The Lazarus Curse (Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery) Page 13

  Thomas shuffled the sheets and regarded her with a look of admiration. “I am most grateful to you, Mistress Perrick,” he said. “These could prove an invaluable guide in my work.”

  It was only then that he detected her eyes moistening a little. “If that is so, then I am content, Dr. Silkstone,” she told him, adding: “I do not want my husband to have died in vain.”

  Thomas’s third meeting with Sir Joseph Banks was in great contrast to his first and second. Instead of the stately wood-paneled room, presided over by the great and the good of the scientific establishment, the men found themselves in a stable off the main courtyard of Somerset House. With their kerchiefs clamped over their mouths, they were staring at the sheet covering a corpse as it lay on a trestle table. A groom was in attendance.

  Sir Joseph had already identified the soiled clothes as belonging to Matthew Bartlett. Now he was preparing himself to identify the body. He nodded to signify to the servant that he was ready and the cloth was pulled away to reveal the putrefying headless cadaver of a young man. Forcing himself to look at the grotesque sight, he turned away after no more than two seconds and the groom re-covered the corpse. Without a word he left the stable. Thomas followed immediately, filling his lungs with fresh air.

  For a few moments Sir Joseph was silent, trying to compose himself, until finally he turned to Thomas.

  “Yes,” he said emphatically. “I am afraid I believe the body could be that of Matthew Bartlett.”

  Thomas felt a shiver course down his own spine. Until the last moment he had clung to the hope that this young man was a poor, unfortunate stranger who had fallen in with bad company, or been killed by a jealous rival in love.

  The wind whipped ’round both men as they stood in the stableyard.

  “May we talk, sir?” he asked

  Sir Joseph fixed him with a solemn gaze. “I think we had better.”

  Thomas was led into Somerset House through a back entrance and shown into a smaller, more intimate room. Sir Joseph gestured him to sit in a chair by the hearth where a fire burned. It seemed to the doctor as though he had entered an inner sanctum, a private room where only the most trusted of Sir Joseph’s associates were allowed to enter. He felt privileged.

  Standing by the fireplace, Sir Joseph clasped his hands as if in prayer and stared into the fire, trying to frame his words, as if he were about to convey something quite momentous.

  “I have not been entirely forthcoming with you, Dr. Silkstone,” he began.

  Thomas’s first thought was that this was an understatement, but at least that problem would, hopefully, be rectified.

  Sir Joseph continued: “I have not told you the real purpose behind Dr. Welton’s mission on this expedition.”

  Thomas pressed his hands nervously onto his thighs and took a deep breath. Now the truth will out, he told himself.

  “You have heard of the branched calalue plant?”

  Thomas thought for a moment. He recalled one of Mr. Bartlett’s sketches. For some reason, it was the only plant on the manifest that had been missing. He had been surprised to discover from the caption underneath that it was a species of Solanum, of the nightshade genus.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “It was proposed that the expedition should, how shall I put it, explore the plant’s potential.” Sir Joseph put great emphasis on the last word, almost as if it were a euphemism.

  Thomas frowned. “Potential?” he queried.

  Sir Joseph looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “There were . . . There are . . . ,” he corrected himself, “great expectations of this plant.”

  “And Dr. Welton was to lead the party?” asked Thomas.

  Sir Joseph’s features tightened. “He was reluctant to agree to the commission.”

  “May I ask why?”

  The great man’s gaze veered away. “There are other interested parties,” he told him in a low voice, as if he were afraid someone might overhear their conversation. Then, returning his regard to Thomas, he said, “Welton was aware of the plant’s possibilities and wanted to put it to better use.”

  “What might that have been?” urged Thomas.

  Shaking his head, Sir Joseph gazed into the fire once more. “He could see it had promise and that is how the rift occurred.”

  “Rift, sir?” Thomas was taken aback at such candor.

  Suddenly Sir Joseph realized he had revealed more than he intended. “I cannot say more, Dr. Silkstone,” he replied, adding: “I have said too much already and everything I have told you has been in complete confidence.”

