The Formula for Murder (10 page)

“Yuck. Sounds disgusting. People drink that stuff?”

“They do if they want to stay young and beautiful or in the case of men, still virile in old age. And can afford it. Youth is not cheap or pretty on the dark side of middle age.”

“You’re telling me this doctor mixes up a batch of animal organs and people pay to swig it down? Is this poison what killed the society lady?”

“What killed the society lady is still an open question at the coroner’s office, but the newspapers tried the doctor already and found him guilty. Something I’m quite familiar with. Anyway, Lady Winsworth was an actress over forty, maybe older, she never told, at least truthfully, not only because she married Lord Winsworth, first baronet of Barberry, who, if I’m correct, is a few years younger than her, though she looks much younger. She was also very vain. It was imperative to her that she keep her youthful beauty. Being willing to try anything, the Fountain of Youth rejuvenation that Dr. Lacroix sold fit the bill. What she died of still puzzles the medical examiner. From your experiences as a crime reporter, you would know the coroners’ doctors have very limited scientific resources.”

“So, who or what do you think killed her?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure that she was having an affair with Dr. Lacroix.”

“That’s a perfect motive for the husband to kill her. But how do you know she was having an affair with the doctor?”

He grins. “My study of human nature tells me. A woman desperate to reassure herself that she wasn’t growing old, a younger man who may hold the secret to her maintaining her beauty and who himself is considered attractive by women in general.”

“And is there a jealous husband in this scenario?”

“Yes, the police are considering that angle, especially since he had a lover, who is quite a bit younger than Lady Winsworth. But I understand that he was quite devoted to his wife despite his wanderings because she was popular in social circles, an area in which he fared badly. He got lucky and made his pile in a South African gold mine, but his father had been a Liverpool dockworker. It was the gold strike that got him the baronet title after he spread around some of his ample abundance to the Queen’s favorite causes. But, it was Lady Winsworth’s popularity that got him in with the cream of society. He doesn’t have the best of personalities. He’s not just a bull in a china cabinet, but a mean bull.

“Now, while there’s been no charges against Dr. Lacroix officially filed, and the case is still open, I can tell you that Lacroix has more to fear from Lord Winsworth than a police investigation. Winsworth is a rough and tumble guy, the kind who knows you can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs. From what I’ve heard of the man, Dr. Lacroix would end up floating facedown in the river if Winsworth gets his hands on him.”

I winced at the image of a body facedown in the water. “This Lacroix sounds like a charlatan.”

“I’m not sure. I’ve heard things from both sides of the aisle about him. He believes in rejuvenation, taking years off of people, turning back the clock a bit. And he knows that most people will sell their soul for continual youth. It’s people like Lady Winsworth and the rest of the men and women that gave me the inspiration for creating Dorian Gray.”

Oscar continues in his musical voice and with that graceful wave of the hand that is always so characteristic of him. “I’ve been expounding on my beliefs about beauty for years.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
is just a … oh, how would one say it … a culmination of my spoken thoughts put down in the written word. My book discloses how our desire to keep young and beautiful leads us to do things we never dreamed we’d do and how in the end it destroys us. Well, it makes no difference, doctors—and witch doctors—have been practicing the art for thousands of years. The Ebers Papyrus, a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian medical book talks about using the organs of animals to give humans the power and strength of beasts. They used the organs of bulls, for example, to improve human vitality.”

“That’s a lot of bull.” The pun is shameless on my part, but I can’t help it.

“Don’t be so certain. There’s a very prominent French-American doctor in Paris named Brown-Séquard. He’s renowned worldwide for his work with the human nervous system, yet, like Lacroix, he believes that rejuvenation can be accomplished with human beings.”

Oscar leans across the table for his next pronouncement and I know it will be a bombshell.

“To revitalize his sex life, he personally takes an extract he prepares from the testes of a bull.”

“Oh God.” I can’t hold back a giggle.

“He claims it enhances his virility. And there’s a Liverpool fighter named Billy the Bull who claims he takes a teaspoon of bull semen before every fight and says it’s made him a champion. I, myself, have no problems in the area of male sexuality, but I’ve been considering—”

“Oscar, spare me the details! Please, just tell me more about this Dr. Lacroix.”

“That’s about all I know. He’s a doctor who has tuned in on a need aching to be filled—eternal youth. Let me tell you something about youth. There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth! Women want to return to the blush of youth and beauty, men want back those halcyon days when they bedded the headmaster’s daughter and then went on to row for Oxford. And they will pay anything to get it. Naturally, rejuvenation is restricted to only the rich because the poor are too busy finding food and shelter to worry about what they look like. Nowadays, people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”

“You’re cynical, Oscar.”

“Nellie, my dear, society runs on looks. I know, now, that when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Shocking, but true. One day you will discover I am merely honest in a world in which people hide their motives deeper than their money.” He reaches across and pats my hand. “Nellie, dearest, you have fled my tirades.”

“No, I’m just confused, which isn’t an uncommon state of mind for me. I find a connection between the doctor in Bath and Hailey hard to swallow. Bath is what, over a hundred miles from here, two or three hours by train? And while the story about the doctor and the society woman may titillate London society where the names of the people are known, it’s not the sort of story that would interest readers on the other side of the Atlantic for long.”

“Nellie, as I so adequately put it in my book, the search for beauty is the real secret of life. That said, my dear, this is not just a story about a doctor in Bath and a London society woman, but a story about a doctor who is trying to sell eternal youth, something even you barbaric Americans would find interesting.”

Before I can object, he holds up his hand. “As you get older you will understand. In the meantime, if you change your mind I have a friend in Bath, Lady Callista Chilcott, who I’ll refer you to if you want to follow up on gossip about the doctor. I know she has been treated for that terrible disease called ugly old age by the doctor.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think I will be pursuing the story.”

