The Scent of Murder (30 page)

‘But the cost of all these measures, Doctor McCleland, the cost …’ an elderly gentleman protested.

‘To be any less careful would be false economy, Mr Burke,’ Dody replied.

‘We have funds set aside for such emergencies,’ a man introduced to Dody earlier as the treasurer reassured the others.

‘I will leave the budget to you, then.’ Dody rose to her feet and addressed Lady Fitzgibbon. ‘And now, Your Ladyship, if you would kindly escort me to the children’s wards …’

The men at the table rose. Dody and Her Ladyship left the room, the door closing upon the concerned mutterings of the gentlemen within.

‘They are good men, Doctor. This is as much a shock to them as it is to you,’ Lady Fitzgibbon said.

‘And the Master? When he returns to find all this going on, is he likely to be just as shocked — I mean not only about the outbreak, but the beatings too?’

‘Undoubtedly. As the gentlemen said, everyone thinks very highly of him.’

Dody paused for thought. ‘And you, Lady Fitzgibbon, do you agree with the board’s assessment?’

Her Ladyship flicked Dody a tight smile. ‘Oh …’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t expect my opinion is of much value.’

Dody spent the next several hours examining the younger workhouse children. She found no new cases of scarlet fever in the mothers’ and under-seven children’s ward, but several in the motherless children’s ward. Soon every bed in the infirmary was full and more had to be carried in, resulting in wall-to-wall beds with no walking space between them. Dody instructed Lady Fitzgibbon and her band of volunteers in isolation nursing techniques, the best foods to give the children with ulcerated throats, how to take and record temperatures, and the signs to look for that would necessitate emergency medical intervention.

Matron failed to make an appearance, despite being summoned by Dody to assist her in the older girls’ dormitory. When the female porter sent to fetch her returned, she said the Matron was not to be found in her quarters, nor were many of her clothes and belongings.

‘The first to flee the sinking ship,’ Dody commented to Lady Fitzgibbon as they proceeded to the older girls’ dormitory.

They found several of the older girls suffering from the early stages of scarlet fever: chills, sore throats, moderately high temperatures and pungent bodily odours from infectious exudate.

Her Ladyship conscientiously recorded Dody’s suggestions in a notebook produced from her reticule.

There was no known cure for scarlet fever. Certain herbal mixtures were thought to relieve the symptoms, but Dody had her doubts about their efficacy. Some, such as belladonna, were downright dangerous. She preferred a more scientific, evidence-based approach.

‘Swab the severely ulcerated throats with silver nitrate,’ she instructed Lady Fitzgibbon. ‘For sore throats we give a gargle of chlorate of potassium and phosphate of hydrastine as often as necessary. Sponge those with high fever once or twice daily in a warm bicarbonate solution.’

Lady Fitzgibbon raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘This carries off the surplus heat, renders the skin soft and pliant, and diminishes the skin eruptions,’ Dody explained. ‘For itching, we rub the affected areas with chamomile lotion to discourage scratching. I will give laudanum to children I see in extreme pain. Unfortunately there is little we can do other than make the children as comfortable as possible and let the fever take them where it must.’

They found the most alarming case of scarlet fever in the girls’ dormitory, belonging to a hollow-faced child called Alice Spurge. The cadaveric smell exuding from the girl’s mouth told Dody what she needed to know before she had even pulled up her nightgown to expose the extensive scarlet rash. They were unable to rouse the child. It was the worst case Dody had seen outside the over-crowded infirmary.

‘There is no space left for her there,’ Dody said. ‘We need to move her as far away from the others in this room as possible and screen off her bed,’ she instructed.

A porter was called and much shuffling of beds ensued. The two girls who usually shared Alice’s bed were found other bedfellows.

Dody spied an empty bed and made a bee-line towards it. ‘Whose bed is this?’ she asked a thin, dark-skinned child.

‘That were Bessie’s, miss,’ the girl answered.

‘She had a bed all to herself?’

‘No, miss. She shared it with Edie Pratt.’

Edie. Dody remembered now. She looked up and down the dormitory and failed to see Edie among the cluster of thin, worried faces lifted towards her.

Dody turned to Lady Fitzgibbon. ‘Your scullery maid. She should be here in isolation with the other girls.’

