THE TRIUMPH OF MR. MOLE.
There came a respite to her pain;
She from her prison fled.—_Wordsworth._
Those natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural
propension to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome
to spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those
of the slaughter of men the freer.—_Montaigne._
One day in November Mr. Mole received a little note by the hand of a
small boy, who said he had just come from Mr. Crowe’s. It was from
Spriggs, and in these words:
“DEAR MR. WALTER,—
“Do come here at once if you anyways can, for poor missus has just
expired in agonies awful for to behold. I have done just as you
told me, and I will only give them into your own hands for fear of
mistakes. Do pray come soon. I am in such a fluster, though I have
expected it for a week or more.
“Your affectionate friend,
“JANET SPRIGGS.”
The half pound or so of striated involuntary muscle which in Mr. Mole
did duty for a heart was thrown into a state of agitation by this
epistle. He must be off to Mr. Crowe’s residence at once.
Entering the house by a back door opening into an alley at the side of
the residence, he was unobserved by any one except the servants. Janet
soon told him the circumstances of her mistress’s death. How at eleven
o’clock she had given her a composing pill, the only one in the box.
These pills had been ordered by Dr. Stanforth, who had seen the patient
the previous day. How, an hour after, no sleep having supervened, she
had given a little brandy and water, and a few mushrooms, which had
been sent in by Mr. Crowe from the fruiterer’s. How, soon after
partaking of this food, her poor mistress had been seized with
faintness and vertigo, had become suddenly pale and pulseless. That she
had immediately called her master, who was in his study, and by his
orders had sent the page to Dr. Stanforth, who was not at home. That
meanwhile Mrs. Crowe had got rapidly worse, had vomited several times,
and died with convulsions in great agony. How she had adroitly managed
to drop her handkerchief on her mistress’s pillow, and so contrived to
provide her lover with the materials for an analysis. How, moreover,
she had reserved in another handkerchief the remains of the dish which
formed the patient’s last meal. One thing that excited the girl’s
curiosity was the fact that on the previous night she was certain there
were two pills in the little box on the mantel; whereas, although none
had been taken during the night, only one remained when, by her
master’s order, she gave the morning dose. Had the box been upset? Had
the parlour maid, who arranged the room in the morning and made the
fire, disturbed the box? She declared she had not touched it when Mr.
Mole examined her, and he believed the girl.
The death certificate was filled up by Dr. Stanforth as follows:
Atrophic cirrhosis two years two months.
Gastritis one year three months.
Hæmatemesis four days.
This certificate was duly delivered to the registrar; and two
others like it were forwarded to the assurance companies in each of
which the life was insured for the sum of one thousand pounds.
Mr. Mole went away with his little parcel, and soon set to work in his
own private room on his tests. From his observations on some mice, to
which he gave an ethereal extract of the contents of the handkerchiefs,
he was quite sure that muscarin or lorchelin had somehow found its way
into the stomach of the deceased lady. But here was the difficulty. She
had undoubtedly eaten of a dish of mushrooms previous to her death.
Somehow or other a poisonous fungus might have got into that dish, by
accident possibly, by intention more likely. Again, there was the
mysterious incident of the pill. What was easier than to substitute a
pill of bulbosin for one of the morphia pills which should have been
given. Was it not strange that only one pill remained in a box which
should have contained two if it had not been interfered with?
He must consult with Dr. Sones about this, and off he went to his
place, taking with him all the materials for examination which he had
left. Dr. Sones listened to his story with the interest of a
toxicologist who was on the track of a terrible crime; for to that he
agreed with Mr. Mole all the circumstances seemed to point.
“Leave everything with me for a week,” said he, “and then come again.
Meanwhile, if I want you, I will write.”
Mrs. Crowe was buried in Highgate Cemetery, and the sincere condolences
of all the staff were duly presented to the bereaved surgeon. Dr.