“I just rained on your murder theory.”

“No, not at all, you merely narrowed down my theories. I don’t see a connection between Hailey and the Bath doctor. If Bath and the Fountain of Youth are out, there is still the wealthy man who would kill to hide an affair with an American woman that produces an illegitimate child.”

I meet Oscar’s eye. “He’s out there and I’m going to find him.”

17

By the time I leave Oscar I have a headache. Despite his many funny stories and perfectly outrageous observations of people and society in general, the pain in my head comes from my confused state of mind.

After I kiss Oscar good-bye in the French cheek-and-cheek fashion—he spends a great deal of time in Paris—and board a hansom back to my hotel, my thoughts are muddled. I’m basically at a loss as what to do next.

If it wasn’t the dead of night I could let the sights of the city occupy my mind, but there is nothing to see after my cab leaves the glittering West End. Everything is dark and shut down, with an occasional gaslight glowing in the mist. The wet city streets are rolled up for the night, so I lean back, shut my eyes, and listen to the
clip-clop
of the hooves on cobblestones and the heavy breathing of the hansom cab driver from his elevated seat above me.

What a day. What a life! I am exhausted, fatigued, ready to drop.

I have hardly stopped running since I broke the madhouse story three years ago. A doctor told me I am suffering from fatigue, “pure exhaustion” is what he labeled it, and said I should slow down, but I never seem to have the time nor the opportunity.

If I let sleeping dogs lie and give up my chase for Hailey’s killer—and I have not a clue about her rich man except that he might have blue eyes—I can go home, take some time off, and get the much-needed rest my body craves before deciding what I want to do with my career.

But then I would be deserting Hailey. And everyone would continue believing she killed herself. How can I do this when I’m not convinced that she did? And even if I had absolute proof that she had taken her own life because she was betrayed by her lover, my attitude toward those who harm others is definitely Old Testament—an eye for an eye. The biblical phrase has been called the law of retaliation and even though it is unladylike and lacking in Christian charity, as far as I’m concerned the lover can burn in the hell of public ridicule with his reputation sullied.

Or am I just fooling myself because I desperately want to believe she didn’t commit suicide, as Inspector Abberline so adequately told me not once but twice?

Even dear Oscar who loves a good chase said, “Give up the ghost and go home, Nellie.”

My cab stops and I open my eyes. Somehow I must have dozed off for it seems like I just left the Langham and now I’m in front of my hotel.

I give the doorman a grave smile as he helps me out. All I want to do is get in bed and forget everything. Maybe sleep will bring answers.

“Rats!” I’m just about to enter the lobby when I realize I didn’t tip the doorman. I reach into the pocket of my coat where I keep a small hoard of coins for taxis and pull one out, along with a small scrap of paper.

As I walk across the lobby, I glance down at the piece of paper.

My feet come to a screeching halt.

It’s a ticket stub for a train to Bath.

18

Bath. The Waters of Life. Dr. Lacroix and the wealthy noblewoman seeking eternal youth.

I sit in my room, on my bed, examining the train ticket stub for the umpteenth time. No matter how I look at it, how I read the words and numbers, it is obvious that the ticket is one to Bath—issued the day before Hailey killed herself.

It must have been in the diary and slipped out when I stuck the book in my pocket or as I pulled the book out to put in my purse.

So many stunning pieces to the puzzle have fallen into place that I am quietly contemplative, rather than wildly excited.

No longer do I have the slightest doubt that Hailey, her lover, and the news story are intertwined. I don’t know how they relate, but shortly before her death, Hailey had set off for Bath. It may have been just one trip of several to research a story about the death of the baronet’s wife.

Now, not by choice, but by necessity I am going to Bath.

It makes no difference that it’s after midnight, I make my plans right away and prepare a telegraph for both Oscar and Inspector Abberline, informing them I am going to Bath and requesting their assistance.

Wasting no time, I go down to the telegraph kiosk in the hotel lobby and prepare wires.

In my telegram to Oscar I ask for an introduction to the society matron, Lady Callista Chilcott, who he said has had treatments at the Aqua Vitea spa. I also tell Oscar to tell the woman that I am doing a story about the spa and not to mention Hailey. If she is a patron of the spa, I doubt she would not be cooperative about intentionally revealing a scandal.

From the police inspector I request the name and an introduction to, if he would be so kind, the police official in Bath who is in charge of the death of Lady Winsworth at the spa, wording the request as if I were simply researching a story as opposed to sticking my nose in a police investigation.

The police inspector would not appreciate a knock on his door this late, and I’m sure Oscar will not be in for hours, so my instructions are that the two missives be delivered first thing in the morning with a request that the messenger boy take an immediate reply.

I don’t know how people communicated before the telegraph wire revolutionized communications. I can hardly function without it. Getting mail delivered to the office three times a day in New York is simply inadequate, especially since it took days or even weeks to get there! Sending a telegraph across town or around the world, then having a boy rush it by foot or bike to the recipient, the feat often accomplished in less than an hour from almost anywhere, has brought the entire civilized portion of the world into contact.

As I leave the cable kiosk in the hotel lobby I can’t help notice, only because of the lateness of night, a man sitting in one of the lobby chairs, with his head buried in a newspaper. Poor fellow, I hope he hasn’t been stood up, for he appears to be waiting for someone—dressed in a raincoat, hat, with an umbrella, all ready to leave.

On my way up the elevator back to my room, a chilling thought follows me: What if Hailey was killed because of the story?

Maybe her married lover killed her to stop a scandal that would ruin his reputation. I’m unsure whether he has anything to do with the news story she was working on. Perhaps that was how they met.