“Yes, get it tested as quickly as possible,” she said. “I won’t be able to rest until I know.”
I poured a fresh glass of barley water for her, then I hurried down those stairs again. Now my heart was really thumping. The obvious answer was that Ned had deliberately poisoned those face creams, but why? If he didn’t know Fanny or Dorcas, the motive could only be money. Someone had bribed him to kill Fanny, and maybe Dorcas. Anson Poindexter, or even Bella. Or perhaps it was Mademoiselle Fifi, who thought at that stage that Anson might marry her if his wife was out of the way. But it seemed rather sophisticated for someone like Fifi. More likely to be Bella, who was well educated and moved in society.
I wondered if I dared pay a visit to Bella and drop hints about face cream and see her reaction—mentioning of course that I had sent a jar to my intended, a captain of police, to be tested. She was hardly likely to throttle me in her living room, was she? Then I thought about Emily. Even if Ned had been paid well to kill Fanny and Dorcas, surely he would not have agreed to harm Emily. And yet he had given her the face cream on Friday. To me this could only mean one thing . . . he wanted her out of the way as well.
Twenty-nine
I stood irresolute at the curb, wondering what to do next. The jar of cream should go to Daniel to be tested. And Emily needed medicine and a doctor. Nothing else would matter if Emily died, but obviously a doctor would need to know what was poisoning her before he could treat her. So Daniel first. I jumped onto a streetcar as it moved off from its stop, causing the conductor to yell at me. “Danged foolish thing to do, young woman,” he growled. “Don’t you know you could get yourself killed that way?”
“Sorry, I’m in a hurry,” I replied with a rueful smile.
I didn’t think Daniel would be at home at this hour, but there was just a chance he might have the day off or have been working all night. Besides, I’d rather face Mrs. O’Shea than police headquarters. The landlady greeted me, looking somewhat distracted and disheveled. Her hair was unkempt and her apron needed changing. “Oh, Miss Murphy. I’m sorry. I must look a sight but I’ve been up all night with the children. The captain’s not here.”
“Then I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said. “And I’m sorry to hear the children are still sick.”
She tried to smooth down her hair. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” she said. “It’s that ringworm on top of everything else that’s driving them crazy. I’ve had to make mittens for them to stop them scratching.”
At that moment the door opened and a child came running out. It was half dressed in petticoat and camisole and the amazing thing about it was that it was almost bald.
“Geraldine, whatever are you thinking,” Mrs. O’Shea said in a shocked voice. “You can’t let people see you like that. Get back inside this instant.”
“I thought it was Captain Sullivan,” Geraldine said with a pout. “He promised he’d bring me some of that sour candy.”
“Children!” Mrs. O’Shea shook her head as she pushed Geraldine back into the room and closed the door.
“What’s happened to her hair?” I asked, staring at the closed door almost as if I could see through it.
“It’s the ringworm medicine. It makes their hair fall out. The doctor says it will grow back again just fine.”
“What’s in the medicine that has that effect?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know, my dear. It’s what the doctor prescribed for them. I had it made up at the pharmacy on the corner of Broadway.”
“Thank you, Mrs. O’Shea.” I beamed at her.
“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” she said, looking at me oddly.
I hurried along Twenty-third to Broadway and into the pharmacy there. “You made up a ringworm medicine for the O’Shea children,” I said, realizing that the words were coming out in a torrent. “What was in it?”
The druggist stared at me as if I was a crazy person.
“My dear young woman, I could not possibly discuss a patient’s prescription with you.”
“But it’s very important,” I said. “A matter of life and death, in fact.”
“Really?” He looked almost amused.
“I have a friend whom I suspect is being poisoned,” I said. “I need to know what there is in the medicine you made up to counteract ringworm that would make the hair fall out.”
“That, young lady, would be in the inclusion of thallium.”
“And is thallium a poison?”
“Deadly. It can kill in relatively small doses. We have to make sure when we handle it that we wear gloves and a mask. It can be absorbed through the skin and inhaled too, you know.”
I looked around the dispensary. “Do you happen to have a telephone?”
“I do not. I have no interest in these newfangled ideas,” he said, and indicated that he was going back to his work.