Comes a Time for Burning (12 page)

Thomas disengaged himself and tip-toed away from the bed. “Any coughing?”

“She’s been quiet.”

“No distress of any kind?”

“None but the worry for her mother,” Mr. Snyder allowed. “The child cries when she’s awake. I’m afraid I haven’t been much comfort.”

“Your wife works at the Clarissa regularly?”

“She’s been managing six days a week.” He managed a faint smile. “Not havin’ infants in the house helps some.”

“Matilda is the youngest?”

“She is that.”

“And the oldest?”

“That’s Robert. He’s seventeen, now. Works out to the mill. Gwendolyn—she’s sixteen. She’s to home.”

“Dr. Hardy has talked to you? That it would be best if you and Matilda were to remain here for the duration of this?”

“Doc, I can’t do that. I mean, a man has to make a livin’.”

“This disease is a frightful thing, Mr. Snyder. Until we’re certain, I would hate to send the child home, running the risk of infection for the others. And you, sir, have been just as exposed, perhaps more so. Until we are sure, observation must be conscientious.”

“Don’t guess I’m going to expose nobody out in a fishing skiff.”

“But you handle the fish, and then pass them along to the markets. We really must insist, Mr. Snyder.”

The man regarded Thomas for a moment, and then shrugged helplessly. “I guess it’s up to me. Don’t see no bars on the windows.”

“No, you don’t, sir. But I appeal to your good sense.” He saw Dr. Lucius Hardy appear in the ward, and reached out a hand to Snyder’s shoulder. “We’ll be gone but for a few minutes,” Thomas said. “Should you need anything, Mrs. Crowell is at your beck and call. And Bertha Auerbach will be here in a few minutes.”

“Well, I’m just going to sit right here and watch my two women sleep,” Snyder said, and he slid down into the chair with a sigh.

Chapter Fifteen

“I had him,” Thomas groaned. “Yesterday morning, I had him. The young man from the timber camp.” The fine drizzle had turned sideways as the two physicians left the clinic and walked down Gamble Street. Wind lashed from inland, driving the droplets like fired pellets. By the clock, it was dawn, but the sun was so reluctant to greet this day that the inlet lay black and featureless beyond the fringe of trees.

“We’ll find him,” Hardy said with far more assurance than Thomas Parks felt.

A single light flowed yellow from the tiny slab-wood cabin that served as the Port McKinney constable’s home, office and lock-up. Thomas rapped hard on the door, and was rewarded by the prompt response, bellowed in Constable George Aldrich’s thick German accent.

“The coffee is fresh,” he called and opened the door. “So, look at you two.” He stood to one side, taking Thomas’ hand in a hard grip as the physician entered the cabin. The rush of warm air carried a powerful mix of sweat, whiskey, tobacco smoke, and freshly toasted bread.

“Constable, this is Dr. Lucius Hardy. He arrived just yesterday to join the Clinic.” Aldrich’s alert blue eyes inventoried Hardy from head to toe.

“And where are you from, sir?” the constable asked.

“Most recently from Philadelphia,” Hardy replied. “More or less.”

“Ah, again the east comes to us.” The constable hauled out a large pocket watch. “You’re both early risers.” He then started to hand Thomas a metal cup, but the young physician shook his head.

“There’s no time, Constable.”

“Really?” Aldrich sounded skeptical, as if, no matter the gravity of the situation, there was always time for coffee. “So…what may I do for you?”

“We have a serious outbreak of cholera in the village, constable.”

Aldrich stopped with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth, then set it carefully on the edge of the stove. “Cholera? The summercholera?”

“No. Asiatic cholera, constable. The worst.”

“How is that possible?”

“We don’t know yet,” Thomas said. “But we have Lucy Levine at the clinic, desperately ill. And Flora Snyder.”

“Really, now.”

“You know Miss Levine?” Hardy asked, and Aldrich almost smiled.

“Of course.” He reached out for the coffee cup, hesitated, and then picked it up. “How would this happen?”

“That is exactly what we must discover. We must know with whom Lucy Levine was in contact most recently. We know that Mrs. Snyder works at the hotel. We know that Miss Levine associates on a regular basis with one of the loggers—young Ben Sitzberger.”

Aldrich smiled. “
Associates
. I like that.”

“Sitzberger isn’t yet at the clinic, but I know he is ill, and should be treated. I’m certain of it. And equally important, the Clarissa must be quarantined until we know for certain that the risk has passed.”

“You cannot quarantine the entire hotel,” Aldrich said.

“If it comes to that, we can, and we will—with your help, if necessary. We’re on the way there now, and I wanted you to accompany us. We can use all the assistance we might muster. The gravity of your office is no small resource.”

Aldrich smiled again. “The
gravity
of my office, eh? If it’s gravity you want, then you should talk with the Reverend Patterson. He preaches to me on a daily basis.
Close the Clarissa
, he says.
Close the Clarissa
.”

