The Formula for Murder (21 page)

The place is crowded with locals, mostly men. We both order toad in the hole, which is sausages in a Yorkshire pudding, served with mashed potatoes and onion gravy. Wells orders a pint of ale.

“I guess there’s no chance of them having champagne?” I imbibe very little, but when I do I enjoy champagne. Tonight I could use its nerve-calming effect.

“Here? No. Now, if we had stayed in town at that hotel I recommended…”

“Do I sense someone’s a little miffed?”

“Quite the contrary; I’m fine staying here in this small, quaint pub on the edge of the wilderness of tors and bogs and crags. It’s you who is wanting champagne and I was just pointing out…”

“Yes, yes, I get the message, but it’s better safe than happy.”

“Nellie, it’s better safe than
sorry.
”

“That, too. But right now I would be
happy
having a glass of champagne. I’ve been unsettled ever since I saw that man. And it’s not because I’m in fear of the man himself—though I have to admit after already experiencing his handiwork as a mugger, I do appreciate the fact that he is a man who can be dangerous, but right now it’s more because of his cryptic remark.”

“Yes, that was quite odd, making a remark about vampires. But I believe he was just being obnoxious and facetious.”

“That’s interesting coming from someone who talks about dark beasts.”

He starts to object, but I continue. “And it was ‘look for the blood and you’ll find the vampires.’ Anyway, I don’t believe it was a coincidence that he was on that train—I’m certain he is following me. Not that it’s that difficult—I left a clear trail for an army to follow. One thing I’ve learned as a reporter—what looks like a coincidence usually has crafty hands behind it.”

“Even vampires?”

“You think he was joking, being obnoxious, but I don’t take it that way. I don’t believe he was giving a warning, either. I’m sure he wouldn’t care if I was eaten by a moor beast or had my blood drained by a vampire.”

“So what does your gut tell you about his motives?”

“My gut, thank you, tells me that the man has a big ego and he was boasting. He knows something we don’t and couldn’t resist taunting us. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out what he was alluding to.”

“Understandable because there is nothing behind it. He was joking, pulling your leg as my father would say. And he has succeeded.”

“I don’t believe it. He was being facetious, for sure, but I still believe his choice of words has meaning.”

Wells gives his head a shake and shrugs. “Perhaps he said his remark because Lacroix is a blood doctor who once paid for blood? I told you about the Ponce de Leon jokes.”

“What if Dr. Lacroix has gone back to experimenting with blood? Could that be the reason the man made the crack?”

“Maybe. But he’d lose his license if he obtained blood illegally.”

“No risk is too great for a person obsessed with seeking power, wealth, and fame. But I suppose the most important question is not the significance of what he said, but who is he? More importantly, my
gut
tells me he’s a hired hand, not a principal. Someone has hired him to follow me and I’d like to know why.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to him. Seemed like a pretty ordinary chap, don’t you think? Maybe a traveling salesman?”

“Or a copper.”

“You think he’s a police officer?” Wells looks surprised. “Why would you think that?”

“Had much dealing with the police?”

“Frankly … none at all that was of any consequence.”

“I’ve had a lot, almost always very good … though once in a while I’ve had to deal with a rotten one. And when a cop’s bad, watch out, he’s got a gun and a nightstick and likes using both.”

“So you think he’s a police officer?”

“An
ex
-copper, I’d say. He’s cut out of the same rawboned mold that most of the coppers I know are. Long arms to throw a punch, big knuckles when it connects, long feet for a kick. And his shoes. They are the heavy shoes good for walking on sidewalks that help the aching feet of flatfoots.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize bobbies were so uniform.”

“It’s attitude, too. In a small town, you always knew who was going to grow up to be a police officer. It was the toughest boy who liked ordering people around.”

“And why do you think he’s an ex-copper?”

“When I saw him in London, his suit and shoes were worn, the kind of wear you get from not having a wife to take care of them and no money for the laundry. No police captain would permit an officer to show up for duty looking grubby. No, I think he’s been a police officer and ran afoul of the law himself. He fell from grace and into the gutter. He was paid to get that diary from me and from the looks of him, it’s obviously increased his fortunes.”

