Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“You work very late, Sir John,” Lower said amiably.

“Not through choice, doctor,” he replied. “But this is a matter which cannot wait.”

“It must be serious, then.”

“It is indeed. It concerns Mr. Crosse. He came to see me this afternoon and I wish to check his credentials as he is not a gentleman, although, no doubt, eminently trustworthy in all respects.”

“Examine away, then. What about old Crosse? He is as good a man as I know, and gives false weight only rarely, and then only to customers he does not know.”

“He brought his ledger of sales from his shop,” the magistrate said, “which shows quite clearly that a substantial quantity of arsenic was bought four months ago by Sarah Blundy, a serving girl of this town.”

“I see.”

“Blundy was discharged by Grove for ill-behavior on that same day,” the magistrate continued. “She comes from a violent family.”

“Forgive me for interrupting,” Lower said, “but have you asked the girl? Perhaps she has a perfectly straightforward explanation?”

“I have. After I talked to Mr. Crosse, I went straight there. She said she bought the powder on Dr. Grove’s instructions.”

“Which may be true. It would be difficult to contradict.”

“It may be so. I intend to see if Dr. Grove kept a ledger. The cost of the powder was near a shilling, and an item that expensive might well have been noted. You can vouch for Crosse? He is of good character, and unlikely to bear false witness out of malice?”

“Oh, no. In that respect he is utterly trustworthy. If he says the girl bought arsenic, then the girl bought arsenic,” Lower said.

“Did you accuse the girl directly?”

“No,” Sir John replied. “It is too early for that.”

“You think it a possibility?”

“Maybe so. Might I ask why neither of you mentioned to me the report that she had been seen entering Dr. Grove’s room that night?”

“It is not my job to report tittle-tattle,” Lower said sternly. “Nor yours to repeat it, sir.”

“It is not that,” Sir John replied. “Warden Woodward told me, and brought Mr. Ken to repeat his accusation.”

“Ken?’’ I asked. “Are you sure he was telling the truth?”

“I have no reason to doubt him. I am aware he and Dr. Grove were at odds, but I cannot believe he would lie on such an important matter.”

“And what did the girl say?”

“She denied it, of course. But she also would not say where she was.”

I remembered that she would not tell me either, and my heart filled with foreboding for the first time. Even the most terrible immorality, after all, would be worthwhile owning if it diverted suspicions such as these. So what could the girl have been doing, assuming, that is, she was not lying to cover her guilt?

“In which case it will be her word against Ken’s,” Lower said.

“His word will naturally carry the more weight,” the magistrate pointed out. “And, from the gossip I have heard, it seems the girl had a reason, however perverted, for such a deed. Do I understand that you are treating the mother, Mr. Cole?”

I nodded.

“I recommend that this cease instantly. You should have as little contact with her as possible.”

“You are making an assumption about her culpability,” I said, alarmed at the turn the conversation was talcing.

“I believe I can see the beginnings of a case. But culpability is not my task, I am glad to say.”

“The mother still needs a doctor,” I said. I did not add that my experiment required constant attention as well.

“I’m sure some other physician will do. I cannot prohibit you, but I beg you to think of the awkwardness. The subject of Dr. Grove will undoubtedly be raised should you encounter the girl—if she is responsible she is bound to want to know how the investigation is progressing, and whether you suspect what was done. You would then be placed in the position either of dissimulating, which is undignified, or giving away information which might cause her to flee.”

I could see the sense of that, at least. “But if I suddenly stop attending, that might arouse her suspicions also.”

“In that case,” Lower said cheerfully, “you will have to come with me on my tour. It will get you out of the way, and the girl will not suspect your absence.”

“As long as you come back. Mr. Lower, will you stand surety for your friend? Ensure his return to Oxford?”

Lower agreed readily, and by the time we left the house, the matter had been settled between them without my being consulted in any way. The next day, it seemed, I would leave on tour, and Lower would persuade Locke to attend to my patient and take whatever notes were required on her condition. This inevitably meant telling him what we had done, which made me uneasy, but there was no alternative. He went off to find his friend, and I returned, heavy at heart and alarmed by the turn of events, to my lodgings.

Despite its inauspicious beginnings, the medical journey of the next week initially proved to be of great value to my troubled state of mind. I discovered that, in only a brief space of time, the atmosphere of Oxford had settled on me, rendering me as melancholic as most of its inhabitants. There is something about the place; a dampness which is oppressive to the spirits, which bears down most powerfully on the soul. I have for long had a theory about the weather which, if God spares me, I would like to develop one day. I do believe that the wetness and grayness of the climate will forever preclude the English from making much of a stir in the world, unless they abandon their island for more sunny climes. Transport them to the Americas or the Indies, and their character is such that they could rule the world; leave them where they are, and they are doomed to sink in lassitude. I have personal experience of this in the way in which my normally cheerful temperament became dampened by the experience of residing there.

Nonetheless, finding myself astride a horse on what seemed like the first day of spring after a long hard winter, in the open countryside that begins the moment you cross the old, dangerous-looking bridge after the college of St. Mary Magdalen, was a wonderful tonic. Moreover, the wind had finally shifted from the north to the west, removing the ill effects of this most deadening of airs. I must add that the prospect of having nothing to do with Sarah Blundy or the corpse of Robert Grove for a few days also helped.

Lower had organized the expedition well in advance and rushed me off that first morning, pushing the horses hard until we arrived in late afternoon at Aylesbury, in the next county. We put up in an inn, where we rested ourselves until the execution the next morning. I did not attend, taking little pleasure in such spectacles, but Lower did—the girl, he said, made a wretched speech and quite lost the sympathy of the crowd. It had been a complicated case and the town was by no means convinced of her guilt. She had killed a man whom she said had raped her, but the jury judged this a lie because she had fallen pregnant, which cannot occur without the woman taking pleasure in the act. Normally her condition would have spared her the gallows, but she had lost the child and also any defense against the hangman. An unfortunate outcome, which those who believed in her guilt considered divine providence.

Lower assured me his attendance was necessary; a hanging is a detestable sight, but one of his many fascinations was when exactly the moment of death occurs. This related directly to our experiments with the dove in the air pump. Most of those hanged asphyxiate slowly at the end of the rope and it was a matter of some considerable interest to him—and to physick in general—how long it takes for the soul to depart. He was, he assured me, a considerable expert in the matter. For this reason, he positioned himself next to the tree to take notes.