Lady Fitzgibbon regarded Dody blankly for a moment. When the significance of Dody’s words struck home, she turned again to the dark-skinned girl. ‘Where is Edie, child?’ she asked. ‘It is most important that we find her.’

The girl met the eyes of another and both shrugged.

‘Speak up,’ Lady Fitzgibbon insisted. ‘Matron is not here. You will not be in trouble. It is very important that we know where Edie is.’

‘At the kennels, M’Lady,’ the girl all but whispered. ‘’Elping the Master exercise the dogs.’

Dody had a hollow feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. She exchanged worried glances with Lady Fitzgibbon. Edie might be symptom-free, but she could still be contagious. She cursed silently to herself as she wondered who else Edie might be infecting. If she ever laid hands on that Matron …

‘The Master must have gone straight from his meeting in Brighton to the kennels,’ Lady Fitzgibbon said. ‘He would know nothing about this outbreak.’

Unless the Matron had taken it upon herself to warn him, Dody thought. In which case, they might both have fled. Dody doubted the Master was as blameless as the board seemed to think. Her work had opened her mind to all manner of perversions, but never, in her experience, had a woman behaved in such a way as this Matron without a man somewhere behind her, directing the course of her actions for the sake of his own gratification.

Keeping this particular thought to herself, Dody said, ‘The Master needs to be told what is going on here and Edie must be brought back. I must also examine the kennel staff for disease. How far away are the kennels?’

Lady Fitzgibbon explained where the kennels were located. It sounded like an easy walk, and it would be even quicker if the Fitzgibbons’ chauffeur could drive her. When Dody suggested this, Her Ladyship apologised, saying she had sent the chauffeur home.

‘No matter; I shall walk,’ Dody said. ‘But first I need a telephone.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

Dody rang Florence at the Hall to inform her of the scarlet fever outbreak at the workhouse, and then she asked the telephone operator to connect her to the Uckfield police station. It took her some time to get through, and when she finally did, the line was crackly with static and she had trouble understanding what the young male voice on the other end was saying. Eventually she learned that Chief Inspector Pike had left the station for Fitzgibbon Hall about half an hour previously. The policeman could not tell her the nature of Pike’s errand. Dody contemplated asking him to accompany her to the kennels, then thought better of it. Pike had misgivings about the local constabulary, and she was not sure that she could trust this man.

Edith wasn’t necessarily in danger from the Master, thought Dody, attempting to console herself as she walked the twisting, sunken road to the kennels. The intermittent tightening and tingling of the skin at the back of her neck was merely a physical manifestation of her own over-active imagination. She’d probably find the girl safe and unmolested, brushing dogs, cooking meat for them, or performing some other equally mundane task. Still, it was important she fetch Edith back to the workhouse and put her into isolation, in case she was infectious. The Master was likely to be at the kennels too, and she definitely needed a word with him. Even if Mr Clover’s parroting of the Master’s harsh philosophy had been accurate, he would not want an epidemic on his hands that might cost him his job.

She attempted to slow her rapidly beating heart by focusing on the thump of her footsteps and the delicate patterns of decaying leaves pressed flat upon the road’s surface.

There was no need to openly confront the Master at the kennels, she decided. She was merely the messenger come to inform him of the scarlet fever outbreak at the workhouse. And she was not planning to raise the subject of the barbaric treatment of the children until she was surrounded by the safety of others.

A bitter wind picked up, an icy rain began to fall, and Dody struggled to put up her umbrella. A fierce gust flicked it inside out, tore it from her hands and sent it flying into the hedgerow.

‘Never mind,’ she said aloud, trying to make the best of it: at least both her hands were free now.

The rain on her face had an icy sting, and soon it turned to slushy sleet. Dody buttoned her tweed coat up to her neck and tied her hat on with her woollen scarf to keep it in place. The sound of baying hounds cut through the veil of rain and wind. Can’t be too far to go, she thought as she continued to trudge down the road.

A grinding of gears alerted her to a motorcar approaching from the rear. To avoid being struck, she scrambled up the steep bank of the roadside, clinging for dear life to the prickly branches of hawthorn hedge. Hawthorn was planted in the countryside for good luck, she recalled. Perhaps some of that luck would be sent her way now. Perilously clinging to the hedge with one hand, she attempted to wave the motorcar down. If anything it seemed to speed up, drenching her with spray from a roadside puddle before zooming off around a bend, engine chortling. So much for those silly country superstitions, Dody muttered to herself.

