Upon first viewing the woman's loathsomely mutilated corpse, one of the troubling thoughts he was still contending with had been, This is the work of a doctor.
chapter six CAMBRIDGE
THE FIRST PREREQUISITE OF ELABORATE MENTAL EXERCISE
was a full stomach. Doyle hadn't eaten since his ordeal began the night before. He walked into the first crowded tavern he happened across, sat by the fire, and ordered a large breakfast, thankful that what little money he'd left in his rooms hadn't fallen victim to the gelatinous infestation.
Afterward he pushed back his plate, lit a pipe, put his feet up, and felt the onset of that relaxed but heightened state of awareness wherein his mind hummed at maximum efficiency.
If, as Sacker had suggested, there was a conspiracy behind these events, it reasonably involved only a few individuals. Conspiracy requires secrecy. The greater number of people involved, human nature being what it was, the less likely secrecy became. The extent to which 13 Cheshire had been sanitized in those few short hours surely supported conspiracy. How to keep the requisite subordinates in line? Fear. Their ability to inspire it seemed beyond reproach. Black magicians? He was not personally acquainted with any, but that was no guarantee their numbers weren't legion.
As to the manuscript ... true, he'd contrived the villains' identities himself—and a fair piece of invention it was, too, if he did say so—but as to their actual objectives, means, motives, and so forth, the damnable truth was he'd more or less cribbed the "Dark Brotherhood" from Blavatsky. Which begged the question, if they were after him because of his book, how close to the truth of what they were up to had that lunatic Russian wandered? And if she had that much right, what credence did that lend to the rest of her harebrained works?
The seance. More problematic. Perhaps. The levitation: wires and pulleys. The mirror could have been done with,
well, with mirrors. The head of the beast a puppet of some kind, perhaps concealed in the bundle he'd seen that boy carry into the building. Conclusion: There could be logical explanations for the effects he'd witnessed, albeit of a more ingenious and sophisticated order than he'd encountered before....
Wait just a moment—here he was perambulating around this garden of unearthly delights like a vicar on holiday. The fact remained there were bloodless blind men with Oriental daggers stalking about London trying to carve him like a Christmas goose. He had seen these things: fat women floating on air, heart-stopping black shadows, red-eyed creatures in phantom looking glasses, that poor wretch lying back there in the weeds. The brother as he fell, already lifeless. Lady Nicholson's little boy, alone in that dark wood. The look on her face as the blade was drawn across....
He shuddered, drew his coat more closely around his shoulders, and glanced around the room. No one was looking his way.
Yes, all right, I was already half in love with her, he admitted. Maybe they are after me, but what they've done to that poor woman and her family in springing the trap makes my blood boil, thought Doyle. They think they have me routed, on the run, well, revenge is a dish the Irish have been serving cold for countless generations. And whoever these godless devils might be, they are about to discover how severely they have underestimated this particular Irishman.
Sacker. The encounter in the cab, all the attendant shocks, there had hardly been time to summon a coherent question. Doyle took out Sacker's calling card. He needed to confront the man while he had his wits about him. Cambridge was less than two hours by train. Tim, their driver, told him Lady Nicholson's brother had been at university there, a possible connection. At last, an occasion to be grateful for his lack of success as a physician; there were no critically ill patients for whom his sudden absence would prove a hardship. He'd make for Liverpool Street Station, straightaway.
As he replaced the card in his bag, his eye caught the cover of the altered book. Isis Unveiled. He'd been in such a state he hadn't even noticed. He lifted it, shielding its deformity from the rest of the room. Blavatsky: an appropriate companion for the journey he had embarked upon. Her photograph was still discernible through the rippling layer of ...
Good Christ. No, it couldn't be. He looked closer. Yes. The woman he'd seen with Petrovitch on the stairs of his building last night. It was her: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky!
The cab pulled up outside. He ran into the building.
"Mrs. Petrovitch!"
Dashing by his apartment, Doyle was told by a quick glance inside that nothing had changed^ since last night. He took the stairs three at a time to Petrovitch's floor and knocked vigorously on her door.
"It's Dr. Doyle, Mrs. Petrovitch!"
He noticed smoke seeping out from under the jamb.
"Mrs. Petrovitch!"
He threw a shoulder to the door, once, twice, stepped back, and with a heavy thrust kicked the door open.
Petrovitch lay on the floor, in the center of the room, unconscious. Smoke grew thick, but the room was not yet involved in flame; heavy brocaded curtains smoldered, lace curtains had already combusted.
Doyle ripped down the curtains, furiously beating back the fire so he could reach the fallen woman. He touched her and instantly knew she was dead. Redoubling his effort with the curtains, some anxious moments later he had the blaze dampened. Doyle closed the woman's eyes and sat down to try to reconstruct what had happened.
Petrovitch's dachshund wiggled out from under a sofa and nuzzled pathetically at its mistress's ear.
Doyle studied the room: An open decanter of wine stood on a table, the stopper beside it, next to an open tin of digitalis pills and some drops of candle wax. A small crystal goblet lay on the floor near the body; trailing away from it, in the rug, a crimson stain. The table from where the candle had fallen lay between her and the window. The window was open.
She'd lit a candle. Felt a chest pain—she had heart trouble; that much he knew. She poured a glass of wine, opened the pill tin. The pain grew stronger, alarmingly so. Feeling claustrophobic, she opened the window to let in some air, and in doing so toppled the candle. When the curtains caught fire, she panicked. Her heart gave out. She fell.
Two objections. First, there was a fresh watermark on the table. The wineglass had been set down—it should have
fallen toward the curtains, along with the candlestick. Second, there were a number of pills on the floor near the body. Even now, the little rat dog was gobbling one up off the rug. Perhaps she had dropped the tin and was in the process of replacing them when ... no, there were no pills in her hand.
He examined the tin. Lint and other detritus were mixed in with the pellets themselves. So the pills had been spilled and then replaced—
At the sound of a whine and a cough, he turned in time to see Petrovitch's dog keel over, spasm, and then lie still. Dead—better off, in a way, thought Doyle: It wasn't a dog anyone else was likely to love—foam bubbling at the corner of its mouth. Poisoned.
So someone had poisoned Petrovitch and perhaps not surreptitiously. Doyle lifted her slightly; there were pills under the body as well. Livid bruises on either side of her jaw. She had struggled, knocking the tin away, scattering the pills. Her assailant forced the poison on her, then quickly tried to replace the pills in the tin before fleeing out the open window. Yes: There was a scuff mark on the windowsill. The candlestick knocked over during the struggle or perhaps more deliberately by the killer to obscure the deed. The body was still warm. The killer had left this room within the last ten minutes.
Another death to lay at his crowded doorstep. Poor Petrovitch. Impossible to imagine the woman could have herself inspired an enmity that would result in murder.
Careful not to touch the pills themselves, Doyle closed the :in and placed it in his bag and was at the door when he no-:iced a spot of white peeking out from behind a small mirror on the wall.