  Thomas sensed that the door was closing once more. He had to strike before it was shut in his face again. “But what of Mr. Bartlett’s murder, sir? And the missing journal? Are they connected with what you have just told me?”

  The great man’s features sharpened. “It is not your business, Dr. Silkstone. The Royal Society has employed you to catalogue the expedition’s specimens, no more and no less. Please carry on with your work and leave any deeper investigations to others.”

  Sensing their discussion had drawn to an abrupt and wholly unsatisfactory close, Thomas rose. As he did so, Sir Joseph seemed to relent a little. He clicked his tongue. “If I tell you more, Silkstone, there are those who will accuse you of spying for your country, given our recent past.” His mouth was pursed, as if he had just said something that was distasteful to him.

  “I understand, sir,” he assured Sir Joseph with a bow. He did not say he had no intention of complying with his wishes. His personal respect for Sir Joseph remained undiminished, but if the truth were to surface in this murky affair, he knew he would have to take personal control.

  Making for the door, Sir Joseph following him, Thomas turned.

  “One more thing, sir,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

  “Yes?”

  “Did Matthew Bartlett have a frequent cough?”

  Sir Joseph paused for a moment. “No,” he said. “No, he did not. Why do you ask?”

  Thomas shook his head, thinking of the dead man’s badly damaged lungs. Forced to respond quickly he said, “Merely that I found a small tumor in the bronchioles, but it was obviously not big enough to cause irritation,” he replied nonchalantly. Fortunately, Sir Joseph did not press him further.

  Chapiter 26

  The slaves huddled around the hearth in the scullery. The hour was late and the dinner pots and plates had been washed and put away. The fires in the dining room and drawing room had been doused and the doors locked. Their duties done, Mistress Bradshaw had persuaded Mr. Mason to allow the Negroes the privilege of warming themselves because of the unusually cold weather. Some of the white servants were playing cards around the kitchen table. The maids were sewing or gossiping.

  “Surely, Mr. Mason, you do not want any more of them dying?” the cook had argued, appealing to his practical nature rather than his humanity.

  Venus had also put pressure on him. Being the housekeeper, she had her own room, with her own fire, but she always sided with Cook in trying to ease the slaves’ burden. So they sat with glowing faces around the dying embers. They did not want to talk about how they had each arrived in slavery; how some of them were born into captivity, while others had endured the horrors of the journey from Africa. They had heard the stories so many times, of the wars and the Arab traders and the long treks to the coast. They knew of the families torn apart by the white men in their big ships. Only Homer, Hercules (the eldest), and Ezra, who was a skilled carpenter, remembered anything of their homelands. The others—Cato, Patience, and Phibbah—had been born into captivity, but they still seemed hungry for the stories, even though they had heard many of them before.

  “My father was a fisherman,” recalled Homer, looking into the flames. “We used to catch fish as big as a man in the lake. We never lacked food.”

  Hercules smiled and shrugged. “Until the Ashanti came and defeated us.”

  “And sold you to the white men,” butted in Phibbah
.

  “That’s right, child,” continued Homer. “They took us to a castle and locked us in their dungeon, before loading us like cattle onto ships.” He shook his head. “What I wouldn’t give to go back home, to sit under the shade of a sweet dika tree, and watch the sun go down over Mount Afadjato.”

  Cato gave him an odd look. “Maybe you can.”

  “What you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Why is it that we are still kept in chains? Do you not see our African brothers and sisters all around you in the street?” he asked.

  “I see them,” barked Hercules, “and I see them begging. I see them cold and without shoes on their feet.”

  “But at least their feet are free!” cried Cato. “At least they can run and not be chased and whipped!” He lifted his hands in a gesture of exasperation. “Do you not see? In England there are others like us who do not belong to a master. They are not property. They are human beings.” He sank his hand into his breeches’ pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. On it was large writing and a picture of a Negro man in chains. The others drew closer to inspect it.

  “What is it?” asked Phibbah.

