Half A Mind TO Murder (Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Half a Mind to Murder

  Paula Paul

  Dedication

  For UCI, who helped midwife this story.

  Author’s Note

  The portions of the dialogue attributed to Florence Nightingale are, for the most part, taken from her letters and papers as researched by Hugh Small and included in his book, Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel, St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

  Chapter One

  Men of the town Newton-Upon-Sea were dying at an alarming rate. Harry Neill died first in early June, then his brother, Winslow succumbed a few weeks later, followed by Frewin Millsap.

  It was a mysterious illness that took them. Ben Milligan had contracted the malady shortly after Harry’s death, and he was the only one of the four the local physician, Dr. Alexandra Gladstone, was able to save.

  Harry’s illness started with a carbuncle on his forearm. He let it develop to an advanced state before he sought the doctor’s help. She treated it with a caustic of potash and applied a poultice made of wild indigo leaves, marshmallow, and ground centaury leaves.

  The carbuncle, however, grew to six inches in diameter and rapidly proceeded to a state of gangrene. Openings formed in the mass, oozing a bad-smelling, dark bloody liquid so that Dr. Gladstone was compelled to add yeast and charcoal to the poultice to counter the odor. Meanwhile, other small pimples appeared on his arm that threatened to develop into more carbuncles.

  Soon, Harry was prostrate with a raging fever, and Dr. Gladstone suspected infection from the carbuncle had somehow gotten into his bloodstream. He died within a few weeks from the day he first came to her for help.

  Shortly after his death, his brother, Winslow, several years younger, developed a series of carbuncles even more serious than Harry’s, along with a lung infection, and died within a month, in spite of Alexandra’s attempts to help him. She was concerned and puzzled. When a third patient, Ben Milligan, a tenant farmer from the nearby estate of the Earl of Dunsford came to her with symptoms of the same skin disorder, she was alarmed. Ben’s condition proved to be self-limiting, however, and he survived. Alexandra had no idea why he recovered while the other two had not, and further, she was troubled that she couldn’t pinpoint a cause for the eruptions. She was even more troubled when she learned that Frewin Millsap, a carpenter, had died of similar symptoms but had never sent for her.

  According to Dr. Gladstone’s medical training, carbuncles that proved difficult to treat or that resulted in death were most likely to appear in middle-aged men given to intemperance and debauchery or who were mentally depressed.

  None of the men fit that description except to the extent that they were all middle-aged or, in Ferwin’s case, a bit past that mark. Harry was a respectable widower who owned the apothecary in Newton-Upon-Sea, a medium-sized village on the Essex coast where Alexandra maintained her practice. His profession led him initially to self-treatment, which explained his delay in visiting the doctor. His brother, Winslow, ran a shop that sold supplies to support the local oyster fishing industry and led a quiet life with his wife and three nearly grown daughters. Ben, somewhat older than the brothers, took pride in the vegetables he sold each market day. None of the three, it seemed, would have had time for intemperance or debauchery, and none showed signs of mental depression.

  Alexandra had discussed the puzzling aspects of the carbuncle cases with Nancy, her nurse, who also served as her maid-of-all-work. Nancy, who had equally as much medical experience as Alexandra if not the education, was also puzzled. Unlike Alexandra, however, she did not dwell overly long on the puzzle. Her current concern was for Polly Cobbe, who had been Harry Neill’s sole employee since his rather unpleasant young apprentice left without notice. Polly was a tall, blonde woman of about forty, given to plumpness. She possessed a fine intellect that made her an interesting conversationalist. Her function at the apothecary had been to keep the shelves straight and to help Harry with his accounting records. At Harry’s death, the shop was closed, and Polly, though she possessed at least some education, was unable to find employment except as a charwoman at the local tavern, known as the Blue Ram.

  Nancy had brought up the fact more than once that it was her opinion that, given Miss Cobbe’s intelligence, she would have been able to find something more suitable had she been a man. It was, she said, “entirely inexcusable that a woman of Miss Cobbe’s grace and temperament should be reduced to cleaning up after drunks.”