“For different reasons, I would imagine,” Thomas knew Patterson as a rigid, stern man who had consented to having a painful boil on his buttocks treated, and then raged against Thomas later—after the boil had healed perfectly—for exposing his undraped behind to the nursing staff while the boil’s owner was unconscious during the surgery.

“Well,” Aldrich said philosophically, “Let us go see, then.” He turned to Hardy. “Yesterday was
your
first day?” He chuckled as Hardy nodded. “Something of a tradition, this man has going.” He patted Thomas’ shoulder. “He arrives and within minutes is his own patient. You arrive, and step right into the middle of this cow pie.” He glanced at Thomas. “Lucy came to you? How did you discover her illness?”

“A friend at the hotel summoned help. Not soon enough, it would seem. Will you accompany us?” Thomas persisted.

“Of course.” Aldrich set the cup down, reached for his oil slicker and shrugged into it as he held the door, following the physicians out into the rain. He made no effort to avoid even the deepest of puddles, but stomped along between the two men. By the time they had reached Lincoln Street, a phalanx of four dogs had joined them.

“How is your wife?” Aldrich asked, aiming a kick at one small mongrel who appeared intent on biting his boot heel while the other three, larger and potentially more formidable, kept their respectful distance.

“She gave birth yesterday. A healthy boy. Mother and child are fine.”

“Well, well,” Aldrich said. “That’s something.” He skirted a particularly large puddle, and then they reached the narrow boardwalk in front of the hotel. Aldrich took hold of one of the uprights and whacked each boot in turn against the edge of the planks.

The lobby made an effort at elegance, with furniture so overstuffed it appeared bloated in its blue and gold velvet, light from the gas chandelier turned low enough that the dust didn’t show. A single gas light was turned on behind the registration counter, with no one in attendance. Beside the bank of pigeon hole mail boxes, a grandfather clock’s pendulum hung motionless, the hands frozen.

“Someone’s in the kitchen,” Aldrich said, but before they had the chance to follow the aromas, an enormous woman appeared. Her improbably golden hair was curled upward into a bun that nestled squarely on top of her skull. She wore a white muslin dress whose fringes swept the floor—not the garish gown that Thomas had imagined might be appropriate for a woman in her position. A kitchen towel was slung over one arm, and one hand held a large butcher knife.

“Gloriosa, you three are out early,” she said. “We got breakfast ready for you, and coffee, and a dry place to set yourselves…” For the first time, she noticed the grim expressions, and her heavy face glowered. “How’s my girl? First thing
I
was going to do this morning was march up to that grand clinic of yours and see what’s what.” She pointed the knife at Thomas. “But here you are. Saves me a trip.”

“Mrs. Jules, we have urgent business,” Thomas interrupted. “Miss Levine is desperately ill. We need to visit her room, and speak with the girl who first found her ill.”

“Some of the others say that she took ill. She didn’t tell
me
, so it couldn’t be all that bad. She’s a strong girl, and I suppose whatever it is will pass soon enough. She sent you down to fetch something for her?”

“Mrs. Jules,” Aldrich said, his voice easy but firm, “we must see the room. I do not wish to argue with you.”

“I am
not
arguing,” the big woman bristled. “The east garret on the third floor, as you well know, constable.”

“Mrs. Jules, one more thing,” Thomas said. “Mrs. Snyder works each day, does she not?”

“Of course she does. Don’t know what we’d do without her, the poor thing.”

“Poor thing? How is that?”

“Well, nothing that a little meat on those bones wouldn’t cure,” the massive woman said. “Such a tiny thing she is. And here she had five children of her own.” She frowned at Thomas. “She’s not…”

“Taken ill? Yes. She has. So in point of fact, you will have to find a way to do without her.”

“Oh, my soul.” Her head swiveled from one to the next.

“We must see the room,” Thomas said. The woman pointed at the staircase. With each step on the stair treads, Thomas could smell the mildew on the narrow carpet runner. He had never explored the bowels of the hotel. He knew that its owner, mentioned only as a Mr. Eggleston, lived in Portland, visited rarely, and left the daily running of the establishment to Fred and Viola Jules.

The long, carpeted stairway ran up one brocaded wall on the north side of the lobby, and passed through the ceiling to a warren of dark hallways. The farther back in the building they progressed, the darker and stuffier it became.

A single window at the end of the longest hallway looked out on the inlet. Smells other than mildew thickened the atmosphere of the building. In an alcove just before the window, a pot-bellied stove stood on a pad of bricks, its stovepipe thrusting through a blackened tin wall thimble. The stove was cold and stank, and Thomas opened the isinglass door to see that the firebox was full of all sorts of unmentionables, awaiting a blaze.

“Charming. Another floor?” Hardy asked, and they thudded up another flight of stairs to the Clarissa’s third floor. The rough fir flooring creaked under their boots, and the darkness closed in, bounded by the slope of the building’s gambrel roof. The stairway landing provided access to at least four small rooms, Thomas could see. No gas sconces marked the walls, and Hardy stopped and struck a match.

