Doktor Glass (26 page)

“Found something, sir?” McBride asked.

“Our man here had a connection to the Infirmary.”

McBride read the text. “He could have stolen it, sir. Or got it from someone there.”

“Maybe so,” Langton said, doubting it. Too many coincidences; too many connections leading back to the Infirmary and perhaps to the Professor.

The door to the main entrance slammed and made Langton, McBride, and O’Neill look up. Langton found Fry red-faced in the cluttered office, muttering to himself. “What is it?”

“Some idiot’s idea of a bloody joke,” Fry said. “A sick joke, at that. Someone reported my house on fire. I rushed home to find absolutely nothing wrong. And they pick just this moment, when I’ve never been busier—”

“Where’s Reefer Jake?” Langton said, already through the doorway.

“Wait, Langton.”

Langton rushed up to O’Neill. “Where Jake’s body?”

“The big fellow? The one I brought up from the cells?”

“Where is he?”

“Why, the men came for him, Inspector. They said Doctor Fry here had arranged it all.”

“I arranged nothing,” Fry said.

Langton nodded. “The hoax call took you out of the way. They must have been waiting to collect Jake. What did they look like?”

“Just the usual, sir,” O’Neill said. “About my height, clean shaven, slim build…Just like the other orderlies that come here. White coats, stretcher, a private ambulance wagon parked outside. I didn’t think there was anything wrong, so—”

“Do you remember anything that might identify them?” Langton asked. “Anything. Accents, tattoos, scars. Think, man.”

O’Neill wrung his hands. “I’m sorry, sir, I was so busy…They had Liverpool accents, soft spoken and quiet. They handled the body as if they were used to the job. But I remember one thing about the ambulance.”

“What?”

“As it turned in the yard, I saw the letters
L.C.C.H.
on the back, next to the red lamp. I thought it a bit odd.”

Langton turned to Fry, who said, “Liverpool Corporation City Hospital. It’s the old name for the Infirmary.”

L
ANGTON SAT WAITING
in the front drawing room of the town house in Abercrombie Square. On the mantel, a clock of ormolu and gilt chimed six. A fire crackled in the grate and threw red and gold light onto tiered book spines, polished wood, ornate chairs. From the other side of the square came the clatter of hooves on cobbles. Langton shifted in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He pulled at his too-tight collar and glanced again at the clock. He rose to his feet as the door opened.

Mrs. Cavell, Sarah’s mother, hesitated at the threshold for a moment before advancing toward Langton. “Matthew. How are you?”

Langton shook her hand and struggled to speak. So much had happened so quickly. So many questions left unanswered.

“Arthur will be down in a moment,” she said, waving Langton back to his seat. “He’s just…He won’t be long.”

She sat on the edge of the French sofa, black crepe gown against the red plush, and folded her hands on her knees. With her slim
figure, gathered hair, and slender, elfin features, Mrs. Cavell looked enough like her daughter to make Langton’s heart heavy.

“Would you like some tea? Coffee?” Mrs. Cavell reached for the bell pull but drew back when Langton shook his head.

He took a deep breath. “I was surprised to receive your note.”

“I hope you don’t see it as a summons. We know how busy you are at the moment. We had to speak to you.”

Langton waited in vain for her to continue. He saw her glance at the closed door and then clasp her hands together in her lap until the knuckles turned white.

Five minutes crawled by like hours before the door opened and Arthur Cavell entered the room. The aroma of whiskey drifted along in his wake. He nodded to Langton but didn’t offer to shake hands. “Langton. Good of you to come over.”

On his feet now, Langton looked between Sarah’s parents and wondered what had scared them so deeply. Arthur’s ruddy face and moist eyes hinted at an afternoon with the bottle; Mrs. Cavell stared down at the rug in front of the fire and seemed to shrink in on herself.

“You wanted to see me.”

Sarah’s parents looked at each other before Mrs. Cavell said, “We must tell you about Sarah.”

No surprises now,
Langton thought.
Please, not now. I could not bear it.

Mrs. Cavell continued, “We know what she went through. We know how she suffered. How both of you suffered.”

Langton sat down and closed his eyes. “Please.”

“Even toward the end, we refused to give up hope. Every week, science seems to produce some wonderful treatment or drug, some miracle almost within reach.”

“You were not alone in hoping for a miracle.”