  Alexandra knew where this was leading.

  “You know, I could use a bit of help around here,” Nancy breathed a rather theatrical sigh as she spoke and filled Alexandra’s plate with boiled mutton and potatoes.

  Alexandra glanced at Nancy from across the kitchen table where it was their custom to eat together. “What are you getting at?” she asked. “You’ve always been quite defensive if I ever suggested hiring someone to help you.”

  “I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”

  “Indeed.” Alexandra cut off a tiny morsel of the mutton and made no attempt to keep the cynicism out of her voice. “I suppose you’ve aged considerably in the month since I last mentioned it.” Zack, her black and white Newfoundland whose huge body was curled at her feet, raised his head and glanced with what appeared to be a bored look, first at Alexandra and then Nancy.

  Nancy kept her eyes down, sawing vigorously with her knife on her own chunk of mutton. “’Tis just that the patient load is increasing, and my duties as your nurse must take precedent over everything else. I could use a bit of help with the cooking. It could be you would like a change from my plain English fare. Perhaps a little…oh, say, French cuisine, would do you good.”

  Alexandra swallowed the bit of potato she had just eaten. There had been no need to chew, since the potato immediately turned to mush as soon as she placed it in her mouth. “French cuisine? Really? Don’t you always say the way the French cook isn’t good for a person? All those heavy cream sauces and everything dipped in butter?”

  Nancy shrugged and was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Alexandra had known Nancy since they were both children. Nancy’s mother had been the late Dr. Gladstone’s maid-of-all-work from the time he had married Alexandra’s mother. She’d been an enormous help to him in raising Alexandra after his wife died when Alexandra was ten years old. Having been together all their lives, Nancy and Alexandra had been as close as sisters, in spite of the difference in their class. The late Dr. Gladstone had been as fond of the precocious Nancy as Alexandra was, although he often gave his daughter half-hearted warnings that she was not cultivating the proper mistress/servant relationship with the willful servant child. However, it was he himself who’d insisted that Nancy sit in with Alexandra while she was being tutored at home, since, being female, neither of them was allowed to attend the local school.

  Thanks, in part, to her father’s influence, as well as to a change in English law, Alexandra had been one of a few women admitted to university to study medicine while Nancy remained at home to act as the late doctor’s nurse, her sharp and eager mind observing and taking in more medical knowledge than many physicians possessed. Then the late Dr. Gladstone had sent her for a brief course held at Bradfordshire Hospital and sponsored by the Florence Nightingale Academy in London. After the doctor’s death, Alexandra took over his practice, and Nancy became her nurse.

  Alexandra was beginning to wonder about Nancy’s long silence. It certainly wasn’t like her to be at a loss for words. When it appeared Nancy would remain silent, Alexandra spoke. “Polly Cobbe is as English as we are. What would she know about French cuisine?”
/>   Nancy looked up suddenly from her plate and feigned innocence. “Polly Cobbe? Why would you bring her up?”

  “I didn’t. You did.”

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Alex, I never—”

  “You want me to hire her to get her out of that tavern.”

  Nancy smiled broadly and pretended surprise. “What a wonderful idea. And so generous of you.”

  Alexandra played her game. “Oh, that isn’t what you were thinking? Then you won’t mind if I tell you I won’t hire her.”

  “You won’t hire her?” Nancy’s alarm was genuine. “Why not? You just admitted you’d been thinking of hiring someone to help me.”

  “I was thinking of part time, Nancy. Maybe once a week to help with the baking. You know as well as I the status of my income and expenses. And anyway, we don’t really know this woman. It’s possible she’s a terrible cook.”

  Nancy pretended to be disinterested. “Oh, I know her well enough, I’d say. ’Twas I you always sent to fetch the ingredients you needed from the apothecary, you know. So I got to know Polly, now didn’t I? She’s a proper sort, I can tell you that. Spent some time in France as it happens. Working as a maid in the home of some gentleman, was a maid-of-all-work, same as myself, she told me. So we talked recipes, naturally. She even wrote some of them down for me, but ’tis not my style now is it? French cuisine. Nevertheless, you know I would never steer you wrong, would I? You didn’t go wrong when you hired Rob and Artie as stable boys when I recommended them, did you?”

