this is a three part story and I have a two-parter to follow
Chapter 1 The poisoned man part I
My father-in-law waited until Christmas was over before asking Tony and me to look into a little matter.
“There’s a fellow who’s very important to us who has suddenly become sick, and vague,” Sir Geoffrey said. “I had someone get samples of his food and hair and ran a Marsh test, but there was no arsenical poisoning. He is, however, when lucid, convinced that someone is poisoning him. Of course, he might merely be in his dotage, but I cannot think it would come on over a few weeks.”
“What about lead?” I asked. “Doesn’t it have similar symptoms?”
“I… yes, I suppose it could be,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Can you come to London and mingle with their social set?”
I exchanged a look with Tony.
“Clara is happy as a weekly boarder with Jane and her cousins,” I said, “But we should have to write and say that she is not coming home this weekend and explain that it is because Grandpapa Geoffrey has asked us to help him, not because we don’t want her. I will drive over and see her right away.”
“I will come,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Then I may explain that someone I know may be being hurt and I need your help to stop it. I think she will accept that.”
“Yes, she is a generous little girl,” I said.
Reader, you must remember, I am sure, that we adopted Clara because I chose the right tune on a musical box to jog her out of being mute; and she so needed love. I know what that is like.
We drove over, and stole Clara out of afternoon lessons, so she got a bit of extra family time.
“I wish I could come,” she said.
“I won’t have time to pay you as much attention as you deserve,” I said.
“Grandmama Marianne will, though,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Fine! We’ll steal you for the rest of the week as well, and you shall go to Astley’s Amphitheatre and Gunther’s tea shop.”
“Thank you, Grandpapa,” said Clara.
We had not yet any expectation of a Happy Event of our own, but I was sure that Clara would be a delightful big sister when I did become with child.
I spoke seriously to Sir Geoffrey, with regards to his friend, whose name, he told me, was Engelbert Ogrington, a most horrible name, but to blamed on his parents not on him, and not a reason in itself to poison him.
“If it is lead, or mercury, or some other form of Saturnine poisoning, as you suspect, you should administer Iodide of Potassium,” I said. Sir Geoffrey stared at me. “What, Papa, can you doubt me? Do I not read the medical papers especially with regard to legal matters? And it was published in French, by a Belgian doctor named Louis Melsens, who has solved the problem of mercury and lead palsy, for those whose syphilis treatment has been too aggressive. He has had remarkable success. The Iodide of Potassium binds to the metallic poison and makes it soluble and able to be passed harmlessly from the body.”
Tony chuckled.
“Adele acquired an interest in natural science at school, and wrote a paper on poisoning at university when she was masquerading as Ned Fairfax,” he told his father. “As she considered making a career of prosecuting poisoners, she also looked deeply into antidotes.”
“There is also some suggestion that Epsom salts may counteract lead poison,” I said. “Which was discovered by those who had been poisoned accidentally by lead acetate, also called sugar of lead, via pewter vessels in which vinegar had been cooked, and a repairing lease to Epsom to take the waters coincidentally effected a cure. I’d dose him with both, if I was you. Now, go and tell him that he must take your cure, and write also that he must prepare the way for the orphaned daughter of an old friend to be a part of his household as his ward.”
“You, I assume,” said Sir Geoffrey.
“Eh bien, even so,” I said. “I considered being more invisible, as the tween floor maid, but I, Adele, I who speak to you, hate and abhor housework, even though I know how to do it. I will doubtless be an unpaid skivvy nonetheless, but at least not rising at five in the cold morning and falling into some bed-bug ridden cot of dubious softness after midnight. Me, I can put up with hardship, but I do not intend to do so if I can avoid it.”
Tony laughed.
“That’s our authentic Adele,” he said.
“I need to know who is in the household,” I said. “It seems unlikely to be one of the servants.”
“I agree,” said Geoffrey. “I… Engelbert is a naval designer, and he is working on the design of a better screw propellor for war ships.”
