The Devil's Breath (26 page)

L
ydia had risen early the next morning to supervise Eliza’s packing. They were to spend at least four days in the caves at West Wycombe and she wanted to be sure that she took everything for Richard’s care and comfort. Mistress Claddingbowl had also packed a hamper for them. She was, she had told her ladyship, especially pleased that the young master was so taken with her strawberry jam and had given him his very own jar.

Looking out of her bedroom window, Lydia could see there was no change in the weather. The sky remained gray and flat and the sun was a poppy-red disc behind the haze. Richard had coughed a good deal in the night, although he seemed well enough in himself. Yet the tang of sulfur still hung in the air and she knew a spell in the caves could only do him good.

She kissed her son gently on the forehead. “We are going to a place where the air is fresher, so that you can breathe more easily,” she explained.

Mistress Firebrace had found some of the late Lord Edward’s boyhood clothes stashed away in a trunk in the attic. There were two frockcoats and two pairs of breeches that seemed to match young Richard’s size, although they were still on the large side.

Lydia helped him into them. The breeches were loose at the waist and she had to secure a sash around them to stop them falling down, but until Mistress Kidd could make him another pair, she told herself, they would have to suffice. Next came the shirt. The child slipped his arm through the first sleeve, but allowed Lydia to take his withered limb and ease it gently into the other.

“Does your arm hurt you, my sweet?” she asked.

The boy shook his curly head. At least she could take comfort that it did not pain him. Even so, the exertion of lifting his arm triggered his cough once more. She let him rest for a moment or two, then slipped his feet into the shoes that Sir Montagu had provided for him.

The frockcoat was blue, edged in white brocade. She pictured her brother wearing it all those years ago. Of course it was far too big for Richard, hanging limply from his shoulders. Nevertheless it would protect him against the chill in the caves. She guided him over to the cheval mirror. He seemed strangely startled at his own reflection, as if he had never seen himself before. His cheeks had colored a little and the corners of his mouth turned up in a faint smile. It was as much as he had managed over the past two days, and Lydia hugged him. He had only spoken a few words to her.

She, on the other hand, had spent hours talking to him, trying to make up for six lost years. She told him about his father and the Crick family and how he would grow to love Boughton, which would one day belong to him. She told him how he would be a custodian of the house and the land and that he would learn to call flowers and trees by their names. He would be able to recognize birds by their song and breeds of sheep by their wool. And when he was stronger, and this cursed fog had lifted, they would go riding into Brandwick on market day or down to Plover’s Lake to fish.

“You look so fine, my dearest,” she said, gazing at them both reflected in the mirror, and she kissed him once more.

Eliza knocked and entered. “The trunk is packed, your ladyship,” she said.

Glancing across at Richard the maid smiled. “What a handsome young man, your ladyship,” she said, almost wistfully. Realizing she had spoken out of turn, she grimaced, but Lydia returned her smile.

“Thank you, Eliza,” she replied. “Yes, he is very handsome.”

 

Jacob Lovelock had the carriage ready for noon, but just as they were coming down the steps of the hall another vehicle turned up the drive at speed. The horses drawing it were at a trot and it clattered to a halt right by them. Lydia instantly recognized the crest on the carriage door as the liveryman opened it.

“Sir Theodisius!” she cried. “What brings you here?”

The portly Oxford coroner heaved himself out onto the driveway, but barely managed to return her smile. “My dear, I am come on urgent business,” he told her earnestly. “Where is Dr. Silkstone?”

Lydia frowned. “In London, sir,” she replied. “He received a message that Dr. Carruthers was gravely ill and he went to his side.”

The coroner mopped his ruddy face with his kerchief. “I feared I would be too late,” he puffed.

“Too late for what, pray?”

He shook his head and his flabby jowls wobbled. “Young Silkstone has walked into a trap. Dr. Carruthers is not ill to my knowledge and this is all an elaborate ruse to, how can I put it, dispense with the doctor.”

“Dispense with? Ruse? You talk in riddles, sir.” Lydia was growing increasingly impatient with the coroner. “Please tell me what is going on?”

Sir Theodisius’s broad shoulders heaved in a great sigh. “Malthus is behind it,” he said.

“Sir Montagu? Behind what?”

The coroner shook his head. “ ’Tis clear, my dear, that you and Dr. Silkstone have deep feelings for each other, and ’twould seem that your late brother’s guardian is not content to keep Dr. Silkstone out of your marriage bed. He wants him out of your life, too.”

Lydia’s eyes widened. “What has he done?”

Again the coroner balked and shook his head. “I am not entirely sure, but Sir Henry Thorndike called on me this morning. Sir Montagu intends to implicate the doctor in murder and have him arrested. Silkstone is in grave danger and I have to go to London this instant to warn him.”

