In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,86

firmly in my one armchair. “My chemist friend tells me that there was arsenic in the sample of stomach mixture that you gave me.”

“See, I knew it!”

“And,” he continued, “that this would not be a completely unusual ingredient in such a mixture in minute amounts. The amount was minute. Not enough to harm anyone.”

“Oh,” I said, suddenly deflated. “And the hair sample from the other woman?”

“Also contained a trace of arsenic.”

“Aha!”

“Which is also not so unusual, according to my friend. If she had taken any similar mixture, particularly one made up for her influenza . . .”

“Which she had,” I agreed. “She said it tasted disgusting and she stopped taking it.”

“Then the amount in the hair is quite consistent with that. It remains in the system for a long time, you know. And again he said the amount was not enough to kill anybody. So you see, my dear, sweet, overemotional Molly, there was no poisoning. They all three caught the same disease.”

“What about another poison?”

“My friend agreed that most usual poisons apart from arsenic are fairly fast-acting. The victim becomes violently ill and dies soon afterward. Of course the world is full of unusual poisons, but it would take an expert to know and to administer them. Was this husband you suspect such a man?”

“No, he’s a lawyer. From a good family,” I said. “I’m sure he has no such knowledge.”

“There you are, then. We’ll just hope that your poor friend is of a strong constitution and rides out the flu the way you did.”

“But what about the hair?” I asked.

“What hair?”

“All three of them lost their hair. It came out all over their pillows. That’s not normal, is it? I didn’t lose any.”

Daniel frowned. “I admit that is strange. It rings a bell somehow.” He paused, then thumped one fist into his cupped hand. “But dash it, I can’t for the life of me think what it is. Someone talking about hair falling out recently. Never mind, it will come to me.”

“But in the note you left me you said you had something to tell me. I thought you’d discovered that the mixture was poisoned.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” He came around to me and put his hands on my shoulders again, a move I found most disquieting. “No, the thing I wanted to tell you was that we’ve solved my arsenic case, partly thanks to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes, you were the one who mentioned the green wallpaper containing arsenic.”

“And they all licked wallpaper?”

He laughed. “They each lived in one room with said wallpaper.”

“But surely that’s not enough to kill anyone?”

“No, but it’s an added factor. They had all come down with influenza, which had naturally weakened their resistance. They each bought the same patent medicine: J. D. Rowley’s Flu-Stopper. It’s a cheap tonic, sold on the street by a snake-oil salesman. These things are a curse, you know. Made up by people who have only a smattering of knowledge about drugs.”

“And the tonic contained arsenic?”

“It did.”

“But surely the police tested the tonic, didn’t they?”

“They did take samples, of course. But as with any patent medicines of this nature the amounts are not carefully measured and, worse of all, the mixture was not stable. The arsenic separated out and sank to the bottom of the bottle. If it was not well shaken, the victim drank a couple of doses that were almost pure arsenic. That, when added to the amount inhaled from the wallpaper and their weakened condition, finished them off. Simple as that.”

I laughed. “Not funny for them, of course. Still I’m glad you’ve solved one of your cases.”

“And we may be getting somewhere with our Chinese tongs,” he said. “We think we’ve taken a young man into custody who is prepared to spill the beans if we give him safe passage across the country to San Francisco.”

“And he’s going to tell you how the opium comes into the country?”

“He’s already done that. It’s brought in by a man who poses as a missionary. Trunks of Bibles go out and the same trunks come back, packed with opium. Not the most godly of men, would you say?”

“Anything you want to know about missionaries, I’m your girl,” I said. “I can give you a list of missionary headquarters and names of some missionaries who are in the local area.”

“Most efficient,” he said. “That would save my men some time. Although if this man is only posing as a missionary . . .”

“They can tell you the names on their