  Cato brandished it like a silk handkerchief. “It is called a handbill and it is being passed ’round in some of the taverns.”

  Reaching into his pocket once more, he pulled out another two pieces of paper, exactly the same. Phibbah snatched one and inspected it.

  “What does it say?” asked Homer. He could not read. None of them could.

  “It calls for all slaves to be free,” cried Cato.

  “Who calls?” snapped Hercules, sounding a note of caution.

  By now Cato’s eyes were ablaze. “There is talk,” he replied.

  “What talk?” Homer challenged.

  “There is a way for us to be free, back home, in Africa.”

  Homer snatched the paper and studied the drawing of one of their kind, on his knees, his manacled hands together in supplication as if begging for mercy.

  “Where you get this?” he asked.

  “Where our free black brothers meet, at an inn called the Crown.” Cato’s eyes were as bright as the Caribbean sun at noontide.

  Phibbah had never seen him so animated. There was something odd in his manner; a fire that was burning inside him she had not encountered before. He had the zeal of a white preacher she sometimes saw in the market square, exhorting his audience to repent of their sins and turn to god, their white god. She saw him slide a sideways look at her, as if he realized that she knew something was about to happen, something big and frightening that might change their lives. His expression was that of an excited hound that had been digging in the dirt. What had he found? A bone of hope to chew upon, perhaps? He had discovered more than this trifling piece of paper with words on, surely? Did he dream of escape? She thought of her own plan. Should she tell him of the obeah in return for his secret? If he knew that, thanks to her, Mistress Carfax would be dead soon, then perhaps he would take her with him if he was going to break for freedom? She resolved to ask Cato the next time they were alone.

  Venus slid through the silence of Samuel Carfax’s bedroom, watching the mound beneath the blankets move up and down with each breath. Laying a cold hand on his shoulder, she stirred him with her touch. He opened his eyes, registered her face in the glimmer of the fire’s embers, and smiled.

  “I did not think you would come tonight,” he told her softly. In the half-light she saw his naked head peeping out from the coverlet, smooth as a hard-boiled egg without its wig. Her touch moved him quickly into wakefulness and he turned onto his back. There was lust in his hands as he reached for one of the ribbons on her nightgown and began toying with it like a string on a lute.

  She stayed his fingers and started undoing the ribbons herself. “Do I ever let you down?” she asked in a voice as smooth as velvet.

  She did not tell him the reason for her lateness, that she was passing the scullery and had caught a fragment of conversation between the slaves that had held her attention. Such was her interest that it had caused her to stand silently with her ear to the door, listening to their talk for a full twenty minutes. She climbed into bed beside him and began warming her hands on his hot body.

  “No,” he replied as he felt her icy fingertips caress his thigh. “You never let me down.”

  Chapiter 27

  Mistress Finesilver woke Thomas with a message that morning. Through the fog of his returning consciousness he heard her say there was a carriage waiting to take him to the Carfax household.

  “Who is ill?” he asked, pulling back his bedsheets.

  “I do not know, sir,” she replied, drawing the blind. “Only that it is urgent.”

  From the way the carriage clattered at high speed through the streets and along the river road, Thomas assumed some kind of terrible calamity had befallen the Carfaxes. Indeed, when the door was opened to him he heard a loud commotion coming from upstairs. He was therefore more than a little surprised to be ushered into the study, where he found Samuel Carfax seated at the desk, poring over some sort of ledger. He eased up his portly frame when Mason announced the doctor and strode over to greet him. As he did so, Thomas clearly heard a woman shouting, screaming even, and her cries were punctuated by a dog’s howls. The noise was growing louder.

  Thomas regarded Carfax quizzically, expecting some sort of explanation. When it came, it was not what he had anticipated. The plantation owner shrugged almost apologetically.

  “My wife . . .” he began. “She . . .” He was not given the chance to finish his sentence. At that moment Cordelia Carfax burst into the room, carrying Fino under her arm.

  “He’s blind! My baby is blind!” she wailed, clutching the whimpering canine. Her mouth was twisted and tears gushed down her cheeks as she thrust the animal into her husband’s arms.

