“Of course,” she said. She leaned slightly forward and turned to my employer, smiling brightly. “I hope you’ll be able to find your answers somewhere, Mr. Clemens. Please feel free to call me on the telephone if you have more questions.”
“I’ll do just that,” he said, rising to his feet. “These modern inconveniences do have their uses sometimes, don’t they? Thanks again, and we’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can help us with. Come along, Cabot—we’ve got another appointment to get to.”
16
We stopped for luncheon in a neighborhood public house just off Great Russell Street—I remembered it from my visit to the British Museum. The food was very plain, but filling: I had a large wedge of Cheddar cheese, a thick slice of brown bread, pickled onions, and some unidentifiable relish which (after one taste) I left uneaten. The ale, on the other hand, was rich and foamy, considerably better than what one would find in a local saloon back home. Mr. Clemens grumbled a bit about the undistinguished fare, but I decided that his complaints were strictly pro forma, since he cleaned his plate, including the relish. And he evidently agreed with me on the merits of the ale, quaffing two pints in the course of the meal.
“We’re not making much progress, are we?” I said between bites of the sandwich I had made from my bread and cheese. “Unless somebody saw something that neither of us did, we haven’t made even the first step toward clearing McPhee. Or proving him guilty, either.”
“Well, we’ve got a few leads to follow,” said Mr. Clemens. “I reckon we’ll need to talk to Parkhurst’s partner, and to his son—and to his wife, if she’ll talk to us. The biggest problem is, I’ve got lectures starting next week, and that’ll pretty much put an end to any snooping I can do. Luckily, the first few talks are here in town, so I won’t have to give up entirely until we have to go on the road. But unless we’re hot on the trail by then, I think we’ll have to pack it in.”
“I thought we would learn more from Mrs. Boulton,” I said. “But for the life of me, I can’t think of anything she said that was the least bit helpful. Perhaps something will show up when I go over my notes.”
“I’m amazed you managed to fit them all in that little book of yours,” said my employer, shaking his head. He took a bite of his cheese, then continued. “I swear, Wentworth, asking that woman a simple question is like asking for a glass of water and getting dunked in the river. You’d almost think she’d done it on purpose. But I guess a young widow must get anxious for people to talk to. Still, I think maybe there are a few leads to follow up in what she said. It’s interesting that both Villiers and her husband were Parkhurst’s patients. I’d never have guessed that from the way they all acted before the séance started.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’d have thought they’d never have seen the doctor before that evening.”
“Or that they’d met him and didn’t want anything more to do with him,” said Mr. Clemens. “We’ll have to see if he had a record of malpractice or incompetence. Maybe his expatients were all itching to pay him back for the way he treated them. And I mean that literally.”
“But we’ve heard that he was one of the best doctors in London,” I pointed out. “Cedric Villiers and Mrs. Boulton both told us that he was recommended very highly. That argues against his being incompetent.”
“Recommendations don’t mean a man’s any good, just that he’s popular,” said Mr. Clemens. He picked up his tankard of ale and drained it. “He could’ve had a streak of lucky cures when he first set out, or he maybe he was just part of the right social set. The patients that die don’t get a chance to run down the doctor’s reputation.”
“No, but their families do,” I argued. “Mrs. Boulton had the chance to damn him as a quack, if she’d wanted to. Perhaps she could have praised him more highly, but she certainly didn’t accuse him of killing her husband.”
“Well, we’ll try to find out what happened there,” said Mr. Clemens. He picked up the napkin and wiped his moustache. “Well, I’m ready to get back on the case—how about you?”
I nodded—my plate was empty, except for the relish, and my tankard was dry. “I’m ready to go,” I said.
“Good—let’s go see what the doctor’s sister-in-law says.” He put twelvepence on the table—more than enough for our two meals, and we went out to find our carriage and driver.
Ophelia Donning lived in the Southwark section, which I had not previously seen. We crossed the river on Waterloo Bridge, and soon found ourselves in a somewhat older neighborhood. The streets were narrower than those of the Bloomsbury district we had just left, and the houses not as well kept up.
Miss Donning’s home was on a small side street. Like the others on the street, it was clean and neat, although it had been some time since its last coat of paint. An elderly servant, who squinted at us in the afternoon light, opened the door to our knock. “Come hin,” she said broadly, “Mistress ’as been hexpectin’ you.” She led us into the sitting room, where Miss Donning rose to meet us, and sent the servant off to stow away our coats.
As before, I was struck with Miss Donning’s aristocratic bearing. Her golden-blonde hair was done up in a knot, without a single strand amiss, and her blue-gray eyes could have been taken from the portrait of a queen—or a general. She was unusually tall, and dressed in impeccable taste—just enough behind the fashion not to seem frivolous, but not dated either.
On the other hand, her house and furnishings suggested that Miss Donning—or her family—had seen more