“Amazing. I don’t know what to say. What else do you have up your sleeve about this fellow?”

“Mr. Wells, I sense a bit of sarcasm in your voice.”

“Perhaps jealousy would be a better description of my attitude. I apologize. It’s just that it’s rare to hear a woman be so analytical. Or a man, for that matter. I’m quite impressed. Please, continue.”

Another notion about the man has been brewing in my head and I share it. “It is possible that he didn’t follow me to Bath. What if something in the diary sent him to Bath?” I tell him about finding the Bath ticket in the diary.

“But if he didn’t follow you to Bath, how did he happen to end up in Exeter?”

“He could have easily learned my destination. I made no secret about it at the hotel. Or there could have been something in the diary that directed him to Bath and Exeter. Hailey might have been jotting thoughts in the diary about her investigation of the spa.”

“Does your analysis hint at
who
hired him?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

We sit on the question for a moment while Wells downs the rest of his pint and orders another.

“I would venture a guess,” he says, “that it was Radic and Lacroix who hired him to get the diary.”

“Perhaps.”

“Ah, Nellie, that perhaps was very vague.”

“My instant reaction would be a yes as to the spa snake oil doctors, but his comment about vampires throws me off. It has to have something to do with Lacroix and I don’t see the man flaunting the connection of the man who pays him.”

We silently mull over the puzzle for a moment before I share another thought with him.

“I’m bothered by the notion that Hailey would have put information about the story she was doing on the spa in her diary. A diary is kept for personal matters. Knowing Hailey, that diary would bare her innermost feelings. It doesn’t add up any more than Hailey spending several days in Bath, much of it at an expensive hotel at the expense of the spa.”

“I’ve told you Dr. Lacroix is quite a ladies’ man. Faced with a threat from a female reporter, his reaction would have been to charm her.” Wells pours a small glass of ale from his pint and pushes it across to me. “It’s not champagne, but it does wet the whistle.”

I’m not crazy about beer, because of my stepfather, but I don’t want to be rude, so I take it.

“Thank you.” Ale must be an acquired taste because I find it rather bitter. “Hailey was extremely impressionable and immature when it came to dealing with men. Mostly, no doubt, caused by her lack of experience and lack of training from parents because she was orphaned. I’ve seen her get giddy around men who flatter and flirt with her.”

Wells strokes his chin and nods. “So she may well have put things in her diary about Dr. Lacroix after he turned his charm on her. And in doing that, she could have included information about the spa, what she saw, heard. Even, perhaps, information about a laboratory in the moors?”

“Quite,” I say with a smile, being British for a moment.

“Which means Lacroix and company would have a very good reason to want to get their hands on the diary.”

“I agree. But we are leaving out another fine candidate.”

“Which is?”

“Lord Winsworth. I understand he’s a tough, two-fisted, rags-to-riches type. Owns mines. One of the other things I’ve learned about coppers is that the man who mugged me also matches the modus operandi of the type of man hired by mine owners as strike breakers. If Winsworth is that tough, it’s hard to imagine him letting a society doctor get away with killing his wife without exacting a bit of revenge.”

“You should have been a lawyer.” Wells smiles. “Of course, you’re the wrong sex.” He leans forward and meets my eye. “That is both a compliment for you and an observation about the unfair way women are treated in society.”

Vain as always, I blush with pleasure down to my toes.

“Let’s get back to vampires,” I tell him.

36

“The Vampyre,’” Wells says, “and
Frankenstein
were written by a pair of friends at the same haunted time and place. The two books of horror came about in 1816, due to a cool, wet summer in what historians now call the year without a summer.”

“Yes, I remember that … well, my mother told me stories that were passed down from her own mother. The weather turned very strange. Sheep froze in meadows, flocks of small birds were found dead in the fields. Pennsylvania got snow in June. Crops were ruined and prices went way up, not to mention so many deaths, especially with the elderly and very young.

