The Devil's Grin - a Crime Novel Featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes (23 page)

‘
I am sorry. I wished…’
I trailed off and looked at his threadbare shoes. ‘I wished I could end this now.’ How useless these words were, I thought.

He ignored my remark and asked: ‘Does Bowden trust you now?’

‘
No. Not entirely at least. But I do hope he believes I’m worse than anyone in the
Club
.’ I avoided looking into his eyes.

‘
What did you tell him?’

‘
It is a long story,’
I said evasively and added: ‘I’ll tell you when this is over.’

‘
You will choose me for the trial, Anna,’ he ordered.

‘
Forget it.’

‘
You will,’ he growled, ‘and you will also have to find a way to avoid killing dozens of people.’

Stunned I looked up into his face
.

‘
What do you think am I doing, Sherlock? Do I look like I enjoy myself?’

‘
Hum… maybe you do,’ h
e said taking three strides forward to pick at my newly tailored waist coat. ‘Well made, wool and silk. Quite expensive I dare say.’

I slapped his hand away. ‘You are an idiot!
That was a weak attempt. You need to come up with something better to make me hate you so much that I send you off to get injected with tetanus. What the hell are you thinking?’

His grey eyes met mine and he said quietly: ‘I’d very much prefer if you’d not have romantic feelings for me.’

What a flood of emotion he caused with that one sentence! Frantically I searched for words. But all I could squeeze out was a simple: ‘Me, too.’

~~~

I was sitting on our cherry tree, my father calling up to me: ‘Anna! You will come down now!’

‘
Forget it! I will not wear that dress! It is so ugly! And I will surely not go visit that bloody man on the cross!’

I woke up laughing, thinking of my father’s final attempt to get me into church. Then, I noticed I hadn’t been laughing for weeks. Quickly, the happy memory faded.

~~~

Stark and Anton stood in the large dining hall of Fulham Road’s workhouse. The vaulted ceilings were reminiscent of
a church, but the odour wasn’t. The aroma of stale porridge and sweat, mould and dust were carried along by the cold air chafing frigid stone walls.

The inmates had dressed in their best attire for the occasion: women with clean linen dresses, white aprons, and neat caps. Men wearing styles of greater variety – some from the shoemaker store with leather aprons, heavy trousers and boots; some from the farm with equally sturdy clothes, but all were exceptionally clean. They wanted to look appealing, noticed Anton with a heavy heart while watching them lining up to sign the consent.

Anton and Stark selected more than fifty subjects from the large mass. They should suffice for the first tests. The day before, Anton had convinced Bowden that he’d be the one with the final word in the selection process. He wanted strong and healthy adults. No children, no old or undernourished people, no pregnant or nursing women. He argued that the mortality rate may be higher in these groups. Dead paupers must raise suspicion, Anton had said, and Bowden believed him.

He could see the tall man getting closer with each pauper Anton examined. For more than half an hour did Anton avoid the tall man’s gaze until he finally stood before him, holding the signed contract in his outstretched hand.

Anton fingered the tall man’s biceps and ribs, pulled the lower lids down to check the colour of the eyeballs and said: ‘Not this one’, to Stark, without ever addressing the man in front of him.

‘
Why? He looks comparatively healthy,’ was Stark’s surprised answer.

‘
Too
old and undernourished, I will not use him,’ said Anton, shoving the tall man to the side and shouting: ‘Next one!’

He knew he could expect a visitor tonight.

Chapter
Nineteen

The only man I ever loved
lay next to me. He gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and…

I opened my eyes. It was still dark.

~~~

The tall man had not app
eared last night, but Anton didn’t think too much about it. All he had done was to refuse an order.

But h
e didn’t see him at Fulham’s nor in the other two workhouses they inspected. Maybe he was disappointed and didn’t want to talk to him, Anton hoped. But after yet another night, he got worried and placed the vase into the window.

No one came and he knew something went wrong.

~~~

…
and said
: ‘I must leave now,’ his smile was fading.

‘
Why?’

‘
Death is coming for me.’

‘
I will come with you.’