“Over here,” Aldrich said, and Hardy lit a single candle that nestled in a great bouquet of melted wax in its tin sconce. The single small flame danced in the abundant drafts, adding no cheer. Thomas held his hand over his nose as he stepped up onto the third floor landing.

“My God,” he whispered.

“This one,” Aldrich directed. The door was neither numbered nor locked. Across the landing, another door opened, and Thomas turned toward it, the light so faint that he couldn’t distinguish shape or form. The door closed.

Hardy nudged the door to Lucy Levine’s garret room with his elbow, and turned his head at the stench. Coat sleeve across his face, Thomas pushed past, struck another match and searched for a candle, finding a two-inch stub waxed onto the corner of a battered dresser. On the floor, a small coal-oil lantern rested on its side, a dark puddle of oil sinking into the rough wood flooring. Righting it, Thomas struck another match, turning the lantern’s wick high both for the light and the blast of chemical aroma from the oil.

A wire hung from a beam in the center of the room, and he looped it through the lantern’s handle.

Two single beds crowded the room, a steamer chest at the foot of one, and a single, roughly hewn armoire angled into a corner. The blankets of one bed were pulled into some semblance of order, but the other prompted a shiver up Thomas’ spine. And this was the place that somehow attracted Eleanor Stephens?

For who knew how many hours, Lucy Levine had laid in her own mess as the room closed around her. There was no sign of succor—no glassware, no bottles of elixir or any of the other patent medicines that people turned to for the ague or the grip, or when spoiled food turned their guts inside out. The disease that had struck Lucy had done so with brutal rapidity, destroying her strength and resistance, even her ability to stagger across the hallway for help. And for hours, no one had thought to look in on her. Were they so acclimated to the stench of this place that they hadn’t noticed?

Had she initially had the strength to reach the chamber pot, that strength had quickly failed her until she lay exhausted, quarts and quarts of evacuations soaking the bed, the horsehair mattress, even the floor. The enameled pot, lid in place, rested on the floor in the corner, just beyond the end of the bed. Thomas touched it with the toe of his boot, feeling the weight of a full container.

“You and Howard lifted her out of this quagmire?” Thomas turned and asked Lucius Hardy, fearing for the physician’s own welfare.

“No, not me. Howard and two of the girls here,” Hardy replied. “It appeared that they used one of the blankets off the other bed as a sling. She weighed next to nothing, I might add.”

“So little left,” Thomas said. Aldrich had stepped inside the room, but had then retreated quickly and now waited out in the landing. He had opened a tiny window and stood in the blast of wet air banking in off the inlet.

“By the time I completed the preliminary clean-up at the clinic, I was imagining that a full bath in sublimate would be welcome,” Hardy said. “As it is, your supply of phenol and alcohol have been severely depleted.”

“Everything in this room must be burned,” Thomas said, and even as he uttered the words, he heard rapid boot falls on the stairway behind them, a flood of light blooming in the stairwell. Fred Jules appeared with a lantern held high.

“Aldrich, what are you after?” he snapped at the constable, and then saw the other two men. “My wife said there is a problem with Miss Levine.”

Thomas had met Fred Jules only once, and at that time, had thought that nothing could perturb the man’s good nature. His ruddy face was haloed by a ruff of white hair, and even though almost a head shorter than his imposing wife, still Fred Jules was a burly, powerful man, portly of belly with shirtsleeves rolled up as if he’d been interrupted with his arms elbow deep in a vat of something. He advanced across the landing toward Thomas. It was not humor on his lively face this time, but concern.

“Dr. Parks, how is my girl? Why didn’t someone tell me about all this?”

“Your girl, sir, is gravely ill. She is being treated at the clinic, but whether she will survive the day is open to question.”

“As I came up the stairs, I heard what you said,” Jules bleated. “Burn?”

“Everything,” Thomas said. “All the bedding. This awful bed itself. All the clothing. Everything.”

“Now see here, it can all be washed as new.”

“No, it can’t,” Lucius Hardy interrupted. “Look here, man. Even the room must be thoroughly disinfected, the walls and floor washed down with corrosive sublimate solution.”

“But…” Fred held out both hands beseechingly. “Just who is going to do all that? You said that Lucy is dreadfully ill. Who called you to fetch her?”

“I heard her name once…Winston?”

“Bessie Mae Winston?”

“Surely so. We’ll need to speak with her.”

“She is downstairs with…” Jules bit off the rest. “Everything washed?”

“Yes. Your hotel staff shall do that,” Hardy said coldly. “With the exception of Mrs. Snyder, who herself is at the clinic, dreadfully ill.” He stepped closer, glaring at Jules. “Sir, do you
smell
the condition of this room? Suppose I were to ask
you
to spend the night in this foul bed?”