FORTY-ONE
Wallace McCrae was a ruddy-faced, fiercely beetle-browed man somewhere in his forties, with ginger hair and pale eyes. He was sitting behind his desk, fingers interlocked, listening intently to Watson, who was pacing in front of him, explaining exactly why he had ridden over from Suffolk Farm to visit the American volunteers.
‘Therefore,’ Watson concluded, ‘as he seems not to be here—’
‘We have not seen Caspar Myles for some time, no,’ agreed McCrae in a deep baritone.
‘I really need to know what, exactly, occurred to cause him to leave this hospital and the Harvard Volunteers.’
McCrae began fiddling with the Notre-Dame paperweight on his desk. The gloomy room, the doctor’s office, was on the third floor of what had once been an old mental asylum. The original patients had been rehoused, shipped south, out of danger. Now it specialized in the treatment of fractures, with an X-ray machine installed by Madame Curie herself. ‘Much as I appreciate the situation, I’m not sure I can tell you everything. There are reputations at stake.’
Watson didn’t give two hoots for reputations. ‘There might be lives at stake.’
‘I can’t say I condone what Myles did.’
Watson stopped pacing, horrified. ‘I should think not.’
‘Then again, he’s a red-blooded man.’
‘Where I come from, that’s no excuse.’
‘That’s as maybe. I’m from Chicago, Major Watson. Not the subtlest place on God’s earth. Hog Butcher to the World. And proud of it. So am I. My father made his money in meatpacking. Enough to send me to Harvard. My grandfather, mind, was from Dundee. One of the Scots who came over to build Chicago. Both of them believed that there were times when men’s baser instincts take over. That there is a natural justice—’
‘And the nurse in question? How would she feel about “natural justice”?’
‘Might agree also.’
Watson gave a snort of impatience. ‘I don’t believe this. A nurse is raped—’
‘Almost raped,’ McCrae corrected.
Watson was pleased he didn’t have Mrs Gregson with him. The resultant explosion might have knocked the earth off its axis.
‘A serious assault, then.’
‘Two serious assaults, in fact.’
Watson could not believe his ears. ‘Myles is a habitual rapist?’
McCrae’s brows beetled together even more. His nose twitched as if he had just detected a bad smell. ‘Myles? He’s no rapist.’
Watson threw his arms in the air. ‘Then for pity’s sake, McCrae, tell me what he is!’
‘He’s a complicated fellow.’
‘So it appears.’
‘He is one of those chaps who, on the surface, has it all. Good looks, wealth, fine manners. Sense of humour. Well-connected family. But there are areas where the edifice cracks. He is surprisingly crass sometimes, especially where women are concerned. His approach can be, let me see, flat-footed. If you get my drift.’
Watson thought of Myles’s attempts to find out if Watson had any designs on Staff Nurse Jennings. ‘I do.’
‘There was a nurse, a very good one, called Amelia Wilkes. One of the Connecticut Wilkeses. Very nice. Very pretty. We all knew that Caspar was sweet on her. Well, there was a dance. And two fellows thought it would be funny to make Myles jealous. First by dancing with her. Then by disappearing with her. Doctor, I am ashamed to say this, but much alcohol was consumed. The two fellows became boisterous. To be frank, they tried to force themselves on Nurse Wilkes. She resisted. One of them . . .’ He repositioned himself in the chair. ‘One of them slapped her to try and gain some compliance. The other ripped her dress. It was at that point that Caspar Myles found them.’
Watson was seized by the terrible feeling he had misjudged the man. ‘And?’
‘And, as I say, I can’t condone what he did. But part of me admires him. He waded in. One of the two men ran away, although not until his nose was broken by Myles. The other decided to put up his fists. Myles doesn’t look like a boxer. And the Harvard Athletic Committee does not recognize it as an official varsity sport. But perhaps you know that Teddy Roosevelt boxed on campus? No? Well, Caspar Myles did, too, and with some success. He pounded this guy. And pounded. And pounded. Until all three of them, the nurse included, were drenched in his blood. That was how I found them.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Quite. The man he attacked was the son of a very generous benefactor of the Longwood facility. The medical school. And Myles’s parents are not without influence.’
‘And Nurse Wilkes . . . ?’
‘Was actually unharmed, physically. In fact, she still works here. But the man that Caspar had beaten, well, we operated on the face, but he’ll never be handsome again.’ Watson remembered Myles’s right hand. Holmes would have known what it was: broken knuckles that had not healed well. ‘There were those who thought Myles had over-reacted. Mostly friends of the man he had assaulted. It was agreed that Caspar would leave the Volunteers, at least for the time being. I knew the British were short of doctors, and that there was a CCS nearby. I told Torrance a version of the truth.’
‘One that suggested he was a rapist?’
‘That he’d been indiscreet with a nurse. I don’t have to tell you that most men would see that as the nurse’s fault.’
‘Shame on you,’ Watson said.
McCrae shrugged, unabashed by the criticism. ‘Perhaps. We shipped the injured boy back home. The story was he had been injured when the hospital was shelled. We left it to him to embellish the details.’
‘He’s probably a war hero.’
McCrae made a noise a little like laughter. ‘Knowing the young man in question, I don’t doubt it.’
Watson finally sat down in the chair and let out a long, slow breath. ‘Thank you for being so frank with me.’
‘In retrospect, I might have done things differently. But it’s done. As I say, in Chicago, we would have said he did the right thing. Have you been?’
‘To Chicago?’ Holmes had, of course, during the Von Bork affair. ‘No, we once had some dealings with . . .’
The thought tailed off. McCrae waited and then prompted: ‘Now, would you like to explain what this is all about?’
‘Yes. I just . . . Chicago, it reminded me of something, but I’m blowed if I can recall what. But yes, I can give you the basics.’ Watson, after requesting McCrae’s discretion on the matter, gave him an outline of the death of Hornby, Shipobottom and the near-murder, as he believed it to be, of de Griffon.
‘Peculiar,’ McCrae said when he had finished. ‘But my instinct would be gas. We’ve had a few cases of a new one that Fritz is using. It’s not like chlorine, doesn’t act as an irritant, so you don’t cough. Which means it gets inside your lungs quicker. Some say it smells like a meadow that’s been freshly cut, others like silage. But, this is the strange thing, men report they are fine until one, two, even three days later. Then their lungs stop working.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘We haven’t had a chance to name it yet. Did you bring any blood samples, by the way? From the victim?’
‘I did. There is citrated blood with the lab.’ He unfolded the batch number the laboratory assistant had given him.
‘Fine. You want to leave that with me? If it throws up anything, I’ll get a message to you. You’ll be at the CCS?’
He put the docket on the desk. ‘For the foreseeable—’
Chicago!
‘You OK, Major?’
‘Yes. No.’ Watson’s collar suddenly felt very tight. Chicago, that was the key. ‘I just remembered what your home town meant to me.’ He stood, suddenly anxious to be on his way. ‘I have to go. Apologies.’
‘Right. Listen, be careful who you talk to about gas. It’s a mighty sensitive area right now. Unless you have friends in high places, they’ll stonewall you.’
‘I do,’ said Watson, gathering up his cap.
‘Do what?’
‘Have friends in high places.’