Lydia stepped forward and clasped Sir Theodisius by the arm. “What will happen to him?”

The coroner, however, was not forthcoming. “I have told you as much as I know. I must be away.”

“Then may God grant you safe passage, sir,” she said, realizing it was no use pressing him further.

Sir Theodisius’s thick lips stretched into a smile and he patted her hand. “He will come back safe and sound,” he told her, even though he knew he could promise nothing. Lydia watched as he turned to haul his corpulent frame back into the carriage with a little help from his liveryman.

With a crack of the whip he was off once more. But just as the coach rattled off down the drive, Eliza walked down the steps with Richard, who was holding her hand tightly. Hearing footsteps, Lydia turned toward them.

“Who was that big gentleman, Mamma?” asked the little boy, looking up at Lydia.

It was only then that she realized. The man whom she had come to regard as a father-figure over the past few months had been and gone from Boughton Hall without even meeting her long-lost son.

 

The carriage ride to the caves passed quickly enough. The haze still veiled the rayless sun, but only the very tops of the hills were now obscured. Lydia sat uneasily, remembering Sir Theodisius’s words and thinking of Thomas. She feigned an eagerness to point out to her son all the places of interest on the way. They drove through Brandwick and up onto the Wycombe road and all the while the boy peered through a chink in the thick leather curtains, eagerly taking in the sights of the countryside. Even the few sheep that were left to graze the parched grass caused much excitement. But it was toward the end of the journey that an odd-looking creature that was not quite a donkey and not quite a horse caused young Richard the most wonderment. They came upon it as it grazed on a patch of grass near the entrance to the caves. Wearing a saddle and a bridle, it looked up at the sound of the carriage, pricking its ears and chewing slowly, but its rider was nowhere to be seen.

T
homas was to be joined by Dr. Carruthers in the laboratory early the next morning. The poisonous gas that had almost killed Franklin had dispersed, leaving a light coating of sulfur on all the surfaces. Thomas ran a damp cloth over the tops of sills, ledges, and tables to remove the deposits. He then lit a fire in the grate.

From outside he could hear the telltale tapping of the old doctor’s stick as he crossed the courtyard. Within a few moments he had negotiated the threshold and was sniffing the air as he walked in.

“Someone left the window open.”

The acrid smell had faded, but Dr. Carruthers’s sharp sense of smell could always detect even the slightest whiff of poison in the air.

“Yes, sir. Does it trouble you?”

He shook his head. “No, besides I have this,” he said excitedly. “If the fumes are too much for me I simply sniff!” He was holding up a cane that Thomas had not seen before. It had an ivory top. “Look here,” ordered the old doctor, and he flicked open the lid to reveal a sweet-smelling potpourri of herbs and petals.

“I was gifted it in the will of an old colleague.”

Thomas remembered his own father possessing something similar. “A physician’s cane,” he remarked. “Useful for preventing contagion.”

“Precisely, or just wafting away these unpleasant fumes,” replied Dr. Carruthers, smiling and tapping his way across the floor.

“So you are happy to proceed?” asked Thomas, watching the old doctor ease himself onto a stool by him.

“Of course I am. We must proceed. This air is killing scores of people, young fellow! Coachmen are dropping like flies in the streets, I’m told. So, you need to tell me all you know about the properties of this accursed fog and then we shall put our heads together. What say you to that?”

Although Thomas had wanted to deal with the contents of his phials in relation to the murders first, he could hardly argue with Dr. Carruthers, so he recapped his experiments at Boughton that proved the poisonous air was sulfurous.

“It seems that those who have been exposed to it longest suffer most,” he told his mentor, adding, “but those who are predisposed to asthma are struck down much quicker.”

At the word asthma the old anatomist frowned. “Interesting,” he said, stroking his chin. “Have you tried atropa belladonna?”

“Belladonna?” repeated Thomas. He pictured the delicate flower with its purplish-blue petals. The locals called it deadly nightshade. It was a common sight in the Oxfordshire hedgerows, among the cow parsley and the foxgloves, where he had seen it growing himself.

“I know of the plant,” he replied. “But I thought it was used to treat gastric ailments.”

Dr. Carruthers nodded. “Indeed, it can be, but given in the right dosage, it can also ease breathing in asthmatics. It may help.”

Thomas knew that the plant’s properties were many and various. Cleopatra had used it to make the pupils of her eyes larger, and therefore more alluring to men. He also knew that merely ingesting a handful of berries from the plant could easily kill a grown man. Yet he was prepared to bow to his mentor’s encyclopedic knowledge. After all, since nothing else was having any real effect, there was very little to lose.

“I assume you have some ready prepared?” said Thomas, already on his way to the storeroom, lighted candle in hand.

“Third shelf on the left, I think you’ll find.”

