Gene of Isis

I opened my eyes to observe the object once more. Just the exotic design of the vial told me the substance was probably rare or expensive, or both! I placed the vial back in its case and I was closing the cover when I saw that the substance had a slight illumination of its own. My eyes were transfixed by the little glowing bottle for some time. My heart fluttered in my chest with excitement and I was overcome with the kind of warm sentiment that I had only ever felt toward Susan, Lady Charlotte or my dear Nanny Beat: yes, I was falling in love with Mr Hamilton and all his mysterious secrets and knowledge.

This morning I learned that doing the right thing is not always for the best.

I awoke from a lucid dream; Lord Hamilton was dead. I was sure of this, as if it had happened yesterday—only it had not happened yesterday. Mr Hamilton had been in fine health when I’d left him after dinner.

‘What is happening?’ I felt ill, as if I had one foot in two separate worlds. I was clutching my treasure stone, which I had taken to wearing on a chain around my wrist, where the stone was hidden from the public eye by my gloves.

There was a vision superimposing itself upon my bedroom surroundings. I saw Lord Hamilton slouched in a chair in his study, wine glass still in his fingers and white as a ghost.

I rang the bell for Nanny and slid out of bed into the icy morning, the shock of which dismissed the awful vision and my nausea departed with it.

Nanny entered, still in her bedclothes.

‘I have seen something awful, Nanny. I need to see Lord Hereford at once.’

My saving grace nodded and left to prepare.

‘Please let me be wrong about this.’ I moved to the mirror to make myself presentable. ‘If there is a god, then let this be a nightmare and nothing more.’

He can’t be dead! I reasoned to myself. I had seen the vitality returning to his spirit- body and his physical body was following suit. Lord Hereford could simply not have died of natural causes. No, not natural causes. I saw a hole in my reasoning.

When our carriage arrived at the front of the viscount’s residence in London, I was distressed to see much commotion afoot. The front door was open and a policeman stood guard.

I was allowed into the house once I explained my relationship to Mr Hamilton. A Constable Fletcher and Lord Hamilton’s cousin, Mr Fredrick Hamilton, met me in the hallway. Mr Hamilton was the heir apparent to the Hereford estate and titles—he appeared both pleased and displeased to see me.

‘What has happened?’ I beseeched, trying to look past them into the study.

‘I regret to inform you that my dear cousin departed this world during the night, Miss Granville.’

I gasped more from knowing than shock. ‘But how?’

‘We’ll know more once the doctor has completed his examination.’ The constable motioned me into the sitting room to talk.

‘I want to see him,’ I insisted, knowing that doctors were useless when it came to deducing the cause of death; post mortems were seldom in-depth investigations unless foul play was suspected. If Douglas had been murdered then I wanted to know, and by whom, and why. I couldn’t stand to think that someone might have killed him to prevent our union. My eyes turned to Mr Fredrick Hamilton, for he had the most to gain.

‘When the doctor is done, Miss Granville,’ he advised me, whereupon I promptly turned and disobeyed, charging into the study.

The doctor was packing up his things, so I strode toward the desk where Lord Hamilton was slouched, just as in my vision, except for one small detail—the wine glass was gone. I skirted around the desk looking for recent stains and there it was.

‘A fresh wine stain.’ I pressed my clean white gloves into it and captured the deep red stain on my fingers. ‘Was my betrothed drinking when he died?’ I held my fingertips up for the men to see. Mr Hamilton turned pale as the constable looked at him.

‘Why, there was a…’ He appeared too afraid to say it.

‘Yes, man?’ the constable demanded.

‘Wine glass…that had spilled all over the desk, so I had the maid clean it up.’ He appeared to me to be afraid, but not guilty.

‘You never disturb a crime scene!’ The constable was irate and the rebuke made little, plump Mr Hamilton jump.

‘But I assumed he’d had heart failure…you see how he looks.’ Mr Hamilton motioned to the deceased. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the handkerchief in his free hand.

‘I second Mr Hamilton’s diagnosis,’ the doctor added. ‘Lord Hereford has died from apoplexy.’

‘Apoplexy?’ I queried.

‘A stroke, Miss Granville,’ the doctor explained, as if I were ignorant. ‘Lord Hereford was not a young man. Too much exertion or excitement means high blood pressure…his ticker couldn’t cope. There is no mystery here.’

‘Boiling foxglove leaves in wine was a preferred poisoning technique in earlier centuries, as it induces fatal heart events in victims,’ I posited, ‘and it leaves no scars on the way down.’

‘How do you know that, Miss Granville?’ The constable was genuinely curious.

‘I read, Constable Fletcher,’ I replied a little dryly. It was not easy to stand there arguing with these idiots, whilst Lord Hamilton was dead beside me. I could no longer deduce information from Lord Hamilton’s light-body, for it had withdrawn with his spirit at the time of his death.

‘Well, if my cousin has died of such a thing, we know who did it,’ Mr Hamilton commented snidely to the doctor.