Death and the Running Patterer (24 page)

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Authors: Robin Adair

BOOK: Death and the Running Patterer
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Dunne did as he was bid. On the level above he found a corridor. Only one door was open so he headed there. He crossed the threshold into a room dimmed by heavy, drawn curtains.
He heard a sound and turned. From behind the closing door stepped Norah Robinson, wearing only a shift. Shutting off the corridor had lessened the light even more.
“All cats may be gray in the dark, but I’m no cat.” She opened a curtain slightly and now there was enough light for Dunne to see her draw the shift over her shoulders and drop it to the floor. She stood still for a moment, almost a ghostly figure in the gloom, but a phantom with very real, high breasts and long legs. Legs that ended in a triangle of dark pelt that looked, he always thought, like a map of Van Diemen’s Land.
“Will you love me, Nicodemus?” she asked softly, seizing his hands. “Don’t think ill of me. I’m no easy bunter. I haven’t had a man for—God! What would it be? A year? More? If you’re worried, my husband doesn’t share my bed. Not even my room.”
“Can’t he—doesn’t he—claim his rights?”
“Ach! It’s my money, dear. He does what he’s told. I never loved him and he never loved me. Once, maybe. Besides, I have a long knife handy here always. He knows I’d fillet him.”
He licked his suddenly dry lips. “I have nothing with me, ma’am—no protection.”
“I’m clean,” she said coldly. “And for God’s sake, stop calling me ‘ma’am’!”
“I’m sure you are,” said Dunne. “And I’m not poxed. But I always hope to use armor
d’amour
. And you must not risk becoming with child.”
“You’re the perfect gentleman, Nick …” She drew him over to the bed and from a side table took a box. “If you’re happier, here.” She opened it. “
Voilà—lettres françaises
, sheaths, an upright knight’s armor, call them what you will. I sell a lot to hurried and worried men in the taproom. That’s all I sell ’em, mind you!”
She helped the patterer shrug off his shirt and kick off his trousers and undergarment. She lay back as he rolled on a silk sheath and secured the ribbon ties. She held out her arms.
DUNNE MUST HAVE dozed. He was woken by being shaken furiously. He looked up at the set face of Mrs. Robinson.
“You bastard!” she hissed. “You talked in your sleep, just as you did when we loved. Who in the hell is Rachel? Some slut who won’t give you what you want? Or did she give it to someone else?”
He had already peeled off the silken layer, but that didn’t stop him. The bitch! He slapped Mrs. Robinson hard and rolled over and into her.
Even in the half-light he caught the sudden look of surprise on her face and in her widened eyes. “Where is your guardian? You have no armor, no protection!” She arched her hips desperately, trying to buck him off. But he held down her wrists and was too strong.
“Damn protection!” he said savagely through gritted teeth. “Damn Rachel!”
Mrs. Robinson melted. And, for the first time, he said her name: “Norah!”
NICODEMUS DUNNE LEFT Norah Robinson sleeping and escaped quietly through the back door.
He returned to the Bacchanal later. The bar was filled and the hostess was busy.
“I’m sorry, Norah,” he said when she had a quiet moment.
“Don’t be, love,” she said. “I’m not.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“’Course I will. I flushed you out …”—Dunne looked around quickly—“And, anyway, I didn’t get around to telling you, but I’m unfruitful—as barren as Pinchgut.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t suppose I can altogether blame my man for playing from home.” She laughed. “Ah, well. Will you be having another? Drink, that is!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The unapparent connection is more powerful than the apparent one.
—Heraclitus (c. 500 BC; translator unknown)
 
 
 
 
 
