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He’d only wanted to ask the quiet studious woman about what she’d seen (three women’s bodies, two of them clearly paupers but the third a parliamentarian’s niece, having been discovered within shouting distance of her street). But when his tongue went numb and dizziness engulfed him, he set down his cup so hard it upset and nearly broke, spilling the rest of his tea. He’d found the cause and the reason, and Holmes would be so cross with him for letting this happen. At present his friend was at the autopsies, and he would soon be running back here where he’d left Watson to talk to everyone in the neighbourhood. He wouldn’t let Holmes castigate himself for this.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Watson.” She did sound sorry. “It’s a terrible thing, but it’s a necessary thing. You doctors just don’t understand.”
“You’re a midwife,” he gasped, clutching the arms of his chair to keep from sinking to the floor. He needed to get to his bag. Nausea threatened. He mustn’t vomit. “You gave them this tea.”
“When a woman cannot – cannot – give birth, she will do whatever she must to end her condition. They came to me for help. I have saved so many this way. The deaths were tragic, but they paid the price willingly. They were lost patients, not murder victims.” Her voice became a little harder. “I wished to be left alone here, my medical skill scorned for it being housed in a woman’s body yet still able to help others of my sex. I did not wish deliberately to commit murder with this medicine. But you have given me no choice.”
Dragging sound. She’d pulled his bag out of his reach. No. if he didn’t get what he needed Holmes would find him a grave man on the morrow.
Her voice was sad but firm. “If it is a comfort to you, Doctor, I will use your tools to save more lives and deliver healthy babes.”
“And abort more women.” Barely above a whisper now.
“Yes. One less babe can mean a family that does not starve.” She laughed bitterly. “Nettie Chiswick was no less desperate. Her uncle, ranting in Parliament about the depravities of dock-whores and their bastards ruining the Empire? She’d be no better in his eyes if another month had passed. She took another dose besides the one I gave her, and I didn’t know till it was too late.”
Too late.
“It’s not too late,” he moaned. His limbs felt composed of rubber. “You have not yet committed murder, Miss Gunderson. You might dispose of my corpse in a better manner than those of your unfortunate patients, but that will only slow my friend not stop him. And he will be merciless when he finds you. Save me, and he will save you from the rope.” He could barely focus with the room spinning. “You have my word as an English gentleman, and as the particular friend of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
She wavered. But she was a keeper of secrets shameful to modern society. She knew what “particular friend” meant in this case. She knew the name. She was almost as quick to deduce as was his friend.
Her face was twisted in regret and fear. “I can’t stop this. You’ve already drunk the mistletoe.”
“Bag. Vial labeled American Ash. Give it to me.”
She hesitated one last time.
“He WILL find you,” Watson snarled.
She paled and nodded once. The vial was held out to him in the next moment.
“Water. Just water.”
He fumbled off the cork as the pump handle creaked. A wet glass was put in his other hand.
He spilled most of the glass pouring it into the vial, but he put his thumb over the mouth and shook it fiercely, and swallowed the bitter black chalky stuff down at one go. More water, shake, swallow the last of the charcoal. He sat still and closed his eyes, willing his stomach to settle.
By the time a white-faced Sherlock Holmes and a pair of glowering constables had flung open the door, Watson was able to open his eyes, turn his head and smile in a ghastly parody of his usual cheeriness. “Just having a spot of tea, old man.”
“Where is she?” Holmes snapped as if he was angry with Watson. He very likely was.
She was gone – fled, leaving behind Watson’s bag. A pledge as good as any that the doctor would live.
***
Several days passed before Watson regained the ability to walk across the room without staggering. The worst of the mistletoe poisoning had passed, but the weakness took longer to overcome.
Holmes flung aside a letter and reached for his pipe. “As I expected, Lord Chiswick does not accept the verdict of accidental poisoning for his niece, and he has conjured a story about a vanished husband to account for her pregnancy. The story is implausible but will allow him to bury her with dignity.”
Watson nodded, looking at the dirty snow churned up by the cabs; Yuletide was a cruel time to have a funeral for a loved one. “Lord Chiswick has engaged you in pursuit of the culprit. I promised her that you would see she did not hang, when you find her.”
Smoke puffed out in thick clots from the lips clenching the cherrywood stem. “The country thinks ill of a woman who terminates issue, even among the poor. I myself am not inclined to bestow leniency on someone who poisoned you.”
“Mitigating circumstances, Holmes. She acted out of panic; she expressed regret, and helped lessen the effects of her actions.”
“Then a charge of attempted murder. That will keep her away from the docks for a number of years.”
Watson nodded. “It still sits uneasily with me, Holmes. Miss Gunderson is my fellow medical practitioner, on the distaff side. Anyone who administers to the wretched slum-girls – and you know as well as I how often an impending birth there is a curse rather than a ‘blessed event’ – seems more worthy of praise than censure. Perhaps it would be wiser, more prudent of her, to look away from those lost souls. But some of us medical folk are not very wise in this matter.”
Holmes nodded. His own friend was proof of that truth – and bore the war wound to prove it. “She may gain wisdom from this close call, and swear off her practise, or confine her assistance to midwifery. Perhaps she will flee London, if she has not already; her trail is cold as the weather at the moment.” He pulled at his pipe.
“Until the next factory-girl or mother of 12 comes to her.” Watson smiled a little. “Could I keep a pledge to stay away from such noisome alleys, if one of our Irregulars begged for help?”
Holmes exhaled in agreement. “Then I will do what I can, when I find her, Watson. But I will find her. The first of the year will be soon enough.”
“Thank you.” Watson inhaled, to take in the fresh pine scent of the Christmas green the slavey had hung all about the parlour for the occasion, the holly round the base of the table’s candle. He smiled to the very edges of his moustaches. “I appreciate your word in Mrs. Hudson’s ear about our décor this year, Holmes.”
Holmes pursed his lips about the pipe-stem to hide his own grin. “You have rather had enough of mistletoe for one season, dear fellow.”
“And how very fortunate for me that I was clearly a wicked lad this year.” The doctor thought of his now-empty vial. “Father Christmas made sure I had coal nearby!”