“Of this, I know nothing,” I said. “You had better educate me further so that I may know if I come across notes or drawings.”
“Of course,” said Geoffrey. “You may have seen pictures in the paper of steam liners and packet boats with immense wheels on the side?”
“Like Mr. Brunel’s ‘Great Western’ which I believe I recall from my youth?” I said.
“Indeed; his ‘Great Britain’ has a screw, which is more efficient. It is…” he paused. “It is like an auger, thrust out of the back of a ship, turned by the steam engines, and as it rotates, it pushes against the sea, thrusting the ship forward.”
I nodded.
“That is a clear picture,” I said. Everyone, after all, knows how an auger works, cutting into where it drills and thrusting the debris aside. “An Archimedes pump works the same sort of way.”
“Precisely,” said Geoffrey. “The first British warships to have screw propellors were the ‘Terror’ and the ‘Erebus,’ some five years ago, and of course the angle of the propellor blades is of vital importance.”
I nodded; I could see this.
“It is, enfin, like plying a spade to clear snow,” I said. “With the right angle, voila, it is no hardship, but poking at it ineffectually is worse than not bothering.”
“Indeed, and a naval screw requires only two or three blades, not a whole Archimedian screw, and the optimal number is also in question.”
“Ah, good, that will help me recognise it,” I said. “So, why do you think he is being poisoned for the plans?”
“Because the poison – and I am sure you are right that it is lead - makes him confused. And in a state of confusion thus engengered, he could be talked into showing his papers,” said Geoffrey.
That made sense.
“So, who am I looking at?” I said.
“I don’t suppose you count his wife,” said Geoffrey.
“Why not?” I asked. “You’d count me, or Mama Marianne.”
“Sophie Ogrington has not the least interest in her husband’s job,” said Geoffrey. “She describes it as ‘drawing boats.’”
“Then she is more in danger of accidentally giving away secrets she does not recognise as important,” I said, severely. “Even if it does seem unlikely.”
“Well, Sophie is fifty-two, five years younger than Engelbert,” said Geoffrey. “They have a son, Robert, who is eighteen, and a daughter, Sarah, who is twenty, and who is married to Engelbert’s secretary, and personal assistant, Denis Allbright. They have no children as yet. Englebert’s younger brother, Basil, also lives with them. He suffered from infantile paralysis, and though he can walk, he is frail.”
“Eh bien, a man who might resent as much as be grateful for his brother’s hospitality,” I said. “Especially if there is any resentment from Mrs. Ogrington and a tendency to make him feel unwelcome.”
“I… I do not think that Basil would… but you present a compelling reason,” said Geoffrey, a frown of worry ridging his brow.
“You will inform your friend with the unpronounceable name that he is collecting an orphan who is a dependent and I will be very young, very awkward, very shy, and when they go to church on Sunday, enfin, I shall have such a megrim that I cannot be disturbed. For everyone will go to church these days, which was not so when I was small, or at least, was not his habit,” I said, still refusing to name Edward Fairfax Rochester. He is dead, and cannot harm me, but still I have a primeval fear of him.
“And there I was thinking that you would climb in and burgle the house,” said Geoffrey.
“I learned to do that well enough to survive growing up,” I said with dignity, “But to search the house from within, it is by far the more efficient way to do things. But I will wear trousers, so that if anyone comes home early, I can slip out of one window and into another. And I will have two hours clear to search, which may not be enough, but perhaps you can then call in the afternoon and arrange to keep everyone occupied?”
“Marianne and I can do that,” said Geoffrey.
“Good; I will sort out costumes which are of a wealthy child and perhaps a little tight on me.” I said. “I will be a pathetic orphan, oh, but of the most pathetic! I will be despised and pitied and taken as nothing.”
“Are you going to be French?” asked Geoffrey. “If not, you will have to be careful about your idiom.”
I considered.
“I will be Italian,” I said. “It will give me reason not to say much, and I know Italian well enough to simulate the idiom. Enough for English people and it covers for a slight accent.”
