The Formula for Murder (19 page)

“Which is?”

“Lacroix is trying to find a way for the human body to rejuvenate.”

“To get younger?”

“A universal dream of man since Eve grew old and Adam started looking around for someone younger and prettier.”

“But found his male virility had gone the same place as Eve’s lovely skin,” I counter. “I’m certain that every search for the Fountain of Youth has been based upon fraud and humbug.”

“Your comments are the same as almost any medical man in London, but few people understand—or even care to understand—what Lacroix means by rejuvenation. It was even a standing joke at the college where he taught; students and faculty called him Dr. Ponce and referred to his class as Bimini, which was the mythical island where Ponce de Leon thought he’d find the Fountain of Youth.

“But Dr. Lacroix isn’t advocating some hokum about turning back the clock, making a forty-year-old twenty again—reversing the biological clock that takes us from infants with perfect skin and organs to ripe old age with wrinkles and worn-out hearts and lungs. Instead, he is selective, focusing on skin. Just as a woman’s jar of cold cream can delay or even get rid of wrinkles, he is seeking a natural substance that will revitalize the skin.”

“Sounds more like alchemy than science. Don’t alchemists search for some sort of universal remedy called a Philosopher’s Stone?”

“In matter of speaking. Some alchemists seek a substance capable of transmuting common metals into gold, others an elixir of life that can reverse or stop aging. But you have to appreciate that their fruitless quests for things today we call magic, created a great deal of scientific knowledge and the scientific method used by modern researchers.”

“You did research on this rejuvenation theory?” I’m curious. Wells doesn’t strike me as someone who would be involved in fraud or hogwash, so I am very interested as to what he actually did for “Dr. Ponce.”

“I did research on salamanders.”

“Salamanders? Those lizards that live in water?”

“They’re not actually lizards, even though they look like them. A salamander has some rather interesting characteristics. It can lose a leg or other body parts and regenerate them, but it’s not the only creature that can do it. Some worms, shellfish, and insects also have this ability. We humans can do it in a very limited way—when our bodies form scar tissue over wounds, it’s regenerating flesh.”

“Have you found out why salamanders can regrow an arm and a leg?”

“No. Lady Winsworth’s death put a halt to the research.”

“The scandal and all.”

“Not just the scandal—she was financing the research.”

“Oh, I see, by putting up the money she got first claim on a new arm or leg or face or—” I shut up because the look on his face is not pleasant. I know, I’m being catty, but it really sounds like a lot of bunk to me.

He leaves without a word and I glance over at the man wondering what he thought of the conversation. He is crunched up in the corner next to the window, asleep behind his newspaper, his hat pulled down over his eyes.

I wait patiently for Wells to return … well, I’m not sure if that’s true. Even though I have always considered myself a patient person, no one else I know would agree with me. When I am forced to sit still, I have a habit of shaking one of my legs, sometimes tapping it against something that causes others to ask why I’m kicking the object. And I have been accused many times of being afraid of silence, because when a conversation dies down I tend to pick it up again.

My other fault, one my dear mother says I have, is my dire need to make amends; that is I react badly to any sort of rejection. So, instead of sitting with my foot nervously shaking, I get up to find Mr. Wells and soothe over whatever feelings I have inadvertently ruffled.

This is why I don’t care to work with a partner—I don’t want to deal with the baggage that comes with working closely with someone else. I frequently find myself having to tiptoe around the other person because they are not keeping up or want to go in a different direction than me or I have in some way offended them and have to soothe the waters. And in the newspaper business, a partner almost always means a man. And they say women are moody.

I find Wells in the gangway between cars, leaning on the wall next to the door. The top half of the door is open and he is letting the wind soothe him.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, “I didn’t mean to belittle your work.” With that statement, I am being honest.

“You are a very intelligent woman, Nellie. More importantly, you know how to think. I admire that.”

The compliment catches me by surprise and I don’t know how to respond.

