The Devil's Grin - a Crime Novel Featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes (22 page)

‘
Lanolin,’ I
informed him, ‘will help to heal the skin quickly and has antibacterial qualities.’ I released him then and looked into his face. ‘I’m not ready for Bowden, I can barely think.’ I didn’t mention that I was about to panic, but I guess that didn’t escape his notice.

‘
Bowden knows you have been
ill?’

‘
Yes, he does. I asked Mrs Wimbush to send a wire to the Medical School
three days ago.’

‘
Any clue what he could want other than you back in your lab
oratory?’ he asked.

‘
No
.’

He rose and waved his arm for me to sit.
Standing next to the fireplace, he spoke: ‘Anna, trust yourself in this as I trust you. You are an excellent actress. In fact, the best I know. You are intelligent, observant, and you can adapt to any situation. Bowden knows you are sick, so he will not be surprised to notice you are not yourself. You can pretend to feel weaker than you really are. Lay in bed when he calls, close your eyes often, breathe heavily, you know the game.’

So assuring was his
speech, I started to believe him. With a small grin he added: ‘Bowden can impossibly be half as sharp as you.’

I lifted my hands
then and held them parallel to the floor. They shook severely.

‘
I can’t. Not today,’ my voice was about to break and he must have noticed it.

‘
Hum…
’ he grumbled, ‘that serious.’

A moment later he clapped his hands together, told me not to worry myself
, to go to bed, and find some rest.

‘
What is the plan?’ I asked his back
, which was almost out the door now.

He
turned and stuck his face through the open crack, produced a boyish smile, and answered: ‘Holdup is the plan. Bowden will find it impossible to pay you a visit tonight’

The door snapped shut and I found myself trusting Holmes
without detailed explanations. How odd.

Chapter
Seventeen

I was lying on the
cold ground on a large and empty field, unable to move a muscle. A tall man, clad in a black robe, his face hidden by a hood, towered over me. I knew him. He had finally come for me. A scythe shone in the moonlight. Slowly, it fell. He had cut my feet off. I screamed. The scythe fell again, and again, and again, cutting my legs into slices. I screamed and begged him to cut my head off next.

I opened my eyes. A cold and wet blanket stuck to my body. Day broke.

~~~

I stared into t
he glass and nodded at my own reflection, trying to convince myself that I was able to face the world of Dr Anton Kronberg again.

~~~

It took Anton a considerable time to get dressed, walk down onto the street and find a hansom to London Medical School. He wiped his moist forehead as he sat down in the cab and condemned his weakness. The timing was more than inconvenient.

He found his two assistants in the lab, preparing a fresh batch of media. Everyone adhered to etiquette: Anton bade them a good morning and they enquired about his health.

However, Anon noticed the surveillance had fortified. He struck a match on the table and lit the Bunsen burner in front of him. How much time would he have left? he wondered.

Using a magnifying glass, he inspected the colonies that had formed on the solid media. The Petri dishes clinked quietly while he handled them. Behind him, his two assistants were silent and he could feel their stares boring into his back.

He could see a
vast diversity of bacterial colonies that had formed under both anaerobic and aerobic conditions. He would need a lot of mice to test these on. Anton turned to face his two companions.

‘
Mr
Strowbridge, we will need at least one hundred mice to test these germs. I need you to procure them immediately. And supplement the cages and the fodder, please,’ said Anton with a thin voice that was meant to reflect his weakened state.

Strowbridge nodded and left, while Bonsell stayed behind and moved a bit closer to Anton, compensating for the lack of his colleague and backup. Several minutes after Strowbridge had left, Anton heard a faint footfall in the hallway. It sounded like Bowden. Meanwhile Bonsell had squeezed himself a little too close to Anton.

He lowered his voice
: ‘Mr Bonsell, are you resistant to cholera?’ He held a slender iron lance into the Bunsen burner’s flame, just above the hottest blue.

‘
I know you are supposed to keep an eye on me, Bonsell.’ He pushed the glowing lance into the solid media. The hiss made Bonsell jump. ‘Be careful, I can get rough should you hinder my work!’ growled Anton at last.

‘
Dr Kronberg!’
cried Bonsell in disbelief and took a step back, possibly afraid Anton would drive the smouldering lance into his hands if he wouldn’t keep them off the lab bench.

‘
I mean it, Bonsell. The way you handled that woman was most unprofessional,’ he barked using up his feeble breath. ‘You left a trail of highly contagious faeces that contaminated my entire laboratory. Or how do you think did I contract cholera? And worst of all - you risked a contamination of the valuable pure cultures. Your careless actions threw back our work for more than a week!’

Anton had risen to his feet and his face was now very close to Bonsell’s. ‘Should you get too close to me while I work with my cultures, or should you so much as think of touching my work, I will break your arm!’

‘
Well, well, Dr
Kronberg,’ interrupted Bowden with a snarl. He had just entered the lab and must have overheard them. Anton was satisfied.