Geoffrey nodded.
“Good,” he said. “You can pass as English when you put your mind to it, though.”
I sniggered.
“I can pass as a Yorkshire woman,” I said, “But happen tha friend would be reet mardy at that, sithee.”
He laughed.
“Not exactly out of the top drawer,” he said.
So, I was to be half Italian, the child of a respectable opera singer married to an English ambassador, both of whom were dead with no known family. I was to be sixteen, which I could simulate well enough.
Geoffrey went ahead to both alert his friend and to feed him the antidote to his poisons. Hopefully he would be less vague and confused when introducing me to his household, where he must continue to take the antidote, assuming he was still being poisoned.
Tony and I travelled to London, and I went to see Mr. Cohen.
“Well, I see you made a happy marriage,” he said.
“Yes, I am Mrs. Rawlins now,” I said. “I… I don’t know if my grandmother told you, I have done some work for the police, and it means I may need specific clothes.”
“Eh, I figured out that old Mrs. Deleven and her granddaughter were one and the same long since,” he said. “And wise of you to hide as an old woman! and you’ve dressed as a lad, too; and I don’t ask questions, but if you got yourself into police work, I can’t say I’m not relieved.”
“Mr. Cohen, you were always my good angel,” I said. “And I wanted to put business your way for my disguises to say thank you, for I know you’d not accept more.”
“Perhaps you’d put a few children through school, that need it?” he asked.
“I’d be more than willing,” I said. “I tried to do so with a street girl, but she ran away to go back to being a prostitute.”
“Alas, the meshugas of those who see it as easy money cannot be calculated,” he mourned. “What can I help you with?”
“Nominally upper class young girl,” I said “About sixteen, not well off, but not impoverished. I know it’s a long shot.”
“Alas, I can help you out with that,” he said. “And I say ‘alas;’ for such means that a young girl died, and her effects came to me. I am assured that it was not a fever as such but a heart condition arising from rheumatic fever.”
“And that can happen at any level of society,” I agreed. “She may help her country by the use of her clothes, and I will buy the lot, and at good price, save any you have earmarked.”
“They are out of the league of most of my customers; I thought of you when they came in, when you were at school,” he said.
“I’ll pass them on, after use, to my old preceptress, who keeps clothes for those of her girls whose parents are… inadequate,” I said.
I became Tizia; which is a joke in Italian, as it is synonymous with ‘some girl’ as Tizio is ‘some boy’ and part of an idiom parallel with our English ‘Tom, Dick, or Harry.’ I did not think that anyone would understand it, since Mrs. Bridges was truly interested in languages and we learned some very interesting and unusual facts in the languages we learned.
Geoffrey introduced me to Engelbert Ogrington. He looked horrified.
“Geoffrey! This is a child! I cannot expect her to…”
“Engelbert, she is one-and-twenty; my daughter-in-law is extremely capable. Trust her; and she will also keep an eye on you to try to prevent further harm occurring. It was she who suggested an antidote, and you are much better even after two days.”
“I am,” he agreed.
Since he looked three parts dead, and the rest more like one of the Egyptian pharaohs one might meet in the British Museum, I had to conclude that the intervention of antidotes had been timely indeed. I smiled austerely.
“I am, after all, supposed to be harmless,” I said. “Introduce me; be kind to the poor orphan, but otherwise do not alter your regime. I am your eyes, and I will see all.”
What could he do? He took me back to his household, who were all waiting to look me over, as he had prepared them somewhat for having been left the care of an orphan, by a colleague.
I whispered a shy, “Buon Giorno” and then made that into a “Good day to all. Thank you for receiving me,” and fluttered my eyelids down hastily.
The wife regarded me without enthusiasm, and muttered something about school. The daughter and her secretary regarded me with as much sympathy as if I was stealing food from their mouths. The son looked on me in mild surprise that I should exist, and the brother gave me a sympathetic smile. I hoped he was not the spy.
Che Bello! I was in.
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