“What my mother thought was interesting were people’s interpretations on why it happened. Priests were supposedly saying it was God’s way of punishing them for their sins and the sins of others. Another theory for it was Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod experiments—some people believe he affected something in the air that changed the weather.”

“Yes, stories like that were passed around, all because of ignorance, a lack of knowledge. My father’s favorite was a merchant ship was found under full sail with nobody aboard. Scientifically, the cold, damp summer happened because of a series of severe climate abnormalities caused by enormous volcanic eruptions. Unfortunately, as you said, a great number of people starved that year including many in northern Europe. But out of every catastrophe something good arises from it.

“In this case a group of very talented young people, including the poets Shelley and Lord Byron, were staying together at a manor house in Switzerland. Stuck indoors because of the awful weather, they began reading ghost stories and then challenged each other to write their own. Shelley’s eighteen-year-old girlfriend and future wife, Mary, created the Frankenstein monster and their friend, John Polidori, a doctor, produced the famous vampire book in three days.”

“Amazing.”

“Quite. I must confess I am fascinated with this type of fantastic writing and the stories are among my favorites. As it happens, in ‘The Vampyre,’ spelled with a Y, Lord Ruthven, a mysterious stranger, appears in London, where he seduces society women. A young man becomes intrigued by him and travels on the continent with him. The young man eventually discovers that every woman Lord Ruthven seduces ends tragically. He investigates Lord Ruthven, but his own life is lost after his love is killed and he fails to save his sister from the vampire.”

“Good lord, what a horrible story.”

Wells laughs. “It depends upon your tastes. Certainly not a good choice for someone who likes a happy ending. I love a good tale of gothic horror. What’s your preference?”

“A good mystery. My favorite right now is the new Sherlock Holmes mysteries.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Wells smiles. “Maybe you should try your hand at one.”

“I did. I wrote,
The Mystery of Central Park,
which was published last year in October. After I went undercover as a prostitute, I decided to write a mystery. It just seemed fitting and the whole setting of Central Park is perfect for such a tale.”

“Miss Nellie Bly! You are full of surprises. A reporter and writer. I’m deeply impressed. You went undercover as a prostitute?” His eyes twinkle.

“Yes, but I remained a lady.”

“Never doubted it.”

Our food comes and we eat in a silence, a quiet moment I’m enjoying despite the fact that I most often feel the need to chatter away to fill the void.

Once our plates are cleared, Wells leans forward and whispers with a glint in his eye, “So what do you think, Nellie, is Dr. Lacroix a vampire?”

“Why not? Perhaps the ex-copper or whatever he is was speaking metaphorically. He’s a blood doctor who seduces wealthy women either physically or with promises of eternal youth.”

“I don’t think that quite fits the definition.”

“He is also a stealer of blood, at least in the past. That certainly places him in the vampire category, as far as I’m concerned.”

He gives a smile that is almost quizzical.

“What?” I ask.

“I was just thinking that I am hiding out from a copper turned bad, while sitting in a pub talking to a mysterious foreign woman about murder and monsters. There are two amazing things about that. The first is that I have a tremendous imagination which leads me not infrequently to storming castles and rescuing fair princesses, all without leaving my teacher’s podium, and the second is that I am talking to a
woman
about these incredible subjects.”

“I can assure you, Wells, that if Mary Shelley or my friend Sarah Bernhardt were here, they would conjure up more fantastic ideas than I ever could.” I put my elbows on the table and lean forward. It is decision time.

“So, Mr. H. G. Wells, you do agree with me that Dr. Lacroix is a modern vampire type?”

He sits up straight, adjusts his tie, and noisly clears his throat. “In a word, Miss Bly … no.”

I suck in a deep breath. “Please tell me why?”

“I rather suspect that Dr. Lacroix is a victim of mad science. Or perhaps science gone mad, is a more accurate assessment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nellie, think about the age of scientific discovery the world is in. For thousands of years, literally since the beginning of recorded time, the world had changed little in terms of technology, then during a few decades of our own time, we got the telephone, the telegraph, electric lights, the steam engine, and a thousand other innovations.