it when she looked through the window. She
thought
he was sleeping. If she had gone in, she would have
known
that he was not.’ I smiled, pleased by my own perspicacity. ‘It’s quite clear that Mrs Catchpole was not the lady visitor, and did not go into Dr Bain’s house. In fact I’ll wager she didn’t even knock on the door.’

‘Why?’

‘Think, Will! What might she have seen that ensured she did not –
would
not – knock on her lover’s door? Despite her desperation, despite her hours spent in search of him across London?’

Will stared at me, his expression blank. ‘Ah!’ Comprehension flooded his face. ‘She didn’t knock because she saw that there was already someone in there.’

‘Yes! But who?’

‘The woman,’ said Will, his cheeks turning pink with excitement. ‘The woman who sat in the chair before the fire. The woman Dr Bain moved his books for. Dr Bain’s lady visitor. We must ask Mrs Catchpole who—’

I shook my head. ‘But if it were a lady, would Mrs Catchpole not barge in and demand an explanation? She has already attempted to flush Dr Bain out of a brothel. She has wandered about the city for hours, and now she finds him with yet
another
woman? Would she really just creep away again? She was only prevented from breaking down his bedroom door at Wicke Street because her husband arrived and carried her off.’

Will began to look exasperated. ‘A man then?’

But I was determined to make him find his own way to the truth. ‘One she is too frightened to confront? Earlier that evening she had rendered the doorkeeper of a whore house completely unconscious with one blow from her husband’s walking stick. One can only wonder what sort of a man might so frighten Mrs Catchpole as to stop her from knocking on her lover’s front door.’

‘Well,
I
don’t know!’ cried Will. ‘If it was not a woman, and not a man, I can’t begin to imagine who else might be left. Neither? Both? Who do
you
think it was?’

‘Oh, perhaps it’s all just conjecture.’ I rubbed my eyes wearily. ‘
Is
it deduction, or is it simply guess work? I’m not sure I can tell the difference any more.’ I sighed. The steps we had followed were logical, based solely on the facts we had before us. And yet there was something about it all that didn’t seem right. Was there a dimension to the problem that I was not seeing? Some part of the puzzle I had missed? Common sense told me who it was that Mrs Catchpole had seen through Dr Bain’s window, and I was certain I was right. But was that person really Dr Bain’s murderer? It was possible. But was it also probable?