“Most women,” he continues, “even those with intelligence, spend their lives in a dark, intellectual closet, trained from infancy to let the man in their life, first their father, then their husband, do their thinking for them.”

“I suppose because my father died when I was a child and my mother never recovered from the loss of him, I didn’t have anyone else to do my thinking.”

“That may be. But even though you have a quick mind and are intelligent, you also rely almost entirely upon your instincts and evaluations of people rather than information derived from research or analysis.”

The man certainly knows how to turn a compliment into a lecture and personality assassination.

“May I ask how you derived at this brilliant assessment?”

“Listening to you. You have learned everything you know by talking to people. You talked to your friend Oscar in London, a prostitute, eavesdropped at the spa—”

“That’s how you get information when doing a criminal investigation. Criminals don’t write their actions down in a book for us to peruse. Talking with people is the only recourse I have and that puts me miles ahead of you and your book learning. Reporters are not teachers and bookworms. We work in the real world.”

I leave steaming. The gall of him.

Once again I find myself in the same quandary about Mr. Herbert George Wells as I did when I first caught him surreptitiously observing me. I am attracted to him, but I don’t appreciate him dissecting me like I am one of those lizards he cuts legs off of to see if the limb grows back.

I end up in the dining car and order tea to soothe my irritation. I know why it hit me so hard—because it’s true. I don’t have as much education as other newspaper people and rely upon my instincts—very successfully, thank you.

Wells is suddenly standing next to me.

“My apologies.”

He sits down across from me. I give him a blank stare. His comments have no meaning to me, I decide. I’m not going to let him affect me anymore. I hate emotions that drain precious energy from me.

“I was being analytical to a ridiculous extent. Your method of relying on your gut and going straight for the jugular has made you renowned in your profession.”

“Fair enough.” I set down my tea. “And I will admit that a little book learning never hurts anyone—until it gets in the way of real life. I don’t know anything about salamanders, but I did notice a little while ago you took offense when I made a remark about Lady Winsworth. Is that because she supported the research you and Dr. Lacroix conducted?” My suspicion is that it goes beyond financial support for Wells, but I start with a bit of circumspection to throw him off guard—then I’ll go for the jugular.

“Lady Winsworth wasn’t just a benefactor of Lacroix’s, she was extremely kind to me. I didn’t know the man before she began supporting his research. She introduced us and encouraged him to permit me to conduct the research despite the fact I don’t have the advanced degree in chemistry that he desired in a researcher. My degree is in teaching rather than pure science, but her sponsorship was satisfactory enough to get me the work, especially at a time when I was in desperate need of it.”

In other words, Lady Winsworth controlled the purse strings and would have pulled them tight if Lacroix had not accepted her candidate. For sure, Lacroix wasn’t going to bite the hand that fed him. I still get the hint of deeper currents, ones Wells keeps concealed. Recognizing a
NO TRESPASSING
sign, I keep smothering my natural intention to hit him with the big question.

“Your gratitude toward her is the reason you are searching for Lacroix?”

His eyes meet mine and I see smoldering anger. “I want to know what he gave her.”

“So you do believe that some potion he gave her killed her?”

“I don’t know what else to believe. She was a healthy woman of forty-five. Her one fault, if I can call it that, was that she didn’t want to lose her beauty. She didn’t realize that the more mature she became, the more beautiful she truly was. She would have taken any treatment he gave her.”

“Even an unproved or untested one?”

“That is what I’m thinking—that he gave her a potion before thoroughly testing it. Lacroix is a risk taker. He’s a mountain climber and has ascended the deadly Matterhorn.” Wells gives an appraising look. “How much do you know about him?”

“He’s a society doctor, attractive to women and uses unorthodox treatments, and somewhat sounds like what we’d call a snake oil salesman back home. Oh—and his partner is a jerk.” I lean across the table and lock eyes with him. “And I don’t need a textbook to tell me that.”

“I haven’t met Radic, but will take your word for it. However, you should know that Lacroix is a hematologist.”

