mirrors reflected enormous crystal chandeliers. French doors overlooked a terrace, a fountain in which stone dolphins spouted, and a sweep of lawn and gardens. But except for these features, the scene in the ballroom was not what I’d expected.
Rows of cots contained pale, haggard, emaciated people. A physician ministered to them. Three women in white aprons distributed food. The two young ones pushed a trolley laden with a tureen and served bowls of soup to the patients. The older woman was small and delicate, the dark hair under her cap streaked with gray. She sat down by the bed of a child and spooned soup into his mouth. A man was unloading stacks of clean linens from a cart. When he saw Slade and me, he stopped his work and approached us.
“My apologies for the informal reception, Commissioner.” He extended his hand to Slade. “William Kavanagh, at your service.”
He was in his sixties, broad across the shoulders, with thick, bowed legs and unruly red hair turning white. His genial face was rosy and sweating from exertion. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, he hardly matched the elegance of his manor, but he had confidence grounded in wealth and status. He indicated the older woman. “This is my wife Kathleen.”
She came to his side and curtseyed, shyly polite. Her immense, clear blue eyes were fringed by black lashes. She must have been a beauty in her youth, and she was lovely still.
“Since the famine started, the county’s been rife with consumption, cholera, and typhoid,” Sir William said. “We’ve set up a sick ward here.”
“I see,” Slade said. I could tell from his tone of voice that he, too, had changed his prejudiced ill opinion of the Kavanaghs.
Sir William noted our chagrin; he smiled. “Life’s been good to us. Helping others less fortunate is the least we can do. But you came to talk about Niall. What’s he done this time?”
His tone bespoke a long history of hearing bad news about his son. So did the worry that creased Lady Kathleen’s forehead. Slade said, “Is he here?”
“No,” Sir William said.
I detected no hesitation or falseness in his reply.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Slade asked.
“Three, four years ago,” Sir William said. “He’s our black sheep.”
I heard a soft sound from Lady Kathleen. When I looked at her, she averted her gaze.
“What’s he done?” Sir William repeated. “It must be serious if you came all the way from London.”
Slade glanced at the patients in the beds; those awake were listening avidly. “We should discuss this elsewhere.”
It was obvious that although Sir William knew about Niall’s bad character, blood was blood and he saw Slade as a threat to his family. But he said, “All right.” He stalked toward the French doors, beckoning Slade. I went, too. Lady Kathleen started after us, but Sir William told her, “Stay here, I’ll handle this.”
Outside on the terrace, Sir William bade us sit in wrought-iron chairs at a table under a striped umbrella, but he remained standing. His unfriendly gaze commanded Slade to state his business.
Slade spoke gently, and I remembered that he’d been ordained as a clergyman before he’d become a spy. He must have been schooled on how best to deliver upsetting news, but his manner couldn’t lessen the horror of what he said: Niall Kavanagh had formulated the theory that diseases are caused by animalcules, then tested his theory on women of the streets and killed and dissected them; he’d been hired by Lord Eastbourne to build a weapon based on his theory; and his work had come to the attention of Wilhelm Stieber, the Tsar’s chief spy. After Slade reported that Niall had disappeared and Stieber was hunting him, Sir William shook his head violently.
“I won’t listen to any more of this!” The ruddy color had drained from his face. “Niall’s always been a troublemaker, to be sure, but he’s not the monster you’ve made him out to be!”
I heard a strangled cry, from Lady Kathleen. She stood partially hidden by a potted shrub, her hand clapped over her mouth, appalled by what she’d overheard.
“Damn you for coming here and telling awful lies about my son to his mother!” Sir Kavanagh burst out at Slade.
Lady Kathleen stumbled blindly down the steps to the lawn. I followed her. The lawn was uncut and weed- choked, probably due to the servants fleeing the famine. The rose garden into which Lady Kathleen hurried was similarly ill-maintained, the bushes overgrown, the dead blossoms left shriveled alongside the new blooms, the odor funereal. Lady Kathleen wandered aimlessly, wringing her hands. I pitied her, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to further Slade’s and my investigation.
“I’m sorry,” I said, ashamed of my readiness to take advantage of her. “I wish you hadn’t had to hear that.”
“It’s all right.” Lady Kathleen’s voice was quiet, with a melodious Irish lilt. “I’ve been dreading this day. Now that it’s come, it’s a relief.”
“You knew what Niall has done?”
“Not the specifics. Nor how bad they were. But Niall is my son.” Lady Kathleen stopped wandering and turned to me. “Do you have children, Mrs. Slade?”
This was the first time anyone had addressed me by my fraudulent name and title. Disconcerted, I said, “No.”
“Maybe you will someday,” Lady Kathleen said kindly. “Then you’ll understand. I carried Niall, I gave birth to him. I know him better than anyone else can. And I knew, from the start, that he was… different.”
I resisted the urge to force the issue of Niall’s whereabouts. “Different in what way?”
“I have five children. None of the others were as curious about the world as Niall was. As soon as he could walk, he would go into the fields and dig holes to find out what was under the ground, and rip plants up by their roots to look at them. One day he tore open all the rosebuds in this garden to see how the flowers looked before they bloomed. He would climb trees, take baby birds out of their nests, and handle them so much they died.” Her face showed alarm at his ignorant destruction of beauty and life. “When he was seven, he killed a cat that was expecting kittens, and he cut open her stomach to see what was inside!”
I felt the horror that I heard in her voice. I began to understand how his curiosity had compelled Niall Kavanagh to do the terrible things he’d done.
“Niall was just as careless with people,” Lady Kathleen said. “He drowned a shepherd’s little girl because he wanted to see how long she could stay under water.” Lady Kavanagh shook her head, unable to fathom how her child could have behaved so cruelly. “He held her head down until she stopped breathing.”
Curiosity must be an essential trait for a scientist, but Niall Kavanagh had clearly been over-endowed with it, and lacking in conscience and compassion.
“Sir William told the girl’s family that it was an accident,” Lady Kathleen said. “He gave them money. He talked to the authorities, and they excused Niall because he was just a child.”
He’d used his wealth and influence to protect a murderer. “Wasn’t Niall ever punished?” I asked. “Wasn’t he ever taught that it’s wrong to hurt people?”
“Of course.” Lady Kathleen’s tone sharpened at my implication that her negligence was to blame. “I talked to him again and again. But he never seemed to understand that what he’d done was wrong. I made him stay in his room and go without supper; I took away his toys; I spanked him. But it only made him angry because I didn’t understand him.” Baffled, she said, “He was so excited whenever he discovered something new. He thought he should be praised for whatever he did.”
I wondered if he’d later thought he deserved praise for stealing his mentor’s work, for his affairs with his colleagues’ wives, for airing his controversial views, and then taken offense because he’d been criticized and cast out instead.
“He was the same way at school,” Lady Kathleen said. “Instead of doing the homework that was assigned, he would read books and write reports on subjects he’d chosen himself. When he was punished, he would fly into a rage. He was expelled from several schools because he attacked his teachers. We had to bring him home and hire a tutor for him. But he would go into the village and drink, and start brawls. And he got several girls with child.”
“Did Sir William know about all this?”
“I tried to tell him,” Lady Kathleen said, “but he didn’t really listen.”
I could hear the murmur of Slade’s voice telling Sir William about the evidence against Niall. Sir William’s voice replied, loud and angry: “Scribbles in notebooks. Scientific paraphernalia. That doesn’t prove my son is guilty
