Antidote to Murder Read online

  Mrs. Kent put the bottle down. “I don’t know nuffink about lead pills,” she mumbled, her eyes fixed on the baby.

  “If you and your husband are found guilty of infanticide, you will go to prison. Or worse.”

  The rag-wick moved, the baby swallowed, and Dody felt her spirits rise. This child might at least have a chance at life. She handed the rag back to Mrs. Kent for a redipping. The woman’s hands shook so she could barely get the wick into the milk. “Can’t you tell me who gave you the tablets, Mrs. Kent?” Dody asked. “It really will be better for you.”

  “Who’ll look after the little ones if we’re both put away?” Mrs. Kent looked down at the baby, sucking now with more strength. A smile ghosted her reddened face. This was not the face of a bad woman, Dody realised, just an uneducated, deprived woman, one who might well have started life off in a bureau drawer herself.

  “There’s a bloke down the pub,” Mrs. Kent began. “’E’s a—” A hurled bottle cut the words from her mouth, crashing to the floor next to the table in an explosion of glass. Dody sprang to her feet and clutched the child tightly to her chest. The infant started up a feeble wail. “Mr. Kent, how dare you?” she cried, her heart galloping as she shielded the baby’s head with her hand.

  “And ’ow dare you come into my ’ouse and accuse me missus an’ me of doin’ our young’un in!”

  “I saw the lead tablets in Billy’s stomach myself,” Dody said, willing the tremble from her voice.

  “Well, we didn’t put ’em there. The lad was always in the street, there’s all types down there, anyone could’ve given ’im them as sweets.”

  “Then give the court the chance to prove it.”

  “Yeah, the court, maybe—but we don’t need you messing about in our business, accusin’ an’ all. ’Er an’ me didn’t kill our kid and we don’t ’ave the foggiest ’oo did. Now get out of ’ere while you still can. There’s plenty other bottles under this bed, or do ya want the shit can?” He reached under the bed and slid out a brimming metal bucket. Dody backed towards the door, clutching the baby to her.

  “I’m taking the baby to the London Hospital,” she said to Mrs. Kent. “I’ll give the staff there your details. Go and visit her tomorrow.”

  * * *

  “Lady Harriet is not at home, Miss McCleland, Miss Hamilton, er, misses, ma’ams,” the liveried footman said nervously.

  Florence made a point of turning and looking into the street, where she counted one motorcar and two carriages, the chauffeur and coachmen of said vehicles lounging around under the shade of a horse-chestnut tree, smoking and talking as if they had been waiting awhile.

  A door opened and closed somewhere within the red-bricked mansion and Lady Harriet appeared wearing rose pink. She glided up behind the footman. “Who is it, Frank?” she asked. The footman stepped aside. “Florence? Daphne? What a wonderful surprise! That will be all, thank you, Frank.”

  The women embraced. Not wishing to inhale any germs, Florence held her breath, letting it go only when she saw Daphne breathing easily. Daphne was a nurse. She should know.

  “Darlings, you must come in for tea. Miss Margaret Bentham is here, as are Lady Gloria Holt and Mrs. Chapman.”

  “Really? How marvellous. I haven’t seen any of them for ages,” Daphne said.

  “We weren’t expecting tea, Harriet. Please don’t put yourself out. We just wanted to see how you and the household were—if you have all recovered,” Florence said.

  “Never felt better.” Harriet’s eyes shone. “Do come in, Flo, don’t be such a spoilsport.”

  Never let it be said that Florence was a spoilsport. Surely the germs would have gone by now. She smiled. “Oh, very well then.”

  They followed Lady Harriet into her parlour to find their three friends seated around the tea table in a room of soft pastels and French-styled furniture. The scent of their mingled perfumes filled the air; shadows from the chestnut tree outside danced across the clean, bright walls. Frank was sent to fetch more cups despite Florence’s continued refusal of tea. She was in a hurry to get going, to visit the apothecary who sold the Widow Welch’s and give him a piece of her mind. If they stayed here much longer, she knew she would have trouble convincing Daphne, whose heart had not really been in the excursion anyway, to accompany her. Florence was not so foolish as to visit the East End on her own.

