“Didn’t he shout at you most horribly? He’s terrifying when he’s angry.”
“No, I think I had shocked him into silence by that time.”
She laughed. “Amazing.” The laugh turned into a racking cough. When it finally subsided there were beads of sweat over her forehead.
“We must get you well again,” I said. “I should go now and I’ll come back with a doctor.”
She touched my arm again. “Molly, do you think I’m going to die?”
“I won’t let you die,” I said. “If I can conquer Horace Lynch, I’m not going to let your illness win, either.”
She smiled sadly. I took the china basin I had borrowed from the delicatessen then hurried down the stairs and out onto the street. I had promised Emily she wasn’t going to die, but I knew that Fanny and Dorcas had had the best care and attention available and they had both died just the same. Worry clutched at the pit of my stomach. I had dropped off the basin and was just about to enter McPherson’s drugstore when something in the window caught my eye. The display in the corner.
COMPLEXION CREAM FOR THE FINEST, WHITEST SKIN. AS USED BY LADIES IN PARIS.
The cream was in pretty white jars with blue lids. What’s more, I had seen one of those jars recently. On Dorcas’s dressing table. And I remembered the conversation at Fanny’s house. She praised the cream that Ned made and told Emily she needed more of it. I stood staring for a moment, then I turned and ran back to Emily’s room.
“Emily. That face cream. The jar with the blue lid.” The words came out as a gasp, as I was out of breath from running up six flights of stairs.
“The one Ned makes?” she asked. “I have one here on the shelf. Do you want to try it? It’s wonderful.”
I went over to the shelf above her sink and took down the small white jar. I opened it. It was full.
“Ned gave me a new one on Friday,” she said. “He told me he’d improved it even more and asked me to show it to my lady friends.”
“And have you used any yet?”
“Oh, yes. I used it right away.”
“Emily, I know nothing about poisons,” I said. “Is it possible that some element could have been added to a face cream and that a poison could be absorbed through the skin?”
She looked horrified. “But Ned gave this to me himself.”
“Tell me this. I remember Fanny saying she was out of the fabulous complexion cream and asking for more. Did you take her another jar?”
“Yes, I did. Right before she—”
She tried to sit up, open-mouthed.
“Right before she fell ill,” I said. “And I saw a jar on Dorcas’s dressing table, too.”
“But if it’s possible to poison face cream, who could have done this?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“The person who made the cream would be the obvious suspect.”
“Ned? My Ned? But he doesn’t even know Fanny or Dorcas.”
“Is it possible someone paid him to kill them?”
She looked horrified. “Ned is an ethical person. He would never stoop to that.”
“Even though he needs money badly? Even though he is ambitious and a large sum of money could set him up in his own business?”
She hesitated for a second. “Never,” she said. “Ned would never do that. And besides, he wouldn’t want to risk harming me, would he?”
“Is it possible that someone could have tampered with the cream then?”
She frowned. “I suppose that someone could have tampered with Fanny’s cream, but not with mine. Ned himself handed it to me.” Then she shook her head vehemently. “You must be wrong. There is no poison in the cream.”
“It is the only thing that links the three of you together,” I said. “I’m taking this jar to Daniel to be tested this very minute. I hope I’m wrong, but we need to know, don’t we?”
“But Ned gave it to me,” she said again. “There can’t be anything the matter with it.”
Something occurred to me. “When we gave those hairs to Ned to be tested, he said there was no arsenic present. But there must have been. There was arsenic in the stomach mixture Mr. McPherson made up for Fanny, so a trace would have shown up in her hair. That must mean either that Ned didn’t test the hair properly or . . .”
“Or that he lied, and said there was no arsenic so that nobody pursued this.” Her face was absolutely devastated. “But that can’t be right, Molly. My Ned can’t have wanted to kill anybody. He’s gentle. He would never have . . .”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get this cream tested, then we’ll know for sure. I really hope that I am wrong and that Ned has nothing to do this.”