I smother a groan. I’m sure I’ve heard the word, but I can’t remember exactly what it means. “Which is?”

“A blood disease specialist. It’s a small but respectable medical specialty. It’s not a popular area of practice for most doctors because so little is known about diseases of the blood. Lacroix was originally more of a medical researcher than a practicing physician. Extremely bright, he obtained a university teaching position despite his French-sounding name and middle-class background.

“He was not a popular teacher because he was exceptionally demanding. I’ve been told that he expected his students not only to be tireless in repeating experiments, but to reach further with their research goals than others had gone.”

“He sounds a bit like Dr. Pasteur who also was completely engrossed in his work.”

“You met Dr. Pasteur?”

From the tone of his voice, I can see that puts me up a notch in his evaluation of me.

“Yes, I met him in Paris.” I can’t brag any more than that, because then it would bring up the questions why and how, and I’ve been sworn to secrecy.
¹⁴
“And from what I’ve learned, Pasteur’s feet and mind are on much firmer ground than Lacroix’s.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but Lacroix’s academic downfall wasn’t from his teaching methods or his unorthodox research methods, but from his need for blood. You can’t examine blood diseases, most of which are still undefined as to cause, without blood. Doctors proved reluctant to permit him to get out his lancet and cupping glass to draw blood from their sick patients in order to do his research. A bit shortsighted by the doctors since cures will never be found if research isn’t conducted, but certainly not on the patients to whom the loss of blood might prove fatal.”

“Many people use leeches to draw what they believe is bad blood,” I interject.

“Yes, but leeches drink little and only the bad blood. Also the leeches don’t cause the infections and sometimes death occurs when doctors go from patient to patient slicing veins and using cupping to suck out blood.”

“Hmm … It’s just like the controversy between Dr. Pasteur and the medical profession. He claims that doctors are killing their patients by not washing their hands and instruments as they go from patient to patient. They won’t listen to him because they claim since he is just a chemist and not a doctor, he doesn’t really know what he is talking about. Did you know they won’t even let him administer a rabies shot to a patient, even though he discovered it, because he’s not a doctor?”

“No, I didn’t. But in regards to doctors killing patients, I tend to agree with him.”

“So how did Dr. Lacroix solve his need for blood?”

“Grave robbing, for a while. At least a mild variety of it. He hired morgue and mortuary attendants to drain blood from corpses for him. Unfortunately, a church deacon found out he’d had his dead wife drained and brought the police and the church down on his head—hard. Taking blood from bodies wasn’t a good scientific approach, anyway, because except in a few cases he couldn’t tell what the person died of. Had he been better connected socially or at least less arrogant and single-minded about his work, he might have survived the crisis with a reprimand.”

I have fleeting sympathy for Anthony Lacroix. Having been told that my aggressive reporting has made me more enemies than friends, I believe that some people will show up at my funeral not to pay respects, but to reassure themselves that I am really dead.

“What happened to him?”

“He was ordered by the medical board not to conduct any more research using human blood. Disobeying the order will result in the loss of his medical license. When he left the university, he really wasn’t fit for the quiet life of a blood doctor—operating in the dark when handling patients because no one really knows the cause and cure of most diseases, then prescribing remedies that often seem to cause more harm than good. This is where Radic came into the picture.”

“He recognized Dr. Lacroix’s work with rejuvenation as a moneymaker rather than a scientific breakthrough,” I offer.

“Quite. And I suspect that Lacroix teamed up with Radic more to get money to carry on his research than just to make money.”

“How do you figure into the equation?”

“After he teamed up with Radic and offered his peat moss rejuvenation process at the spa, a remedy he has been experimenting with while at university, he went back into research with rejuvenation, this time financed by Lady Winsworth.”

“Does he do any experiments with children?” I ask.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Did you ever come into contact with a woman named Sarah in Bath? She was a prostitute and mother of a child named Emma.”

He shakes his head, and I tell him about the woman and her child.