  Florence continued to refuse the offer of sustenance. The others tucked in to cucumber sandwiches and light as light jam sponge with strawberries, and gossiped about a recent debutantes’ ball. Did you see Mrs. Compton’s gangly daughter stepping all over the toes of young Lord Such ’n’ Such? You’d think she’d never had a dancing lesson in her life, et cetera.

  So trivial, Florence thought. They were all good eggs, but surely they could find something better to do with their time. What surprised her the most was how much Daphne seemed to be enjoying their company. Florence was even more surprised by what happened next.

  Harriet left the tea table and turned the key in the lock of the door. “Wait, Harriet, we really need to get going,” Florence said.

  “Nonsense, Flo, the apothecary isn’t going anywhere,” Daphne answered. “We simply have to stay for this.”

  Harriet produced a dainty key from her pocket and unlocked the drawer of an elegant inlaid desk. From it she produced what looked to be an overly large silver cigarette box. Everyone, including Florence, leaned towards the table as Harriet sprung the lid to reveal a gold-plated syringe resting on a bed of silk alongside an ampoule of liquid and a rubber tourniquet.

  One by one the ladies bared their arms and Harriet injected them with the substance from the ampoule. When she settled at Florence’s side, Florence shook her head. The dreamy expressions of the women injected were discomforting, and she had no wish to join them. They were women without purpose, playing silly, childish games. Florence liked adventure, but this was beyond the pale. As for Daphne, she was a nurse and should know better. Dody was forever going on about how bad for one’s health this kind of activity was. How could Daphne even think to do this?

  Florence stood up. “I’d like to go now, Harriet. It’s been nice seeing you and I’m glad to find your household recovered from the cholera.”

  “Our tea parties are obviously not to Florence’s taste,” Mrs. Chapman said slowly, like a foreigner who had to think before pronouncing every word.

  “Here,” said Lady Gloria, reaching into her reticule, “maybe this is more Florence. Not everyone can tolerate the needle.” At which she uncorked a small bottle marked ETHER and poured it over the bowl of strawberries in the centre of the table.

  “I hear the strawberries are exceptionally good this year,” Daphne giggled.

  So even her friend was making fun of her. This would not do. Would not do at all. Florence unlocked the door herself. Turning she said, “I will see you, no doubt, at the next Bloomsbury meeting, Daphne.”

  Her flinty tone had the desired effect. Daphne, suitably shamed, looked down at her clasped hands. “Oh, yes. Of course you will, Florence.”

  Chapter Eight

  Pike lived in a boardinghouse off Millbank Road, on a desolate, partially cleared patch of ground waiting for the completion of the new sewerage system and the extension of the Victoria Tower Gardens. Many of the area’s slums had already been flattened and their occupants relocated to high towers of redbricked flats in nearby Westminster.

  The local wharfs were dormant, too, but frequently, as Pike tossed and turned in his bed, he imagined them still operational. Sometimes he swore he could hear the creak of the winches, the thunk of crates, and the cursing of stevedores and lumpers, backs bent under heavy loads of timber and coal.

  The area’s state of limbo meant that his lodgings, destined for demolition, were cheap though surprisingly comfortable. The shabby exterior of peeling paint and warped boards was not reflected on the inside, which wa
s clean and efficiently run.

  The entry hall acted as an effective cordon sanitaire against the dusty wasteland outside. The long oriental runner was of mulberry hues, the wallpaper dark green with lighter green stripes. Two chairs on either side of the marble hall table and the settee opposite were upholstered in creamy damask.

  Pike found a letter from his teenaged daughter, Violet, waiting for him on the hall table and slipped it into his pocket. He would save it for later, when he was not in such a hurry, when he could give it the attention it deserved.

  His private portion of the house consisted of a small sitting room and an even smaller bedroom, saved from the oppression of its dark varnished bed and wardrobe by pale textured wallpaper. Except for his clothes, a picture of Violet on the chest of drawers, and an old leather trunk, very little in the room belonged to him. The trunk held a few mementos of his military career: his Mauser automatic pistol—a German-made weapon he had taken from a dead Boer commando—captain’s pips, uniforms, regimental photographs, and a few other things he should never have kept. The trunk’s lock was getting rusty and the key would probably not turn now; he had not reopened it since locking it over ten years ago.