‘
Mr
Bonsell, if you could leave us alone for a moment,’ said Bowden and positioned himself to Anton’s right, his arms folded over his chest, eyes black like the fetid mud on the Thames’ bank. Anton sat back down and let Bowden tower over him.

‘
Dr Kronberg, how far did you advance with the cholera germs?’

‘
I have isolates that need to be characterised and identified. Strowbridge is getting mice this very moment. I’ll use them to test the cultures and in no more than five days time we should be able to tell which ones are the cholera germs. After that I can grow the amount you require.’

Bowden nodded and took a step closer. Anton felt like drowning in the dark pool of Bowden’s eyes.

‘
How come you contracted cholera? Shouldn’t you, of all, know how to avoid it?’

‘
One would expect so, yes,’ noted Anton. ‘It was necessary, nonetheless.’ He let Bowden digest his cryptic statement.

‘
I don’t understand,’ said Bowden. No surprise, thought Anton and explained: ‘My two assistants have brought a dying woman here and smeared a trail of her contagious faeces from the entrance all though my laboratory. I had two choices – I fume the room with concentrated acid and sacrifice my tetanus cultures or I scrub the floor. I chose the latter.’

‘
You could have told them
,’ Bowden jerked his head towards the door, ‘to do it for you.’

‘
Excuse me, Dr Bowden, but did they not prove unreliable?’

Bowden’s eyes narrowed and he considered what he had learned for
a long moment. Then he leaned towards Anton and rasped: ‘What, in your opinion, should we be doing with the isolated cholera germs?’

Anton gazed into the flame. In contrast to all other fires, the Bunsen burner’s flame was perfectly steady. He knew his answer would decide whether he survived this day or not.

He swallowed the possibility of a very short life span a
nd answered calmly: ‘I can only guess, Dr Bowden. But considering the fact that you abducted a cholera victim must raise the impression you are a man without scruples.’

Bowden’s arteries on both sides of his neck pulsated visibly and his face started to flush.

Anton smiled then and added admiringly: ‘I like that.’

The colour drained from Bowden’s face again and Anton spoke softly: ‘You are well aware that
my
neck is already in
your
noose. I euthanized the woman. That might be interpreted as manslaughter, but more likely as murder. How often do I have to prove my trustworthiness, Dr Bowden?’ Anton tried to keep most of the rage out of his voice, just a little remained audible, to let Bowden taste his impatience.

‘
I repeat my question: What are we doing then?’ hissed Bowden and Anton saw the door of opportunity open.

‘
Test both, germs and vaccines, on human subjects,’ he answered coolly.

Bowden’s face relaxed, but there was still a trace of doubt in his eyes. Anton took a deep plunge into the black and let his imagination go rampant. He leaned forward and said in a conspiring tone: ‘Considering that the Kaiser plans a war against England, I would try to develop highly aggressive strains of pathogenic bacteria and use them in warfare.’

It was an insane idea, a wild guess, something to press the point that Anton had absolutely no scruples.

It showed the desired effect - Bowden was visibly blown away.

Chapter
Eighteen

Two days later, Anton and Stark met with Mr Standrincks, chairman of the Holborn Union board of guardians. The latter was to distribute contracts in all of Holborn’s workhouses, which allowed the testing of novel vaccines on inmates. The
Club
had prepared leaflets that ought to be signed by willing men, women, and children to take part in vaccine test trails. Most of them couldn’t read well enough and thus missed the small clause - it allowed the
Club
to inject active bacteria any time of their choosing to test the efficiency of immunisation. None of the paupers knew they were about to sign their own death sentence - for the pitiful price of two sovereigns.

As the poorest of London were to receive money in exchange for a small prick in their biceps, the
Club
expected a large number of volunteers to choose from. After their meeting in Standrincks’s office, the three men left with a cab to inspect Fulham Road’s workhouse. The selection process would start tomorrow.

~~~

The vase was waiting on his coffee table
when Anton returned to his flat in the evening. He stood frozen in his doorway and only reluctantly moved into his room while gazing into every corner to find his visitor. But the room was empty.

Anton didn’t dare touch the vase, not even to toss it out of the small window. He knew too well what it meant and he wouldn’t agree.

Only five minutes later two sharp raps announced his arrival and the tall man entered without waiting for Anton’s invitation.

Standing at the door he said simply: ‘I saw you today, Anna, needless to say that I want you to select me.’

And my guard fell, so soon. I shuddered.

‘
No,’
I breathed, turning away from him to face the window.

I heard his footsteps approaching. ‘I was under the impression that we are working together. How else can I appear in court to testify?’

‘
The tests are legal. We give out contracts for signed consent,’ my voice reflected back into the room. The glass I had spoken to had gotten cloudy.

Holmes was quiet for a moment and I turned around. My hands held on to each other behind my back.

Contemplating, h
e rubbed his forehead.