“She said her back and neck were injured.”
Frank frowned. “He cured her of a broken neck?”
“I doubt it. More likely, she sprained her back or pulled something. Such injuries can be extremely painful, and there is no effective treatment except bed rest and opiates for the pain. Sometimes they get better, and sometimes they don’t.”
“Except Blackwell knew of a treatment for it,” Frank reminded her.
“So it appears. From what his wife told me, I think Blackwell must have been a bonesetter.”
“A bone-setter? You mean he set broken bones?”
“Not exactly. I suppose in the old days, that’s what bonesetters did, back before the science of medicine was so advanced and doctors began setting bones themselves,” she said, and Frank managed not to snort in derision. His opinion of medicine wasn’t quite as high as hers. “Nowadays,” she continued, “bonesetters perform manipulations on bones that make people feel better.”
“What do you mean ‘manipulations’?”
“I mean they move the body around and somehow manage to make bones shift position, on the theory that they are somehow out of their proper position, which is what is causing the problems. I imagine that something in Mrs. Blackwell’s spine or neck was somehow out of line from the accident, and Blackwell managed to realign it, thus relieving her pain.”
“Is that possible?”
“Apparently. She said her pain was completely gone within a few weeks, after she’d been confined to her bed for almost a year.”
“How did you find out she uses morphine?” Frank asked.
“Her baby became ill because he was no longer receiving the drug from his mother. I recognized the symptoms.”
“You mean to tell me the woman gave her baby morphine?” Frank was horrified.
“Not directly,” she explained patiently. “He would have gotten the effects of the morphine through the umbilical cord before he was born. Once he was born, he would no longer receive it. Sometimes, the baby receives enough of the drug through his mother’s milk to satisfy the craving, but Mrs. Blackwell chose to use a wet nurse, so after about a day, he was desperate for the drug and showing all the signs of deprivation. He would have died without it, so I gave him a small dose of opium to ease his suffering.”
She sighed with long-suffering. She always found Frank unreasonable, although he could never understand why. “My choice was to either give him the drug or watch him die in agony. What would you have done?”
Frank chose not to reply to that. “All right, so Mrs. Blackwell uses morphine. That’s unusual for a woman of her social class, but-”
“It’s not as unusual as you might suppose,” she disagreed. “Many women of her social class use opiates of some sort.”
“What on earth for?” He could understand why the poor used stimulants like alcohol and opiates to help them forget the grim realities of their existence, but what could a woman like Mrs. Blackwell need to forget?
“There are all kinds of pain, Malloy. Life can be hard even if you’re rich.”
He didn’t bother arguing with her. It was usually a waste of time, even when he knew she was wrong. “All right, so she uses morphine. What does that have to do with her husband’s death?”
“Her husband didn’t know she was still using it. He knew she’d given it up after he cured her, even though it was very difficult for her. Have you ever seen anyone going through the process of weaning himself off an opiate? Few people ever manage to do it. But then he forced her to speak at his lectures. He gave lectures to promote-”
“I know all about his lectures,” Frank said. “His assistant explained it to me, but he said Mrs. Blackwell was only too pleased to give her testimony of what the good doctor had done for her.”
“Mrs. Blackwell tells a different story. She hated speaking in public. It terrified her, but her father and Blackwell forced her to do it.”
“How could they force her if she didn’t want to do it?”
“Really, Malloy, how do you force people to tell you things they don’t want to tell you?” she asked, that gleam in her eyes that made her look so wicked he thought he should probably lock her away before she could cause any more trouble.
“Are you telling me they gave her the third degree?” he asked, giving her trouble right back.
“Of course not. You should know there are more effective ways of managing someone like Mrs. Blackwell. Women of her class are taught from birth to be obedient and compliant and to please men.”
“You’re from her class,” he pointed out, reminding her that she had been born into one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the city. “What happened to you?”
She gave him one of her looks, but she didn’t dignify his words with a reply. “The important thing for you to know is that Mrs. Blackwell started using morphine again to help overcome her fear of appearing at those lectures. It was the only way she could do it. Her husband didn’t approve of her using morphine, and she must have lived in constant fear that he would discover her secret. She also hated speaking at his lectures, which was why she needed the morphine in the first place. I imagine she was excused from doing them once her condition became apparent, but surely, he would have expected her to resume her appearances once the child was born. In fact, she told me he’d forbidden her to nurse the child herself because she had to be free to attend those lectures.”
“Maybe you’ll tell me why you think all this is important?” he tried, knowing it would annoy her to think he hadn’t figured it out.
He was right. “Malloy, I’m surprised at you! Mrs. Blackwell might have thought the only way to avoid being discovered as a morphine user and having to speak at those lectures again was to murder her husband.”
He almost hated to show her how weak her theory was. “You think a woman who was so frightened she’d take morphine to give her the courage to stand up in front of a crowd is going to have the courage to pick up her husband’s pistol, put it to his head, and blow his brains all over her nice carpet?”
“Desperation can make people do strange things,” she pointed out.
“Next I suppose you’re going to argue that she wasn’t in her right mind because of her delicate condition.”
“I’m sure that’s what she’d argue-if she’s guilty, that is.”
“I can’t see any jury in the world convicting a woman with a baby in her arms. That’s even if her father allowed it to get that far. I can’t believe he would.”
“Who is her father?”
“His name is Symington.”
“Maurice Symington?” she asked with a frown.
“Probably. Do you know him?”
“I’ve heard of him, and my father knows him, I’m sure. I think he made his money in manufacturing.”
“You mean he owns sweatshops?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I’m surprised he allowed his daughter to marry so far beneath her, unless Dr. Blackwell comes from money, too.”
“He doesn’st,” Frank said.
“Well, then,” she said, as if that proved everything. “Now I’m really surprised the father allowed her to appear at Dr. Blackwell’s lectures. Such a public display would surely be offensive to him.”
“I figured the same thing. Do you think Blackwell had something on the old man?”
“Looking for blackmail as a motive, Malloy?” she teased: “Sorry to disappoint you, but Mrs. Blackwell said they just felt they owed Blackwell a huge debt after what he did for her. He wouldn’t even accept payment for treating her, and every other doctor had completely given up on helping her. It seems reasonable they would feel deeply grateful and obligated.”
“Maybe,” was all he would allow. Something about this case bothered him. Probably it was the idea that the man might have been done in by his own son. Frank found that very unsettling. He certainly didn’t want to hear that the wife had done it instead, an even more unsettling idea.
“Or maybe she had a lover who took matters into his own hands,” she suggested. “He would have the same motive as she, but he’d also have the will and the nerve to actually kill Dr. Blackwell.”
“Do women of her class usually take lovers?” he asked, ashamed to admit that she might actually have come