Stanforth saw nothing at all peculiar in the circumstance of the death,
and had not even thought of attributing it to other than a quite
ordinary cause. After all, what was there to excite suspicion? There
was some rather violent vomiting in a patient who was the subject of
constant nausea, and the attendant symptoms of a chronically inflamed
stomach. True, she died after a meal of mushrooms. Dangerous things at
all times, she, of all people, should never have touched them; but they
were some of the few articles of diet the poor lady ever fancied, and
it was hard to deny them to her. “Had the mushrooms anything to do with
her death?” asked Mr. Crowe. He thought not, except in causing perhaps
an attack of acute dyspepsia. The fruiterer declared that it was
impossible any deleterious fungus could have got into the basket; he
had sold a dozen that same morning, and no other purchaser had found
any fault with them.
At the expiration of the week Mr. Mole called upon Dr. Sones.
“You have,” said the latter, “not only the alkaloid muscarin here, but
an acrid volatile principle which could not have remained in the
mushrooms after cooking. This must have either been added to the dish
after it left the kitchen, or been administered in some other form than
the food in question. Now so powerful is this principle in the vomit in
the handkerchief you have brought me, that I have come to the
conclusion it could only have been derived from the Russian species we
investigated together last year. I know no English fungus which
contains it in precisely this form. Again, in the remains of the dish
in the other handkerchief, though I find lorchelin plentifully, I do
not find the irritant poison I have mentioned. I should conclude,
therefore, that this was administered some other way.”
“The pill!” cried Mr. Mole. “Wasn’t it in the pill? Was not the box
tampered with, and was not a pill compounded of this irritant poison
substituted for the harmless morphia ones the box previously contained?”
“That is quite likely, and the poison either given as medicine, or
added surreptitiously to the dish after it was prepared.”
To Dr. Stanforth, Mr. Crowe’s easy-going, amiable colleague, as we have
said, the case presented no peculiar features whatever. Very few cases
did so to this optimistic, complacent gentleman. His was the charity
that thinketh no evil, and considered everything was “for the best in
this best of all possible worlds.” Perhaps, however, it was the _nil
admirari_ principle that most influenced him. He had acquired a certain
distinction in his profession by having statistics ready for every
class of case coming under his notice in his speciality, and it would
have detracted from his glory to have permitted himself to be surprised
at anything which might happen to a lady patient. “Had he ever seen
such a case before?” some excited general practitioner who thought he
had something interesting to show him would demand, only to be coolly
set down with the reply, “Oh, certainly. As near as I can tell without
reference to my notes, this makes the thirteenth case of the kind that
I have examined since my connection with the hospital.”
When, therefore, Dr. Stanforth had heard all the symptoms exhibited by
Mrs. Crowe on the morning of her decease, he was not the least
surprised; he had his theory ready for any emergency.
“Ah, my dear Crowe, this is just what I always expected would happen to
your poor wife. In cases of cirrhosis like hers, find the proportion of
deaths, with just such symptoms as you describe, to be one in 238-1/3.”
Dr. Stanforth prided himself in his arithmetic, in which he was always
very exact. He usually went in for decimals, but to-day was satisfied
with vulgar fractions. He always had a similar case to illustrate the
one under notice, and was equally precise in his way of mentioning it.
“I had just such another case in the year 1861. It was Easter Monday,
and I remember it was snowing hard. I was called to a draper’s in St.
John’s Wood. You know the shop opposite the church? Just such a case as
this. The poor heart-broken husband, just like yourself, was beside
himself with grief, and reproached himself for having given his wife,
poor thing, some macaroni he had just got from Naples. She was seized
precisely as Mrs. Crowe, and died within two hours after eating it. He
would have it there were cholera germs in the macaroni. The cholera was
raging in Naples just then. You remember. Don’t you remember? Ah, I do!
I lost my beautiful cousin, Lady Arethusa Standoph, who was seized with
it while staying at Castellamare close by. One in every 625-1/4
visitors to Naples died that year of cholera, of all nationalities that
is to say; of English only one in every 889-1/2.”
Dr. Stanforth was a princely, not to say kingly, liar. When he did a
thing, he did it royally, and he lied without niggardliness and with
the precision of an actuary. Perhaps this peculiar trait in Dr.
Stanforth’s character had recommended him to Mr. Crowe’s favour. Be
this as it may, the latter was well pleased to hear that mushrooms
could have had no possible connection with his wife’s death. He was
willing to waive his superior physiological attainments in favour of
his colleague’s statistics. So far from pressing his opinion with his
usual persistence, he bowed in acquiescence, and thereby flattered Dr.