  He put the letter from Violet on his bedside table and peeled off his dirty clothes. At his marble washstand he mixed up shaving cream in his mug and was about to lather over the thick stubble on his face when he stopped, brush poised. Perhaps he should leave the beard. The strange doctor had been at rehearsals again today. Occasionally the yellowed eyes in the front row had broken their hold on Margaretha and turned to focus on him. Pike had no idea what social circles the man mixed in or whom he might invite to accompany him to the rehearsals and performances. That he knew something of Pike’s war experiences was of no consequence, but it did matter that he was not identified as the serving police officer he was now.

  If anyone were to enquire about the captain, they would have been told about the down-on-his-luck ex-military officer, a reserved gentleman who supplemented his pension by playing popular songs in the seedy pubs along the banks of the river. Clothes maketh the man and Pike knew this well. With only an outdated, shabby outfit and what he considered an ordinary face, he had blended effortlessly for years on the fringes of the dockside landscape, keeping an eye on the Yard’s informants, sniffing out new leads on dead-end cases, and listening for talk of crimes yet to be committed.

  He shaved his neck, making his beard appear more the result of careful management than of sloth, and after a quick wash, changed into a freshly pressed grey summer suit. As he straightened his silk cravat, he gazed in the mirror with satisfaction—piano tramp to city gent in less than fifteen minutes. Excellent.

  His landlady, Mrs. Keating, had eventually grown tired of tackling him over his erratic sense of dress. It was not the only thing she had grown tired of.

  He stood aside for her on the second-floor landing. She turned her head to the wall, the single feather in her dyed black hair quivering with indignation. “That’s two nights in a row I’ve kept your supper warm for you, Mr. Pike. I won’t do it again.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Keating, I was unable to get word to you.”

  “Mr. Cross won’t mind, I’m sure. He’s always ready for a second helping,” she said, a trail of eau de corsage lingering behind her on the stairs.

  Poor sod, Pike thought to himself. Mrs. Keating’s newest gentleman boarder had no idea what he was in for.

  * * *

  Pike caught a motorised omnibus to Horse Guards and called into the War Office, where he spent some time in the record archives before walking the rest of the way to Scotland Yard with an extra green-coloured file in his briefcase.

  Humidity sucked the air from the atmosphere and left it with a heavy feeling of rain. In the gloomy hush, lethargic street vendors slung canvas sheets across stalls of flowers, fruit, and boxes of colourful sweets.

  Pike was perspiring heavily by the time he reached his destination.

  He entered the Special Branch offices through a side door of the Scotland Yard building and wended his way up the curling stairs and down claustrophobic passages to Superintendent Callan’s office without, thankfully, bumping into anyone he knew.

  Special Branch was considered an elite department, though Pike knew too well that his transfer to its suffragette arm was just a slap in the face, one step away from ignominious dismissal. It was like being asked to join the king’s personal bodyguard and discovering your prime duty was to clean the royal boots. He had been told that his mild-mannered approach and nonthreatening appearance made him just the kind of officer the division needed to soothe those hysterical females.

  Mild-mannered—was that what they really thought of him?

  Until his daughter’s involvement in the movement and his subsequent meeting with the McCleland sisters, he had viewed the suffragettes as little more than a trivial irritation. If they wanted the vote, hooliganism and vulgar heckling was not, in his opinion, the way to go about getting it. If their leaders were supposedly highly educated women, what should one expect of their more ignorant sisters? An extension of the vote to include all women would surely render the country more of a Bedlam than it was now.

  But his attitude had softened somewhat on the broader issues of equal rights for men and women. Perhaps that had something to do with seeing the world his daughter would soon be entering through her eyes. Violet was a bright girl; he would like to see her doing something more valuable and fulfilling before marriage than attending mindless tea parties and debutante balls. Or perhaps it was observing the challenges that Dody McCleland had to overcome daily in order to practise the form of medicine she chose. Or perhaps he was just softening with age.