Sure enough, there it was: a small porcelain jar marked “Ex. Bellad.” Thomas picked it up and peered inside at the powdered petals that looked like dried wood chippings.

“May I suggest we mix this with a little turmeric, sir? That seems to ease the breathing, too,” ventured Thomas, thinking of his original formula.

“Yes. Yes,” came the reply.

So Thomas produced his notebook and pencil and went back and forth to the storeroom fetching jars and vessels. He pounded and ground with the pestle and blended the powder with honey and oil of vitriol until finally he had produced a mixture that was ready to test.

“Now all we need is a willing patient,” said Dr. Carruthers. Thomas smiled. “I know of one very close at hand, sir.”

“You do?”

“Franklin.”

“That wretched rat of yours?”

Ignoring the jibe, Thomas went to fetch the rodent from the cellar. “I will be back in a moment,” he called.

He found Franklin still breathing, but barely alive. Lifting him gently out of the crate, he brought him back into the laboratory and set him down on the table, still lying on top of the rag.

“Now, all we need to do is work out the quantity of the formula appropriate to his weight and then trial the physick on him,” he told the old doctor, who seemed distinctly unimpressed.

“I suppose ’tis worth a try,” he said with an unconvinced shrug.

Thomas weighed the rodent in his scales, then after making calculations on his notepad, he measured out the relative weights of the ingredients. Within a few minutes, he had reduced the mixture to the required strength.

“Now for the moment of truth,” he said, drawing up the liquid into a pipette.

The old anatomist nodded his head. “I’ve heard the ingredient can work very quickly,” he ventured.

Holding the rat’s jaws open with one hand, Thomas emptied the contents of the pipette into its mouth, then closed it shut to make sure he swallowed the physick. The creature barely protested. Thomas then laid Franklin down in the cage, on the piece of rag, to wait for the formula to take effect.

“Now, sir,” said Thomas, opening up his case. “For our next task.”

“The samples?”

“Yes. I need to identify the contents of these phials.” He brought out the glass tubes, each holding small flakes of material, none of them bigger than a grain of mustard.

The microscope lay under a small sheet in a nearby cupboard, thankfully protected from the sulfur dust. Thomas handled it with a renewed reverence and set it down gently on the work surface. Carefully withdrawing a flake from the first phial with a pair of tweezers, he placed it on a glass slide and examined it under the lens. It was the sample taken from Lady Thorndike’s wound. A network of tiny woody veins appeared before his eyes.

“What do you see, young fellow?” asked Dr. Carruthers eagerly.

“ ’Tis as I thought, sir,” said Thomas, sitting upright. “A piece of a leaf.”

“And this was found in the hair of the first victim?”

“Yes, sir. Lady Thorndike had been underwater for several hours, so its properties may have changed.”

“Then let us look at one that may be easier to identify.”

Thomas concurred. The samples he retrieved from Gabriel Lawson’s wound could have been tainted by the smoke, but those he had taken from the dead children would have remained, to his knowledge, unsullied.

Looking at the specimen from the dead girl’s head wound, he saw the familiar cells of a leaf structure under the microscope. “Another type of leaf,” he told Dr. Carruthers.

“Children play among trees and plants all the time,” he replied, obviously unimpressed.

Thomas nodded. “Yes, sir, but this leaf material appears desiccated.”

He brought out his second sample, this time from the boy. Again he put it on a glass slide and examined it under the microscope. Once more he discovered a leaf structure similar to the type found in the girl’s hair. It was edged with a dark stain of blood.

“Another leaf, sir,” replied Thomas.

“What about its smell?” asked Dr. Carruthers.

Thomas lifted the specimen off the slide with his tweezers and sniffed. “I cannot detect any scent,” he replied, but knowing how keenly his mentor’s sense of smell had developed, he wafted it under his nose. “Can you?” he asked.

Carruthers’s nostrils twitched. He paused for a moment, frowning, then said: “Yes, there is a faint whiff of . . . of rue, if I’m not mistaken.” His face broke into a triumphant smile.

“Rue?” repeated Thomas.

“Yes. Also known as the herb of grace.” Dr. Carruthers was chuckling now. The young doctor did not, however, share his mentor’s enthusiasm. He remained silent.“What is it, young fellow? Have we not identified the leaf?”

Thomas sighed. “If I’m not very much mistaken, rue is an herb used in exorcisms.” He had neglected to tell Dr. Carruthers the full story of the children’s unhappy last few hours on earth. The presence of the herb proved nothing. He remembered the Reverend Lightfoot sprinkling a handful of it over each child to symbolize repentance.

“And this?” Thomas offered him a sample from Lawson’s head wound.

Another sniff. “This is more difficult,” said the old doctor, tilting his head to one side, his nose still twitching. “Let me see, now. ’Tis sharp, and unpleasant.”