She slid back down the bank, partly on her bottom, clumps of mud clogging the soles of her boots, and continued along the road until she came to a sign that proclaimed her destination:
KILKORAN KENNELS, UCKFIELD HUNT CLUB.

The entrance to the kennels was about fifty yards down a muddy lane and gave onto a driveway, lined on either side by fenced, narrow yards, each with a dog kennel at one end. These were serious working kennels. A grey muzzled bitch with sagging teats sauntered from one kennel and sniffed through the caging of her yard at Dody as she walked past. A group of foxhound puppies in another yard yelped excitedly when they saw her, throwing themselves at the bars of their run.

At the end of the driveway stood a whitewashed, two-winged stable block with a moss-flecked slate roof. Double barn doors divided the wings. A weathervane depicting the silhouette of a rider with hounds moved about frantically on the highest pitch of the roof, its tortured screws screaming in protest with every twist of the wind.

A row of looseboxes extended to the left-hand side of the doors, but Dody could only see one horse, its head nodding from the open top door of its stable. The stabling on the right-hand side of the double doors appeared to have been converted into offices and utility rooms, with one serving as a kitchen. Through its open door Dody glimpsed a bubbling black cauldron wreathed in steam and suspended over a flickering hearth. The smell of simmering offal reminded her of the odoriferous Paddington Mortuary Complex where she spent so much of her time. For a moment she was transported back to London, missing the place, even. Recent events had served to remind her that the country was no more benevolent a place than the city, no matter how much the Romantic poets cared to mythologise it.

Dody stopped under an awning that fanned out over the main doors, to compose herself and wipe the rain from her face. The sound of baying hounds had faded and all but disappeared. A low rumbling caught her attention and a wheelbarrow came into view, nosing its way from a kennel at the back of one of the runs. Dody watched a youth unfold himself from the small shelter and latch the door behind him. Seeing her in the porch, he lowered his barrow of dog filth, clutched hold of his cap and ran across the yard towards her.

The youth touched the peak of his cloth cap. His freckled face was moist with rain and rosy red. ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ he asked, bright eyes wandering up from the toes of Dody’s mud-clogged boots to her own glowing, sleet-stung cheeks.

‘I’m looking for the workhouse girl, Edith Pratt. I believe she’s here with the Master,’ she said.

The boy could not look Dody in the face. Swiping his hand across his mouth, he mumbled, ‘You just missed ’em. They’re off with the hounds.’

Dody paused to register this. ‘A workhouse girl riding with the Master, and in this weather too? Shouldn’t she be here with you, helping with the dogs?’

‘Edie’s not riding. No, miss.’

‘She’s on foot?’ Realisation began to dawn. Dody had heard of the upper-crust habit of sending children out to lay trails for hunting dogs which, from all accounts, the children found great fun. There was something in the way the boy conveyed his message, though, that left her feeling uneasy; something in his manner that suggested that, for Edith, this was not fun at all. No wonder the child had been so afraid of Mr Cole the other day at the Hall.

To her surprise, the boy turned his back on her, hunched his shoulders and let loose a sob. Dody put a hand on his arm and guided him around to face her. ‘What is it?’ she asked gently.

‘Ain’t my fault. I always try and stop ’im, but it never does no good.’

‘You’re talking about stopping the Master? What do you mean? What’s he doing?’

‘Some of the girls like it, even. So it can’t always be wrong, can it? But poor Edie, she ’ates it. ’Ates the dogs an’ all.’

Despite the boy’s gabbling, Dody caught the gist of what he was trying to tell her. The hollow feeling in her stomach intensified. ‘What is your name?’ she asked gently.

‘Joe, miss.’

‘Well, Joe, I am a doctor, Doctor McCleland, and I am concerned about the welfare of the children at the workhouse. I gather from what you’re saying that Edie is laying a scent for the hounds to follow.’

‘Yeah, and the Master and the hounds is chasin’ ’er, with ’im on ’orseback.’

‘And then, when Edith is found?’