Stanforth immensely. Of course it would have been most unpleasant to
have had an inquest, and this admirable certificate saved all that
annoyance. Both the insurance companies paid the money, and Mr. Crowe
seemed disposed to bear his bereavement with exemplary resignation. He
went on with his work much as before, solacing himself, however, with
frequent visits to Aunt Janet and Mildred. Both ladies felt it their
duty to be as kind and sympathetic as possible, and he was urged to
visit them as often as he conveniently could. They got up nice little
dinner parties for him; and as Mildred, in her kind, consoling way, did
her best to solace the widower in his affliction, he began to hope he
was daily growing in her favour. He did his best to throw cold water on
her hospital scheme, as he foresaw such a project would be most
prejudicial to his order, and would set an example that would be surely
followed by other faddists, much to the injury of scientific medicine;
but he had to be guarded in his treatment of this subject, because he
saw the new object was deeply set in the hearts of both ladies. When he
found it was hopeless to try and hinder it, and that it was an
accomplished fact, he set to work to turn the scheme to his own
advantage. But to little purpose. There was no chance for him at
Nightingale House. His peculiarities and principles were too well known
to be disguised, and nobody believed he was capable of conversion.
But gradually it came to be noticed that everybody was fighting shy of
Mr. Crowe. The most unpleasant rumours about the cause of his wife’s
death were in the air. Nobody spoke out, nobody seemed to know anything
precisely; but all at once Mr. Crowe was blown upon.
That nobody spoke was perhaps too much to say, for Mr. Crowe had one
open and bitter enemy on the staff of St. Bernard’s. Mr. Ringrose, the
surgeon, had been quarrelling with him for years in a gentlemanly and
polite sort of way. Each had presented the other to the council as
having done something unprofessional. Crowe accused Ringrose of having
killed a man through operating on him when drunk; and Ringrose, who was
a popular man, had branded Crowe as an atheist who was damaging the
reputation of the school by seducing the young men from the Christian
faith by his blasphemous remarks and ridicule of Scripture. Mr.
Ringrose did not scruple to say that, if anybody wanted to get rid of
his wife, he could not do better than learn physiology. And so what
with speaking out, and what with shrugging his shoulders and hinting
the darkest things possible, he managed to imbue everybody in the place
with dire suspicions about Mr. Crowe. Soon everybody got hold somehow
of the whole circumstances connected with the death of the lady; and
though there was not enough known to make a legal investigation
desirable or possible, there was abundant reason for shunning Mr.
Crowe’s society. The students soon caught the infection, and all sorts
of _graffiti_ were blazing openly on the walls of the college;
toadstools surmounted by a death’s head and cross-bones; legends such
as—
“_Crow’s-foot, a poisonous plant of the order Ranunculacæ_;” under
which a wag added—
“But not half so deadly as _Crowe’s hand_, order _Physiologacæ_.”
One day Mr. Ringrose accidentally found that he had seated himself at a
table in the refreshment department at the Army and Navy Stores facing
Mr. Crowe, who was lunching off a dish of curried fowl, and surrounded
by various little purchases which encumbered the chair next his own.
The men nodded coldly, but did not speak to each other. Mr. Ringrose,
impelled by the demon of mischief, demanded of the waiter to come and
attend to him.
“Have you any mushrooms?”
“No, sir. Mushrooms not in season, sir.”
“Of course not. How stupid of me!”
Mr. Crowe, under the glare of his enemy’s cruel eye, visibly winced;
his face paled, and Ringrose could see that the arrow had gone home.
The physiologist beckoned to a waiter, gave his number, paid his bill
to the boy who came round for the money, picked up his little
brown-paper parcels, and went off.
Mr. Ringrose felt sure that one murderer had lunched that day in decent
company.
Now Mr. Mole had long been working to supplant his chief. He aimed at
nothing less than the chair of physiology.
In a very short time things became so unpleasant for Mr. Crowe, that he
was fain to resign his appointment as surgeon to the hospital, though
for the present he retained his lectureship at the medical school.