“I know, Matthew. But—”

“Tell him, Louise. Tell him.”

“I will, Arthur.” Mrs. Cavell leaned toward Langton’s chair and looked into his tortured eyes. “We wanted to do everything we could.
You were blind with grief, oblivious to everything. So when Doctor Redfers came to us—”

“Redfers?” Langton stared at her. His body turned to ice. “What did he say?”

“We’d known him for years,” Arthur said. “His father had treated my own father, myself, and—”

“What did Redfers say?”

Mrs. Cavell laid a hand on Langton’s arm. “We thought only of Sarah’s best interests, Matthew. Our only intention was to help her.”

“What did Redfers say?” With difficulty, Langton kept his voice calm. “Tell me.”

Again, Mrs. Cavell glanced up at her husband, then said, “Redfers swore he could save her soul.”

*  *  *

L
ANGTON PACED THE
drawing room like a tiger caught in a pit. He kept his clenched fists behind his back. “You let this charlatan touch Sarah? This…swindler, thief, molester…What in God’s name were you thinking? Were you insane?”

Arthur took an unsteady step forward but stopped at his wife’s upraised hand. Mrs. Cavell said, “Yes, Matthew, we were insane. With grief. I know you suffered, but think of us for a moment: We watched Sarah grow up; we cared for her, loved her, missed the sound of her voice, her laughter. I remember so much. So much.”

That stopped Langton. He saw Mrs. Cavell’s head sink down, and Arthur’s hand settle on her shoulder.

“But to let Redfers do that to her…”

“We trusted him,” Arthur said. “He was her doctor, and we trusted him. We had no choice.”

Slowly, Langton uncurled his fists. He had sunk so deep into his own pain that he hadn’t considered how much Sarah’s parents had suffered. Nor how desperate they might have become. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

Arthur Cavell related the story. It seemed that Redfers had approached Sarah’s parents three weeks before her death. The drugs could do no more; surgery was impossible. They must face the inevitable conclusion. But not all hope was gone: Redfers could offer them a new procedure. A
scientific
procedure. In his persuasive explanation, Sarah’s very essence—her animus—could survive, could live on until another host could be found.

“A host? He said that?” Langton asked.

Mrs. Cavell nodded. “He said that the scientists had already transferred captured souls.”

“Into what? Other bodies? And did he say what happened to these hosts’ original souls?”

Arthur looked down. “We did not ask.”

I’m sure you didn’t,
Langton thought. Even if this truly insane procedure did work—which Langton doubted with all his heart—it would need an “empty” host. After witnessing Edith’s casual murder, Langton knew that the Jar Boys would stop at nothing. “Go on.”

It had seemed so logical to the Cavells, or perhaps they allowed Redfers to persuade them. His scientific words meant little to them but the principle seemed simple: Sarah’s departing soul would be captured in a suitable container. Later, it would be decanted to another living body. In the meantime, Redfers would ensure its safety at his own house.

Langton remembered his own skepticism upon first hearing of the Jar Boys and their method. “I’m still surprised you believed him so readily.”

Arthur hesitated, then said, “I have to admit that I’d heard of this before.”

“Where?”

“At the lodge. There were rumors, hearsay, about visits to certain houses in Kensington, Toxteth, and Bootle.”

“What did these rumors say?”

Arthur glanced at his wife. “That you could experience another
person’s sensations, just for the brief moment you held on to the jar’s connectors. Like a snippet from a dream or a sudden flash of memory.”

Langton wondered if Arthur had ever visited those houses himself; something in his words, the way he looked at his wife, suggested it was more than hearsay. Even so, Langton had no wish to embarrass Arthur in front of Mrs. Cavell. He didn’t want to cause Sarah’s parents any more pain. That particular question could wait until later. “Did many of your fellow lodge members sample this?”

“More than a few,” Arthur said. “Men tire of drink, gambling, the same old stories and jokes. They look for novelties, new experiences. For a while it was quite a fad.”

“Was?”

“Well, perhaps it still is, for some.”

Langton could imagine the jaded old men, the lodge’s apparently respectable pillars of Liverpool society, slipping into dark doorways to try out illicit pleasures. But was it a pleasure? Forbes Paterson said the Jar Boys captured the souls of the dying; Langton himself had witnessed it with Mrs. Barker’s niece Edith. What pleasure could men have in reliving those final moments of some poor creature’s life? Had the men—the so-called collectors and their clients—become so cynical that they’d actually enjoy it?