  “As I recall,” Alexandra said, laying her napkin aside. “It was you who hired Rob and Artie, and without even asking me.”

  “Well…” The expression on Nancy’s face was only slightly apologetic before enthusiasm took over. “It worked out quite well, you’ll have to admit.”

  Alexandra gave her a noncommittal “mmm” as she stood and started toward the door, on her way to open the surgery to receive walk-in patients. Rob and Artie, two homeless young ruffians from the docks whom Nancy had rescued from their previous profession as petty thieves, had indeed become excellent stable boys. But she wasn’t going to admit that at the moment and give the wily Nancy an even better advantage.

  “So you’ll hire her then, at least part time?” Nancy called after her.

  “We shall see.” She turned to signal Zack to follow her just in time to see the satisfied smile on Nancy’s face. “That doesn’t mean yes, Nancy. It simply means I’ll think about it.”

  “Of course, Miss.” Nancy’s knowing smile disappeared, but her expression, in spite of her attempt to cover it, remained annoyingly self-assured.

  The first of Alexandra’s patients was already waiting outside the door to the surgery when she unlocked it. The surgery’s waiting room entrance was located at ground level on the south end of her house, which was shaded by several large oak trees along with a few beech. Lucas Pendennis, a young man of perhaps sixteen years, sat under one of the oak trees, his back resting against the enormous trunk. Lucas, whose mother was a lace dealer, was mentally deficient. Most people referred to him as the Idiot Pendennis. Alexandra knew the correct medical term for Lucas was imbecile rather than idiot, since, although his intelligence was limited, he possessed the ability to speak, to express feelings and emotions, and to carry out certain simple instructions. He was also capable of reasoning to a limited extent. It was not at all unexpected for him to show up at the surgery on rare occasion with a painful cut or bruise, having learned that the doctor was in possession of the means to help him heal or to stop hurting. He was a gentle boy and quite likable in Alexandra’s mind, in spite of his sometimes strange habits. He was, for example, fond of wandering the sea coast or the sparsely wooded hills and dales at night, often singing to himself, or even howling like a hound or hooting like an owl. He claimed to be communicating with the animals, and he was particularly fond of creatures of all kinds, both domestic and wild. People claimed to have seen him in the woods surrounded by foxes and badgers, and he’d once captured a wild hare and kept her as a pet until, so he claimed, she told him she wanted to return to the wild.

  Most people didn’t share Alexandra’s fondness for him. He was often taunted and teased by children and adults alike, and many feared him because of his strange ways. Some, because of his Cornish name and ancestry, thought him to be a Celtic witch.

  Alexandra opened the door and called to him. Still slumped against the tree, he raised his head to look at her, and she saw to her surprise and dismay that he was crying.

  “Lucas! What’s wrong?” She stepped outside and walked toward him as he stood up and lumbered toward her, sniffing and wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. He seemed unable to speak. Alexandra led him gently into the surgery and gave him a handkerchief to blow his nose. “Have you hurt yourself, Lucas?”

  Lucas shook his head and looked at her, his face contorted with emotion. “Wasn’t me what made the hurt.”

  “Someone else hurt you?”

  Lucas again shook his head, but then apparently changed his mind and nodded, indicating yes.

  “Where? Where are you hurt?” Alexandra examined his bare arms, his neck, his face, and hands then helped him sit on the examination table.

  “My…my feelings,” he said, no longer sniffling, but he dropped his head.

  Alexandra felt a sickening void in her stomach. “Someone’s been taunting you again, haven’t they? Lucas, you must stay away from the docks. Those men can be cruel as well as ignorant.”

  Lucas rolled his head back and forth with vigor. “Wasn’t them. And anyway it wasn’t her fault. She can’t help it if she died.”

