Sister Simmonds, who intended to undertake medical studies as soon as she could earn the fees, arrived and Dr MacMillan explained her diagnosis.
‘Clean all that matter away, Sister — you see? Some foreign body introduced into the womb — a knitting needle or syringe of soapy water, perhaps slippery elm bark. Butchers! Mind, Sister, an abortion done under ether with proper asepsis is not perilous — better, usually, to clear the contents of an incompetent womb before the third month than coddle a near-miscarriage to term and birth a monster or a sickly bairn which dies as a neonate. But this is butchery. Look, the cervix is widely dilated and all the vaginal bacteria have rushed in and started colonies.’
‘How long ago did this happen, Doctor?’ asked Sister Simmonds, taking up another carbolic-soaked cloth.
‘Two days, maybe three. Criminals! They perpetrate this outrage on nature, and the girl begins to miscarry — this one was four months gone, perhaps — and they usually send them home to cope with the results. Septicaemia is the least they can expect. Well, how would you diagnose her?’
Sister Simmonds picked up Alice’s hand and felt for a pulse. It flickered so fast that she could not distinguish the separate beats. The girl’s temperature was 104 degrees. She was alternately sweating and shaking with cold, and dried out and burning with heat. Her belly, breasts and thighs were patterned with a scarlet-fever like rash.
‘Sapraemia,’ she announced. Dr MacMillan nodded.
‘Treatment?’
‘Salicyclates and anti-tetanus serum.’
‘Good. Tell them to prepare a bed in the septic ward, and the theatre as soon as you can. If I remove the source of the infection she will have a better chance. Arrange for ice-water sponging and paraldehyde by injection.
‘Poor mite,’ added Dr MacMillan, touching Alice’s cheek. ‘But a bairn herself.’
Bert sipped his tea suspiciously. It was hot and sweet and he drank it quickly, burning his tongue. He did not like this at all. He suspected that Alice was going to lead them into trouble and fervently wished that the tall man in Lonsdale Street had chosen another cab to deposit the poor little rat into. Cec was staring at the wall, his tea untouched.
‘Drink your tea, mate,’ suggested Bert, and Cec said, ‘She’s only a kid,’ again. Bert sighed. He had known Cec for many years and was aware that his heart was as soft as putty. The rooming house in Carlton where they both lived presently lodged three cats and two dogs which had all been found
‘Tails up, Cec. She’ll be apples,’ he encouraged, and Cec took up his cup.
He had barely raised it to his lips when Dr MacMillan entered the room, and they both stood up. She waved them to their hard hospital chairs again and sat down heavily in the only easy chair. Cec poured her tea.
‘How is she?’ he asked anxiously. Dr MacMillan shot him a quick look, and saw the brown eyes full of concern, without the inevitable fear which would have marked the man responsible for Alice’s condition or for her operation. She sighed.
‘It is not good. She waited too long to come to us. She has blood poisoning and I don’t know if we can save her. It will be touch and go. It depends upon how strong her will to live is.’
‘Can’t you do anything?’ demanded Bert.
‘No. Even modern medicine can do very little. She must fight her own battle, and maybe lose it. Now, tell me all about the tall man in Lonsdale Street.’
‘About six feet, lofty beggar, with dark hat and suit, looked like a gentleman. He was worried, but. Gold signet ring on the left little finger with a diamond in it big as a hatpin.’
‘Was he a pimp?’
‘Nah, and she’s no whore,’ objected Bert. ‘I should know, I’ve carried enough. Only people who can afford taxis, almost.’
‘No, she’s not one of them,’ agreed Cec. ‘She made a mistake, that’s all. Some bloke ain’t acted square. He’s podded her and then left her, and she must have a respectable family, because she said she could go home now. You remember, mate? She wouldn’t have said that unless she came from a good home, and they didn’t know.’
‘Yair, she was frantic,’ said Bert. ‘We said that you wouldn’t tell ’em.’
‘Nor shall I,’ agreed Dr MacMillan. ‘I shall tell them that she is here, but not what brought her here. One can get blood poisoning from any breach in the skin. A rose thorn would do. What else can you recall about the man who brought her to you?’
‘Nothin’ much else. Black hair, I reckoned, and a toffy look. Eh, Cec?’
Cec, overcome by his unaccustomed eloquence, nodded.
‘Yair, and I reckon we’ve seen him before.’
‘Where?’
‘Might have been in the cab, might have just been on the street — have a feeling that it was somewhere around Lon. or Little Lon. . Cec, does that toffy mug ring a bell?’
‘Nah, mate. You musta been on your pat.’
‘We don’t usually work together, see. Cec has a truck. But she’s laid up with piston trouble so we’re doing a double shift. Nah, I can’t remember. Why do you want to know?’
‘To inform the police, of course,’ stated Dr MacMillan quietly. ‘He must be found and put in jail. If she dies, he is a murderer. Butchers! They batten on the respectability of these stupid girls — it’s always the innocent and deceived that get caught — and they mutilate them, charging ten pounds for the savagery that a cannibal wouldn’t stoop to, and then they dump them like so much garbage to bleed out their lives in the gutter. Nothing is too bad for such men — nothing. If I could but lay a hand on them myself I’d inoculate them with bacteria, and watch how they liked trembling and shrieking their lives away down to an agonising, filthy death.’
‘Not the jacks, though,’ mumbled Bert. ‘Not the cops. .’
‘And why not? You are essential witnesses.’
‘Yair, but Cec and me don’t have no cause to love the jacks.’
‘I am not asking you to love them, nor will they be concerned with your petty crimes. You will come down to Russell Street with me this afternoon and you will tell them everything you know, and I will answer for it that you will walk out again. Do you understand?’
They understood.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, Bert and Cec tailed Dr MacMillan into the police station, under the red brick portal, and came before the desk-sergeant on his high pedestal.
‘I am Dr Elizabeth MacMillan, and I have an appointment to see a Detective-inspector Robinson.’
‘Yes, madam,’ said the desk-sergeant. ‘He’s expecting you. These are your people, sir,’ he added to a soberly dressed young man sitting beside him. They followed him along a corridor and into a small, bleak office painted institution green. It contained a desk, a filing cabinet, and four hard chairs. The cable-car clanged outside. At his signal, they all sat down and there was a moment’s silence while he took down a folio ledger and unscrewed a black fountain pen.
‘Your names, please,’ he said in a carefully unmodulated voice. The man was colourless, with mid-brown hair, mid-brown eyes, and nothing noticeable about him at all. They gave their names. When he heard ‘Albert Johnson’ and ‘Cecil Yates’ he grinned.
‘The red-raggers, eh? Still fighting the capitalist menace? Been to Russia yet? With a lot of property reasonably suspec- ted to be unlawfully obtained?’
Cec stared mournfully at Dr MacMillan.
Bert, glaring at the policeman, snarled, ‘Your time will come. Oppressor of the widow and orphan, upholder of the exploiter. .’
‘That will do,’ interposed Dr MacMillan. ‘I spoke to you, officer, if you recall, about these gentlemen. They behaved, in relation to this wretched girl, with notable gallantry and gentleness. I have assured them that they are required only to state what they have observed about this butcher of an abortionist, and I would not be forsworn.’