Thomas watched, holding his breath.

“I have it!” exclaimed Dr. Carruthers, clicking his fingers. “Wormwood.”

It was an herb that was familiar to Thomas. “I have used it to treat fevers and indigestion,” he remarked.

“And in England ’tis sometimes used in beer instead of hops,” added the old anatomist.

“So we have a variety of herbs,” Thomas said, trying to make sense of their findings so far. He recalled sniffing what may have been rosemary in Lawson’s hair, too. “But there does not seem to be any connection between them.”

This time he brought out the phial containing what appeared to be a shard of silver, no wider than a woman’s fingernail. “I found this fragment of what looks like silver in Lady Thorndike’s wound, too. I shall try the magnetic test first,” he said, running a magnet over the sample. It was not attracted. “No,” he muttered.

“So it is silver?” asked Dr. Carruthers.

“No doubt,” repeated Thomas. “But the fragment is so thin, it may well be from a comb or some hair adornment.” He leaned forward, pondering until the silence was broken.

The old doctor suddenly turned his head. “What’s that sound?” he asked.

Thomas put down the magnet and listened. A strange scratching was coming from the corner.

“Franklin,” he cried. He had been so preoccupied testing the samples that he had quite forgotten about the rat. Hurrying over to the cage, he was delighted to see the creature stirring from the makeshift bed.

“He seems much restored,” he told Dr. Carruthers, unfastening the lock and bringing out the rat.

Placing Franklin on the work surface by Dr. Carruthers, Thomas began to examine him. Straightaway it was obvious that his labored breathing had returned to normal. He sat up on his back legs and sniffed at the air, bringing a smile to his master’s face.

“If the formula helps Franklin, there is a strong chance ’twill work on humans, too,” ventured Thomas.

Dr. Carruthers clapped his hands. “Indeed,” he agreed enthusiastically. The excitement, however, was short-lived. From somewhere outside came a commotion. Mistress Finesilver was shouting.

“No! What do you think you are doing?” Her shrill voice could be heard in the courtyard, mingling with the sound of heavy footsteps and men’s grunts.

“What goes on?” asked Dr. Carruthers, his head wheeling ’round, trying to make sense of the hubbub.

Thomas hurried toward the door just in time to see it flung open, almost catching him in the face. Two thickset men stood on the threshold, one of them trying to fend off Mistress Finesilver’s thrashing hands. The other glowered at Thomas. He wore the insignia of a court official on his coat.

“Tell the woman to stop it, or she’ll be coming with us, too,” he barked.

Thomas could see that the men meant business. “Mistress Finesilver,” he called. She turned, her face flushed with exertion. “Please,” he said and she stilled her arms and stood aside.

“Dr. Thomas Silkstone?” asked the same man. He was shorter and less brutish than the other.

“I am he,” replied Thomas, squaring up to the inquisitor.

“I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Lady Julia Thorndike,” he informed him.

Thomas’s jaw dropped. “On whose authority?” he cried. “Let me see.”

The law officer handed him the paper, a smug look on his face. Thomas scanned it. “But this cannot be!” he said, shaking his head incredulously.

Dr. Carruthers tapped his way over to the door and now stood beside the young doctor. “You are accused of murder?” he asked anxiously.

“This is a warrant for my arrest,” replied Thomas, snatching the paper from the officer’s hand and glancing at it. “And ’tis signed by Rupert Marchant.”

“Marchant?” repeated Dr. Carruthers. “Is he not the . . . ?”

Thomas’s mind flashed to Sir Theodisius’s arrogant nephew, who had not only hoodwinked one of his patients but also sought to seduce Lydia, too.

“Yes, the conniving lawyer who swindled Charles Byrne for a supposed King’s Pardon. It would seem he’s been made a magistrate.” Thomas’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Enough!” cried the official, “or I’ll have you for contempt of court, too.” At his signal, the burly constable stepped forward with a set of shackles and grabbed hold of Thomas by the wrist.

“There is no need for force,” protested the young doctor. “I can prove I am innocent of the charge.”

The official let out a sharp laugh. “That’s what they all say!”

“What’s happening?” pleaded Dr. Carruthers, standing helplessly behind Thomas.

“Have no fear, sir. Everything will be all right,” Thomas assured him, glad that he could not see him in chains.

“But if you are taking him to jail, at least allow the man his coat!” wailed the old doctor, stepping forward with it.

The official looked at him, then at Thomas, and shrugged. “Very well,” he conceded.

Thomas was a little surprised by his mentor’s request, but as soon as he took the coat, he understood. The old man tapped the pocket lightly. At least the new formula would not be lost.

 

Lydia had settled Richard down on his new bed in the caves as comfortably as possible. The journey had clearly taken its toll on the young boy, but he had managed to eat a little bread softened with milk and was now sleeping.