  Alexandra placed her hand on his arm and spoke softly. “It wasn’t whose fault, Lucas? Who is the she you speak of?”

  “She’s dead.” His eyes filled with tears again.

  “Who?” she asked again, her voice soothing.

  “Blackburn’s sow,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. “Make it better, Miss. Please.” He sniffled again and gave her a pleading look.

  “Oh, Lucas!” Alexandra covered his hand with hers and squeezed it before she sat down in her chair facing him. “I have no medicine to help that kind of hurt,” she said.

  Lucas gave her a puzzled look.

  “When something or someone you love dies, it feels as if a part of you has died, too. There’s nothing to do but cry and wait for the pain to go away.”

  He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand and gave her a look that was oddly, wise. “I will wait,” he said, then let his gaze drift as if he were staring at something in another dimension. “’Tis heaven she’s at now, ain’t it?”

  “Of course.” Those words were the only form of medicine she could give him.

  “Hog heaven,” Lucas said, still staring unfocused. He didn’t laugh. It was no pun he’d made. “She’ll not be lonely, will she? There’ll be others with her?”

  “Certainly,” Alexandra said. She could see that he was calmer now, but there was still sadness in his eyes.

  “I got to be going now,” he said. “Me mum will miss me.”

  Alexandra helped him down from the table. “All right, Lucas. I think you’ll feel better soon, but come back again if you need to.” He left without looking back, moving away with an odd lumbering skip. “And say hello to your mother,” she called to him.

  “A good-hearted boy, that one,” Nancy said from behind her. Alexandra turned around suddenly, surprised she was there. “’Tis a pity the way some people laugh at him and call him idjet.”

  Alexandra barely had time to express her agreement before the next patient arrived. It was Mrs. Sommers complaining again of flatulence. The rest of the day was unremarkable with only a few patients with the usual run of minor complaints. She and Nancy went to bed early after passing the first part of the evening reading in the parlor. They were up early the next morning, Nancy busy with her housework while Alexandra made her daily rounds.

  It wasn’t until she saw her first patient, Hanni
bal Talbot, that she learned not all of Newton had passed the evening as peacefully. Ben Milligan had been found dead in a dark alley in town. His heart had been cut very neatly from his chest and then had apparently been carried away. So had the large slice of flesh that had been cut from his arm in precisely the same spot of the scar from the carbuncle that had healed.

  Chapter Two

  Until recently, much of the gossip in Newton-on-Sea had been centered around what would happen to the earldom of Dunsford. Edward Boswick, Fifth Earl of Dunsford had been dead a year now and, having neither siblings nor progeny, had left an unwieldy legal question as to who would succeed him. Ordinarily the heirs to aristocratic titles and holdings were of little concern to the citizens of Newton-Upon-Sea, but the late earl’s country estate, which included a venerable and lovely home, was located only a few miles outside of the village. When the season ended in London each year, the house had traditionally been filled with guests from the aristocracy and the upper class for most of the summer. Their annual visits and the associated dinners and parties had been an important source of income to the merchants of Newton. Now a full season had passed without the benefit of that revenue.

  The house remained empty, which meant dozens of servants had to move elsewhere to find work. Tenant farmers on the lands had remained, paying their rent to an overseer but worrying about gossip that the estate would disappear, dispersed among many heirs or sold to the highest bidder and all tenants forced off the land.

  Now, even that pressing economic concern had been replaced by Ben Milligan’s recent gruesome death. That was especially true in the tavern. It wasn’t Alexandra’s practice to frequent the Blue Ram, but she had been summoned there when Jack Sheridan, the tavern owner, accidentally cut his palm with a broken glass and was bleeding badly. It was the day after Ben’s mutilated body was found. When Alexandra arrived, she found the tavern owner seated at one of the tables, looking pale from fright. His hand was bandaged in a dirty bar towel stained dark with blood. He and his customers had judged the wound too serious to risk his going to the surgery himself, so one of the men had been sent to fetch her.