I sucked in the cold night air and squeezed my eyes shut. Shall the water stay inside and drown my wretched soul.

~~~

‘
Strowbridge,
I need to talk to Dr Bowden. Send him a wire, if you please,’ ordered Anton the moment he walked into his laboratory in the early morning.

Strowbridge nodded obediently and left. There had been a recent change of climate in the lab. His two assistants were friendlier and more cooperative than ever. But the surveillance was still under operation.

Now only Bonsell was left in the lab and he was the less observant of the two. Carefully, Anton took the beakers containing the liquid pure cultures of cholera germs and walked them over to his workbench. He would need both, active and heat inactivated bacteria for the tests on human subjects. His assistants had already sterilised four fresh beakers for him. He would seal them now for tomorrow’s use. He knew what to do. He had done the same with the tetanus germs.

‘
Mr Bonsell, would you give me a hand?’ he asked in a friendly manner.

Bonsell obediently walked over to Anton, who sat in front of the Bunsen burner. All four beakers were standing next to the flame. Bonsell eyed the liquid cultures.

‘
Be careful, they are active,’ s
aid Anton with a low voice. A sideway glance at Bonsell’s hands told him that his words had the desired effect - they were shaking slightly.

‘
Take these empty Petri dishes, cover the two beakers with them, and place the beakers into the water bath. It needs exactly 80°C for exactly two hours. I will prepare the active ones in the meantime.’

Bonsell nodded. He did not know that the process of vaccine production would require exactly twenty minutes of heat inactivation, balancing the killing of germs while leaving cell surface proteins mostly intact. A risky undertaking, as the cultures were to be injected into humans. Any surviving germ could cause an infection and that hazard was very real, given the short time of heat treatment. But Anton made sure the cultures would be boiled to death and no life could be threatened.

Bonsell’s hands were shaking.

‘
Pull yourself together, Bonsell! The germs are in a bottle, they are not going to jump at you.’

Bonsell’s nervous eyes shot to Anton and back to the flasks before he took the Petri dishes and placed them carefully on the beakers’ mouths. The liquid shook, and the glass dishes made little clonking noises as he carried them over to the water bath. As soon as Bonsell had turned his back, Anton started to count down from twenty.

Quickly and carefully, as he had practised at home, Anton plugged the active cholera cultures with a rubber stopper and made sure the seal was very tight -
sixteen
. He opened his small bag -
eleven
, removed two identical bottles -
eight
, and placed them on his lab bench -
five
. Then he slipped the bottles filled with cholera germs into two separate leather bags inside his doctor’s bag -
two
. At home, he would add a large amount of creosote and pour them into the Thames the next morning, when they would be harmless.

Bonsell turned around and Anton was back under surveillance. After two more minutes, Strowbridge returned.

Around noon he received a wire from Bowden:
‘Will call tonight, six o’clock, your quarters, JB’

~~~

Anton made tea and placed two cups and the tea pot onto his coffee table. He left the armchair for Bowden and placed one of his kitchen chairs opposite to it. Two bangs announced Bowden’s arrival. Anton opened and beckoned him in.

‘
Dr Bowden, thank you for coming. Please take a seat. Can I offer you some tea?’

Bowden nodded and inspected the cup before taking a small sip. Then he set it down and looked expectantly at Anton.

‘
The cholera cultures are ready, Dr Bowden. Bonsell and I prepared enough liquid of active and heat-killed bacteria to test them tomorrow if you should choose so. However, I must caution you - we have to use them within the next two days. If kept at this state for too long, they will be rendered ineffective.’

Bowden nodded. He hadn’t said anything yet. Anton leaned back in his chair and the wooden backrest produced a creak.

‘
Do you want me to tell you what we are doing next?’ he asked the old man coolly.

Bowden’s mouth tried to fight back a chilly smile.

‘
Dr Bowden, I know you trust me about that far.’ Anton held up his right hand, his thumb and index finger almost touching. ‘But remember, I can be convicted for what I have done for you. I am open with you. So open, that it shocks you. Still, you can not come to a decision, whether to trust me or not. Why is that?’

‘
You are German,’ s
aid Bowden simply.

Anton was flabbergasted.

‘
Well, that’s neither my fault, nor should it be a problem. England is my home. I do not have many memories I’m fond of when it comes to my life back in Germany,’ he replied with great contempt in his voice.

Bowden did not move; he only smiled coldly and unbelieving.

‘
A
gain a decision I can’t make for you. But I’m getting tired here. I know that you picked new subjects for the cholera trial. You did so several days ago.’

Bowden lost his grin and looked shocked.

‘
I am not stupid
, Dr Bowden. That is after all why you chose me in the first place. I am observant. I noticed paupers had disappeared from the work houses. And only those individuals who signed the consent, who have not been chosen for the tetanus trail and have no family. These were not many. Twenty subjects, ten men and ten women, if I counted correctly. You had to move them to a different location because you want to infect them with cholera and you can’t do so under the eyes of half London.

Anton had not taken his gaze off Bowden.

Slowly, all air in Bowden’s lungs escaped in one long sigh. The body of the rigid man moulded itself into the gentle bends of the tattered arm chair.

‘
Dr Kronberg, I think it is time I introduce you to Broadmoor.’ He sounded relieved as he said it.

‘
I know Broadmoor and Nicholson
. He is driven man and probably the right one for you. He has no scruples or other moral baggage,’ noted Anton.

Only minutes later, t
he two men agreed on taking Bowden’s brougham to Broadmoor early the next morning.

~~~

I sat in a rocking chair and looked down onto my pale and bony legs. My hands, mottled by a too long life, rested on my knees and held an apple and a knife. There was no one who would bemoan my death, I noticed with
regret. What did I survive for?