The Formula for Murder (22 page)

“Dr. Pasteur in Paris is finding whole new worlds under a microscope, a man named Bentz in Germany is building a carriage driven by a gasoline engine, aeronauts are soaring in the heavens with dirigibles and hot-air balloons; they even say we will have flying machines during our lifetimes.”

“What are you saying? That Dr. Lacroix is just another scientific trailblazer like Pasteur and Edison?”

“No, dear Nellie, the fact is that there is another side to science, a dark side. You know about
Frankenstein,
are you also familiar with
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson?”

“Yes. A little. A doctor makes a potion, drinks it, then goes around killing people.”

“Quite. Do you see the similarites between Victor Frankenstein and Jekyll and Dr. Lacroix?”

“I’m in a fog.”

“Let me explain. What Jekyll and Frankenstein did was venture beyond the realms of rational science in their experiments. Unlike Pasteur who is moving slowly, taking one step at a time, building on one small finding and then another until there’s a mountain, Frankenstein, Jekyll, and Lacroix all have the same method—to attempt in one giant leap to create in a test tube matters that are in the hands of the gods.

“Do you see the logic and even simplicity of their methods? Victor Frankenstein believed he could inject electricity into the body of a dead person and ignite life back into the body. Jekyll thought he could control human nature with a concoction because substances like opium can affect behavior, and Lacroix believes he can reverse the aging process with what you call his magic mud because preserved bodies have been found in peat moss.”

“Wells, they are madmen—Dr. Jekyll, Victor Frankenstein. Besides, aren’t you forgetting something … they are fictional characters.”

“No, I haven’t, but what you have obviously forgotten is that what many authors have written about have come true or inspired inventions. Case in point: Jules Verne and his many literary inventions that have come about. They completely accepted science as their god and set out to create miracles. Instead, what they created turned against them, and when it did, it first broke their spirit and then their minds.”

“You think science has driven Dr. Lacroix crazy?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Remember, this was a successful university professor who instead of conducting himself in the way customary of men in his profession, threw all caution aside, crossed moral lines, and broke the law to get the blood he needed for his experiments.”

I mull over that for a moment. “You believe that’s what happened to Lady Winsworth. That Lacroix once again was the risk taker, a man willing to cross the line and try something radical regardless of the consequences.”

“Yes, that is my take on him. Working with him, experiencing his fanatical nature, his obsession with results when conducting experiments, I felt I was dealing with a man possessed.”

“Stop,” I tell him. “My head is swirling. All this mad science is driving me crazy. I’ve dealt with more insanity in the last hour than I did spending ten days in a madhouse.”

He reaches over and takes my hand in his.

“My apologies, darling Nellie. But I have one more question to raise.”

“My head’s splitting, but go ahead, though I may run screaming out of this pub.”

He leans forward and speaks in a confidential tone. “Lovely Nellie, will you make love with me tonight?”

37

I almost knock over my chair as I leave him at the table and march to my room. He is lucky that I didn’t slap him in the face right there and have the innkeeper evict him. What nerve! What a cad! And I believed the man to be a gentleman.

“
Nellie!
—I must explain.”

I swing around to find him running down the corridor toward me.

“You have said quite enough.” I turn back to the door to my room. I’m so angry I fumble trying to get the key into the lock.

“Please let me explain.”

I take a deep breath and face him. “I suggest you retire to your room and sleep off whatever disgusting thoughts the alcohol has created in your mind. We will discuss in the morning our arrangements.”

“Please, you must understand, I fell under your spell.”

Oh boy, that was a showstopper with me. But it’s only a brief moment before my insecurities step in. “Under my spell as a woman of beauty and charm? Do give me some credit for intelligence. I look in the mirror each morning and I’m well aware that I am not a Helen whose beauty launched a thousand ships.”

“I was referring to your mind, your spirit, your wonderfully rational attitude.”

“Oh.” Oh damn—only my mind is beautiful.

“You are a complete woman. I’ve met only a few of them in my life. It is much more attractive than the external beauty society gives such importance to. I misunderstood, I thought because you had freed yourself of so many of the straightjackets the world puts on women, on all of us, that you had a broader, more worldly attitude about lovemaking.”

I stare at him, befuddled.

He appears to be completely remorseful. I don’t know what to say or think. I’m not a prude, I have been in a man’s arms before, held a man in my own. I am well aware that the best reason not to be promiscuous is pregnancy—like Hailey, I have no one to turn to if I become pregnant. I support and love my dear mother, as she does me, but she would be devastated if I was with child without a husband, especially when I am her sole means of support.

I know there are ways, none of them surefire, to avoid pregnancy, but I am definitely a conventional woman when it comes to a relationship with a man—which is why I found Wells’s comment offensive.

“I hesitate to ask, Wells, but what exactly is your, uh, worldly attitude toward lovemaking?”

He takes a deep breath and relaxes just a little. Pulling his kerchief out of his breast pocket, he pats his forehead.

“I must confess that I was caught up both by the moment and the ale, the moment being my admiration and amazement at meeting a woman with a free spirit.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that. Now tell me about your moral attitude.”

“My moral attitude … well, I guess you could say that my way of thinking is that men and women are free to do what they care to do as long as they don’t hurt others. It strikes me that most of the laws and customs in regard to whom, when, and where sex is to be conducted come from church people who either don’t have sex, don’t enjoy sex, or don’t know how to enjoy sex, and hate to see others enjoying it.”

“Are you married?”

“No, but let me assure you that when I am married, my attitude will not change. If a man and a woman are attracted to each other, a tiny wedding band shouldn’t be enough of a barrier to keep them from enjoying each other’s bodies, to keep them from touching and kissing and caressing and—”

“
Go to bed.
”

He stares at me.