 
N
ORAH ROBINSON COULD LAUGH, MUSED THE PATTERER, AS HE nursed the drink she had offered him. And no bad thing. Better that than to leave her crying. He drained his glass, waved because she was busy again and walked out into the sunny street. There was still plenty of life left in the day.
He knew he would go back to Norah, but he still wanted the untouchable Miss Dormin. He tried to dismiss three vastly different feelings tugging in his brain—selfish pride, remorse, self-pity.
He decided to blot out his personal tangles by devoting himself to the murders and soon found that he seemed to be making more progress in a matter of hours than he had in the previous few days. His earlier scattered thoughts were coming together and seemed finally to be making sense.
He reexamined every suspicion or ambiguity, no matter how slight. He studied the lists in his black book. And he trawled through the names of others who raised questions in his mind—notably the governor, whose past still puzzled him. And he had the germ of an idea about the agitating lawyer William Charles Wentworth, whose temper was always cocked on a hair-trigger. Could blackmail perhaps be a motive?
Motive, opportunity and ability. Those were the prime detection yardsticks that had been drummed into Bow Street Runners since the days of the great policeman George Ruthven. So, who could have slashed, shot and poisoned physically powerful men—and, probably by the same hand, one woman, Madame Greene? And why?
To avenge Sudds seemed to be the logical conclusion, but Dunne was sure there was another motive, still tied to the 57th, yet to be revealed.
He knew, of course, that there was usually no science involved in solving a murder. Most killers were caught only if they were seen in the act or if they confessed due to remorse, betrayal or some undeniable physical clue. The smoking gun in the hand would fit the bill admirably.
The patterer also admitted to himself that if the killings were the random work of a cool and lucky lunatic, the cause was near hopeless. But if there were a pattern, he believed that finding the slayer of even one victim would unlock the secrets of the other cases. So, his only chance was to pursue any and all of the few slender leads his observations and instincts had provided.
He turned to the first name in the book: F. N. Rossi. Well, he had arranged to see the captain that evening; any questions would have to wait until then. In the meantime, there were other fish he could fry. With luck he might run across Miss Dormin at
The Gleaner
, although he believed she was spending more time at the dress shop since its mistress had been severely hampered by a fall.
He sought out Dr. Peter Cunningham and asked him outright: had his cryptic warning all those days ago to avoid the Rum Hospital implicated Dr. Thomas Owens? Dr. Cunningham’s reply was oblique and unhelpful. He repeated his advice but still refused to elaborate, calling on his professional oath to confidentiality about his patients. But, wondered Dunne, by not denying outright that he was referring to Owens was the naval surgeon implicitly pointing to his colleague? Or was that reading too much into it?
Cunningham would add only one new idea on the subject: “Consider cinnabar,” he said. “And its implications.” At Dunne’s incomprehension, he repeated the word and spelled it. Then, as once before, he nodded, turned on his heels and left his companion, who stored away their conversation then shrugged and moved on to his next line of inquiry.
The patterer and Captain Rossi had been interested in knowing the source of the arsenic ever since it had felled The Ox. And now they must almost certainly add Madame Greene to that equation. It was a common enough purchase. Dunne believed that artists even used it in their colors. And there was no knowing how long ago these recently lethal doses had been obtained. Perhaps years earlier.
The patterer suspected that the poison had come from an apothecary’s shop … unless, and that was an interesting idea, it came from another possible source: the hospital.
It seemed that Captain Rossi’s constables had not turned up the origin of the poison, or else he would have heard. Or would he? How hard had they tried with such a boring, repetitive task? Besides, these men were not keen Runners. Most had themselves been convicts and were not known for their vigorous pursuit of offenders.
Dunne weighed up the problem. If a constable had been directed to leave the police office in search of a suitable apothecary, how far might he have gone before losing interest or gaining a public house? The patterer decided the answer might well be, not far.
He sighed; there was no alternative. He should canvass himself, from the far end of the town then backtrack. He would have to visit perhaps scores of druggists and chemists in shops and on the street, although he doubted if the handful of itinerant nostrum-hawkers dealt in arsenic.
At only the fifth call, he was lucky. At the first four shops, the attendants had sold no arsenic in the days leading up to The Ox’s death. That information did not preclude earlier sales, but at least it cleared the air slightly.
But now he had a lead of sorts. Yes, said the shopkeeper, he had made such a sale on the date in question. He remembered thinking at the time that he expected the customer to buy not arsenic, but oil of cloves for toothache.
The patterer was intrigued. “Why?”
“Because his voice was muffled and he wore a scarf wrapped tightly across his face. But, no, he only wanted arsenic, he said, for rats.” The customer wore a severe black suit and had a wide black hat pulled low over his eyes, the druggist added.
“Did you know this man?” Dunne asked.
“Not then—but a few days later I did.”
“What happened?”
“He came in again—and once more I thought he’d want something for his teeth. He was still wrapped up around the face. But …”—the shopkeeper looked pleased with his skill at diagnosis—“he clearly had facial boils troubling him.”
Dunne was puzzled. “How did you know that?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He bought a lancet, and when I mentioned boils he didn’t contradict me, did he? Of course, he could have had other uses for the lancet.”
“What made you think so?”
“Well, after all, he
was
a doctor.”
The patterer felt a tremor of excitement. “He told you that? What was his name?”
“I don’t recall, but I didn’t know him.”
“Was it Dr. Owens?”
The apothecary only shrugged. “Whoever he was, he should have known better—if he didn’t want toothache.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, because of all those lozenges.”
Dunne was baffled. “The lozenges?”
“Yes,” said the man patiently. “The ones he bought. Two bags there were of them, I think. They can rot your teeth in no time.”
The patterer thanked the man and left. Come to think of it, however, Thomas Owens was not the only man who could have been the customer. There was another who dressed in clerical black and called himself “Doctor”—Laurence Hynes Halloran.

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