clothes.”
“Interesting,” Spilsbury said. “They could indeed be lead. Lead oxide. And the smooth surface, other than those two small dents”—he pointed out some tiny marks on the surface of one of the tablets—“indicate that they have been professionally manufactured using a pill press and not hand-rolled as per usual. Send them to the lab, Dr. McCleland, and make sure they do indeed match the contents of the child’s stomach.”
As she stared back down at the pills in her hand, a connection began to form somewhere at the edge of her consciousness. “These tablets are familiar . . .” She racked her brains and spoke her thoughts aloud. “A girl at the Clinic had some very similar. Esther . . .” She hesitated. Even amongst colleagues, doctors were bound to respect their patients’ privacy. “A scullery maid, three months along. She had been taking lead for some time and wanted me to provide her with something more efficacious. I hope I have persuaded her away from that path.” Dody paused. “And I’m sure I’ve come across something like them in the Book of Lists. Tablets taken by a woman who had also undergone physical abortion.”
“Are you sure? This is not the norm. I’ve never known people like this using lead in tablet form.” Everard joined the discussion under the light and severed the thread of her thought. “The poor are opportunists, using what they have at hand—paints, plaster, piping—whatever they think will do the job.”
“Then someone is making the despicable task much easier for them, possibly instructing them with dosage, too. Inform the coroner, Dr. McCleland. Visit the family and see if you can find out where they got the lead tablets from.”
“It might be worth asking the Whitechapel chemist, Mr. Borislav, if he knows the Kent family, or anything about the tablets’ manufacture,” Dody said.
“Yes, Vladimir. I’ve known him since university,” Everard said.
“He tutored me at medical school,” Dody said, her resentment of Everard’s acquaintance with Borislav tempered by the knowledge that the chemist had little respect for her colleague.
“Women’s medical school,” Everard corrected her.
“He tutored students from many of the medical schools, Dr. Everard, sometimes even going to Edinburgh to lecture. He was not discriminatory.”
“Well, jolly good for him.”
Jets of smoke shot from Spilsbury’s nostrils. “Go and see this Borislav chap then, Dr. McCleland,” he said. “He’s in the right locale and might have his ear to the ground. Since the tightening of the pharmaceutical laws, there has been a rise in street gangs selling all kinds of dangerous ‘remedies.’ Take one of the tablets and show it to him. Make a note to that effect and add this case to the Book of Lists. And see if tablets with these unusual indentations were indeed recorded there before our time.”
Dr. Spilsbury was an enthusiastic compiler of lists; or rather he delegated the task to Dody. As well as lists of unscrupulous pharmaceutical suppliers, he’d recently had Dody working on lists of persons suspected of practising illegal abortions, infanticide, and baby-farming. The Book of Lists, started in a haphazard way by Spilsbury’s predecessor, was growing more comprehensive weekly, and sometimes led to successful prosecutions.
Dody stifled a sigh. She admired the zeal Spilsbury put into the task of bringing such carrion to justice, and yet after years of university studies, numerous unpaid medical positions, and a diploma in autopsy surgery, she sometimes felt a coroner’s clerk or agent of enquiry was more suitable for these duties than she. But she had worked hard to attain her position in the Home Office and was not about to complain and risk losing her one paying job, even if it was only part-time.
Spilsbury stepped aside from the table and ordered Everard to sew up the body, a procedure that could have been performed by any one of the lowly
“Interesting,” Spilsbury said. “They could indeed be lead. Lead oxide. And the smooth surface, other than those two small dents”—he pointed out some tiny marks on the surface of one of the tablets—“indicate that they have been professionally manufactured using a pill press and not hand-rolled as per usual. Send them to the lab, Dr. McCleland, and make sure they do indeed match the contents of the child’s stomach.”
As she stared back down at the pills in her hand, a connection began to form somewhere at the edge of her consciousness. “These tablets are familiar . . .” She racked her brains and spoke her thoughts aloud. “A girl at the Clinic had some very similar. Esther . . .” She hesitated. Even amongst colleagues, doctors were bound to respect their patients’ privacy. “A scullery maid, three months along. She had been taking lead for some time and wanted me to provide her with something more efficacious. I hope I have persuaded her away from that path.” Dody paused. “And I’m sure I’ve come across something like them in the Book of Lists. Tablets taken by a woman who had also undergone physical abortion.”
“Are you sure? This is not the norm. I’ve never known people like this using lead in tablet form.” Everard joined the discussion under the light and severed the thread of her thought. “The poor are opportunists, using what they have at hand—paints, plaster, piping—whatever they think will do the job.”
“Then someone is making the despicable task much easier for them, possibly instructing them with dosage, too. Inform the coroner, Dr. McCleland. Visit the family and see if you can find out where they got the lead tablets from.”
“It might be worth asking the Whitechapel chemist, Mr. Borislav, if he knows the Kent family, or anything about the tablets’ manufacture,” Dody said.
“Yes, Vladimir. I’ve known him since university,” Everard said.
“He tutored me at medical school,” Dody said, her resentment of Everard’s acquaintance with Borislav tempered by the knowledge that the chemist had little respect for her colleague.
“Women’s medical school,” Everard corrected her.
“He tutored students from many of the medical schools, Dr. Everard, sometimes even going to Edinburgh to lecture. He was not discriminatory.”
“Well, jolly good for him.”
Jets of smoke shot from Spilsbury’s nostrils. “Go and see this Borislav chap then, Dr. McCleland,” he said. “He’s in the right locale and might have his ear to the ground. Since the tightening of the pharmaceutical laws, there has been a rise in street gangs selling all kinds of dangerous ‘remedies.’ Take one of the tablets and show it to him. Make a note to that effect and add this case to the Book of Lists. And see if tablets with these unusual indentations were indeed recorded there before our time.”
Dr. Spilsbury was an enthusiastic compiler of lists; or rather he delegated the task to Dody. As well as lists of unscrupulous pharmaceutical suppliers, he’d recently had Dody working on lists of persons suspected of practising illegal abortions, infanticide, and baby-farming. The Book of Lists, started in a haphazard way by Spilsbury’s predecessor, was growing more comprehensive weekly, and sometimes led to successful prosecutions.
Dody stifled a sigh. She admired the zeal Spilsbury put into the task of bringing such carrion to justice, and yet after years of university studies, numerous unpaid medical positions, and a diploma in autopsy surgery, she sometimes felt a coroner’s clerk or agent of enquiry was more suitable for these duties than she. But she had worked hard to attain her position in the Home Office and was not about to complain and risk losing her one paying job, even if it was only part-time.
Spilsbury stepped aside from the table and ordered Everard to sew up the body, a procedure that could have been performed by any one of the lowly
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