Langton recoiled from the thought, but he knew it would not leave him. He swore he’d ask Doktor Glass when he tracked him down.

“So you arranged for Redfers to be present at Sarah’s bedside.”

“We did not have to arrange anything,” Mrs. Cavell said. “Redfers seemed to have his own contacts at the Infirmary. He asked us to leave everything to him. Which we did.”

Langton resumed pacing. “Why didn’t he come to me?”

“Because you’re a policeman,” Arthur said. “And Redfers knew the procedure was not yet legal. And we knew that you would refuse.”

Would I have refused?
Langton asked himself.
If someone had offered me the chance, even the smallest chance, to prolong Sarah’s life…?

No. Artificial existence inside some cold clay jar was not life. It was no more and no less than cruelty. Still, that doubt gnawed at Langton and prevented him from blaming Sarah’s parents too much. “Afterward, did you visit Sarah? Did you try to connect to her?”

Mrs. Cavell looked up at her husband, who said, “Three times. I went to Redfers’s house—”

“The basement?”

“Exactly. He set a jar on the table before me, and…” Arthur closed his eyes and gripped the mantelpiece for support. “I couldn’t do it. Each time, I panicked and ran from the room. I was afraid that Sarah wouldn’t be there, and yet more afraid that she would.”

“So you don’t know if he tricked you or not?”

Mrs. Cavell answered, “No, Matthew, we don’t.”

Mrs. Grizedale knows,
Langton thought.
She believes that Sarah still exists.
He hesitated a moment, unsure whether to tell the Cavells about the medium and her visions of Sarah. He decided to leave it until later, when he had proof.

“So now you know,” said Mrs. Cavell as she got to her feet. She smoothed the front of her mourning gown and clasped her hands together. “We’re ready to face up to our responsibility. We know we’ve broken the law. As soon as we learned of Redfers’s death, we realized we must tell you. So.”

Langton looked at Sarah’s parents standing there, waiting for retribution. Perhaps that might help ease the guilt they so obviously suffered. Would prosecuting them bring about any kind of catharsis? Langton doubted it.

“I should go,” he said, making for the door.

“But—”

“I might have done the same,” Langton said. “If Redfers had appeared on one of Sarah’s worst nights, when I could see…I might have listened to him. I know enough now to be glad he didn’t, but all the same, I can see how he persuaded you. How easy it would be to clutch at hope. Any hope.”

Mrs. Cavell stepped forward and held Langton’s hand in her own. Her eyes glistened. “We miss her so much.”

Langton bowed his head and took a deep breath. Then he left the warm, quiet drawing room and reached for his coat. Standing at the front door, he asked, “Arthur, where are these houses that your friends visited?”

Arthur glanced at his wife before reaching into a drawer of the hall stand. He held out a small card engraved in fine gilt writing. “One rings this number and makes an appointment for the establishment in Toxteth. I believe this is the only house still open.”

Langton glanced at the telephone number and slid the card into his waistcoat pocket. “Did anyone at the lodge ever mention Doktor Glass?”

“No, not that I recall.”

Langton opened the door and then turned back a moment. “How about Caldwell Chivers? Professor Caldwell Chivers?”

“Why, yes,” Arthur said, staring at him in surprise. “The Professor is one of the lodge’s most respected Grand Masters.”

*  *  *

T
HE EMPTY
,
ECHOING
streets gave Langton space to think, room to consider the Cavells’ admissions. He walked on icy pavements beneath hissing gas lamps and a cloudless sky brilliant with stars. His exhaled breath solidified in front of him as he walked; its pale mist resembled that which had fled Edith’s body in the Plimsoll Street bedroom and gravitated toward the Jar Boys’ strange apparatus.

As he strode toward home, ignoring the occasional hansom cab for hire, Langton could hardly believe the news. The Cavells had always seemed so sensible, so respectable: churchgoers, philanthropists, members of school governing boards and poorhouse committees. If they could involve themselves in such bizarre, occult experiences, whom could Langton trust?

He looked up at the silent town houses on either side of Brewster
Street. Warm lights glowed behind blinds and curtains. From one parlor, a hesitant phrase of Chopin from a family piano. What really went on behind those neat façades? What secrets did they hide from the world?