  “Calm yourself, my dear,” urged Carfax, suddenly landed with the distressed dog. He lifted it away from his torso, outstretching his arms, as if the creature were a bundle of foul-smelling rags. It was pawing pathetically at its flat muzzle.

  Mistress Carfax, her face crumpled and puffy, leered at Thomas.

  “Well, are you just going to stand there, Dr. Silkstone? Can you not see my dog is in anguish?”

  Thomas stepped forward. Up until this moment, his only dealings with animals had been pegging them out for dissection, and with Franklin, his rat. He had never been asked to examine a sick dog before and was a little reticent to do so now.

  “For pity’s sake, take it, will you!” cried Carfax, anxious to be rid of the furry burden, plonking it into Thomas’s arms.

  Lifting the pug over to the hearth to take advantage of the light, the doctor could see that it was suffering badly. Its lids were closed and swollen and tears had gathered in the fur beneath its eyes. But it was its strong scent that struck Thomas. He sniffed at it and, much to his bewilderment, smelled roses.

  “I need water,” he called, but his order was lost in Mistress Carfax’s shrieking. “Water, if you please,” he repeated, only louder.

  Heeding the request, Samuel Carfax tugged at the servant’s bell.

  Thomas pulled out a wad of gauze from his open case and began dabbing the creature’s face. “I’d say that this little fellow has something caustic in his eyes,” he said.

  “Caustic?” echoed Mistress Carfax, tearing herself away from her husband’s embrace. “Does that mean poison?”

  “It could mean any manner of substance, madam,” replied Thomas, as Samuel Carfax ordered a pitcher of water from Mason. “But from the smell of it, I surmise that substance is perfume.”

  Mistress Carfax gasped. “Perfume!” she repeated.

  Thomas nodded. “Rosewater?”

  Another gasp issued from the distressed woman as she thought of her silver scent bottle on her dressing table. “But how?” she asked.

  Or rather who? thought Thomas. He said nothing of his suspicions, but instructed that the dog’s eyes be regularly washed with cool, boile
d water for the next few hours.

  He left Cordelia Carfax billing and cooing over Fino, while Venus emerged to show him to his waiting carriage. Tall and poised, she led him into the hallway, where a footman waited with his topcoat. As he slipped his arm into a sleeve Thomas looked outside onto the back lawns. Squinting against the winter sunlight, his gaze snagged on what appeared to be two gravestones, side by side, at the bottom of the narrow plot.

  He pointed to them. “Forgive me, those headstones, there?” he asked the housekeeper. “They belong to slaves?”

  Venus also looked out. When she saw what Thomas was pointing at, she clicked her tongue as if chiding a white man’s ignorance.

  “Those belong to the missa’s old dogs,” she told him coolly. “Slaves do not have headstones, Dr. Silkstone.”

  As the carriage returned him home, Thomas pondered on the Carfax household and how it must be riven with hatred and mistrust. He had sluiced the dog’s eyes and did not believe any lasting damage had been done, but someone had intended that the creature should be permanently blinded, presumably to wound Mistress Carfax indirectly. He suspected that the dog was the child she had never had—he was not aware of any offspring—and she lavished more love on it than on any human being, including her husband. Moreover, she treated her slaves worse than stray dogs. He had witnessed, with his own eyes, the woman’s indifference to the death of the Negro boy and her anger when the girl had mourned so publicly. He’d wager that one of those poor, wretched slaves had poured perfume into the dog’s eyes to vent their festering and impotent hatred of their mistress. Of course it was reprehensible to injure a defenseless creature, but it was a soft target, and its suffering was clearly felt vicariously by its owner.

  So engrossed in his own thoughts was Thomas during the carriage ride back to Hollen Street that he became oblivious to all that was going on around him. In particular, he had no notion that he was being observed as he alighted outside his home. Two gentlemen sat inside another carriage parked opposite. They watched Thomas dismiss the driver and walk up the steps before instructing their own driver to move off.