  He reached Callan’s door. Since the government interference into Pike’s last murder investigation and his transfer from Scotland Yard, Callan had gone out of his way to restore their broken friendship. Sanctioning Pike’s undercover operation during the lull in suffragette activity had helped, but it had not yet fully restored the sense of ease that Pike had once shared with his former friend.

  “The beard doesn’t suit, old man,” Callan said, greeting Pike and pulling the visitor’s chair out for him.

  “An extra precaution,” Pike said, smoothing his palm across the itching bristles. “I’ve met someone, an Englishman, whose behaviour is suspicious. I’m not sure of his connections. He could even be in cahoots with the Dutch woman—he’s certainly obsessed with her.”

  Callan’s eyebrows rose. “What about Klassen?”

  “Her manager? I’ve never met a less likely spy.”

  “Appearances are deceptive. You are the living proof.” Callan smiled. Once Pike would have met the remark with a smile himself; now he betrayed no emotion at all. “As for that woman,” Callan continued, running a finger along the inside of his collar, “she seems capable of anything. MO5 have asked us to keep an eye on her. Her postcards to Germany are regarded as highly suspicious. We have to humour MO5 and quash the rumours if nothing else—and she is Dutch, after all.”

  Pike agreed. Holland had close ties with Germany, and both countries had openly supported the Boers against the British in South Africa. “Even so, we need to follow this doctor up,” Pike said. “He’s not technically Dutch, but he does have the ancestry.”

  He removed the green War Office file from his briefcase and spread the contents on Callan’s desk. “Dr. Archibald Van Noort,” he read, running his finger across the lines of inky scrawl to pick out what he thought was relevant. “Born in Sussex in 1865, studied medicine at Oxford, and then a few years later set up rooms in Harley Street specialising in women’s ailments. When war was declared in South Africa, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps to broaden his medical experiences—seems his father-in-law, Major General Hawksworth, might have pulled some strings. Served with distinction in the RAMC, injured during the shelling of the Twenty-sixth Field Hospital at Dundee, and then re
turned to England to convalesce and resume his consultancy. That’s it.”

  Callan tented his fingers. “Sketchy. What about the wife?”

  “I’ll talk to her when I find her.”

  “I can get my people to look further into the other records if it helps.”

  “Thank you. Rear Admiral Millbank seems to have taken a genuine shine to the dancer.”

  “Didn’t think that would be too much of a stretch.”

  “He still knows nothing about me?”

  Callan shook his head. “The less he knows, the less he can spill.”

  “Good, let’s keep it that way.”

  “She’s constantly pumping him for information, apparently—pressuring him to take her to the navy shipyards,” Callan said. “He has been instructed on what he can and cannot say; mostly fantasy but the occasional smidgen of truth.”

  “When you see him next, ask him if he has seen her with Van Noort. The doctor might well be passing on the information she’s gleaned from the admiral straight to Germany—wiring it in code or having it couriered, sent by diplomatic bag even. The last time I spoke to the doctor, he was in the company of a young ragamuffin. I saw no sign of the lad today. The boy might be his messenger,” Pike said.

  “It’s possible, I suppose; try and find out. Meanwhile I’ll get Customs to see if Van Noort has a passport. I’d like to know when he last left the country.”

  “Right,” Pike said. “Your man’s little talk with the musical director worked, by the way. He’s disappeared and I’m to stay on for the performance proper at the Empire. Van Noort has booked a box for every night of the show, so I should have no trouble keeping an eye on him.”

  “Splendid. When does it start?”

  “We have three days of rehearsing in the hall with full orchestra next week, and then the first performance is at the Empire on Thursday night, the beginning of a four-day booking. After that, they hope to get bookings for the Army and Navy Club through Millbank, provided there’s not too much public outrage over the indecency, of course.” Pike paused for thought. It had been his idea to plant the admiral, and so far the plan seemed to be working. But things were moving slowly . . . if he could only speed them up a little . . .