“Go to your room and get some sleep. And don’t ever speak to me again with such lewdness or I will have you arrested. And this is not a minister speaking, it’s me. A lady.”

*   *   *

S
LEEP IS IMPOSSIBLE.
I lay in bed, angry at myself.

I am not angry at my behavior with Wells. He had been impertinent.

And it is not what I said that makes me angry.

It is my weakness that has me tossing and turning, my mind swirling with sinful thoughts.

H. G. Wells is a brilliant man; that I have come to realize. And there is another side to him, a side of passion and sensuality. He is a man hungry for love. And I am a lonely woman who at times like this, could use the arms of a man.

I am too young to be a spinster, but sometimes that’s how I feel. Most women my age are married and have children. I have stuck to work, my nose to the grindstone, my love and attention have been directed solely on the wrongs I have investigated, the stories I wrote. My desire in life is to help change the world—only unlike the Red Virgin, the fiery French feminist and revolutionary who presses her demands for social change in the streets, my pen is my sword.

I am a
working woman
in a man’s world.

That means sacrifices, lots of sacrifices. I’ve had to put everything aside except my dedication to my job. I have to be faster and smarter than the men around me to survive because few of them believe a woman should be doing
their
job.

It irks me no end that I can’t vote, I can’t sit on a jury, and that many states curtail the property rights of women, that women are barred from most jobs and paid less than what a man receives even if they do the same job, and forget about being promoted—that never happens. But I try not to think about those injustices because if I did, I would never get anything done. And as silly as this sounds, I hate that men can wear pants and women can’t. I’d like to see men ride a horse sidesaddle wearing a dress.

I don’t know about the afterlife. I have not a clue as to what I will find in heaven or hell or whether I’ll get sent anywhere after I’ve given up the ghost, but I do know that I have
one
chance to go around, one chance to do exciting things, one chance to accomplish the impossible and to climb mountains only men have been permitted to scale.

And I am not going to pass it up because I am, by society’s terms, “a woman.”

I can already see the writing on my tombstone:
HERE LIES NELLIE BLY, WHO WAS HUNGRY FOR LOVE BUT TOO AFRAID TO EXPERIENCE IT BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE KEPT HER FROM CLIMBING MOUNTAINS.

38

The next day we had an unspoken truce between us and we went along as if nothing had happened. We had to return to Exeter in an attempt to locate the artist. While there, I sent off a telegram to Oscar asking him if he had ever heard of any connection between Dr. Lacroix and the hounds of the moors.

“I am certain that most of the gossip in London society passes by Oscar Wilde at some point,” I tell Wells.

“I’ve never heard of the gentleman.”

“Oscar would be mortified if he heard that. He wrote a book you might find interesting,
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
As a matter of fact Oscar believes Dr. Lacroix got some of his ideas about eternal youth from his book.”

“Interesting … I must take a peek at it when I return to London.”

We have no luck at the post office locating the artist and go into a shop that sells painting and art supplies.

I inquire of the proprietor whether he knows a painter named Isaac Weekes and get a positive response.

“Yes, yes, Weekes is noted for his Dartmoor scenes. I have several. Here, let me show you.”

He takes us to three paintings, each of which is a broad, picturesque view of the moorlands, its rolling hills and tors topped with exploding granite crags.

“I’m looking for a particular painting … it’s of a bog,” I tell the man.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have one. I can query Weekes about preparing one. It would take a few months to obtain, knowing Weekes. Does what he wants, when he wants.” The store owner laughs and throws up his hands.

“Are you familiar with a Weekes painting of a bog? It was commissioned by a friend of ours, a Dr. Lacroix.”

“No, I’m sorry. I have no knowledge of such a piece or your friend. Weekes doesn’t display all of his artwork here. He has the majority of his paintings displayed in London. More money there.”

“Do you know where Mr. Weekes lives?” This time the question comes from Wells.

“Yes, in a small Dartmoor village called Linleigh-on-the-moors, about ten miles west of here. You’d have to rent a pony cart to get there.”

“Perhaps a taxi,” I suggest.

“Won’t find one to take you out there. Road is too rough for a regular carriage. I wouldn’t even call it a road, most of the way. It’s more for sheep and goats. The stable will rent you a cart that can do it. Better get an early start in the mornin’ though to return before dark. I don’t recall the village having comfortable accommodations though the pub might have a room or two.”

*   *   *

“P
OOR, QUIET, AND REMOTE,
” Wells says later, after consulting a map at the rail station. “The sort of small village where people raise sheep, grow their own food, and there probably hasn’t been a new house built since the Norman conquest. The only daunting thing is there is only a dirt road to the village, a common trait to most of the small villages scattered around Dartmoor. By dirt road I am of course referring to what the art gallery proprietor called a goat path.”

At the telegraph office we find a reply from my missive to Oscar.

“He says that the expert on hell hounds is the author, Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who writes about the detective called Sherlock Holmes. He says that Doyle is in Dartmoor at present.”

“I read
The Sign of the Four
excerpts in
The Strand
,” Wells says. “An excellent mystery tale. From what you’ve said about your friend Oscar Wilde, detective stories would not exactly be his cup of tea.”

“They’ve met because they have the same publisher. Anyway, he says Doyle is in a place called Buckfastleigh researching a book.”

“Buckfastleigh is about twenty-five miles or so from here.” Wells looks at his pocket watch. “I believe we can get there by train by noon, if we go now, so we better get to the station if that’s your plan.”

“Any chance the train can drop us near the village artist?”

“No, it’s in a different direction. And it’s already too late to get out and be certain we can make it back to Exeter before dark.”

“We’ll just have to chance it. If we meet up with a black beast of a hound, I shall simply tell it that it’s not permitted to eat an American.”