Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

An Ingraft of Evil by James Lincoln Warren

These were decadent days, thought Dr. Tindle. The seed of mankind had not run true, and abominations abounded. Aquae Sulis this town had once been called: the Waters of Minerva, in dedication to the virgin goddess of righteous war. And now? It was simply and ludicrously Bath, as if it were some licentious Turkish bagnio filled to the brim with idleness, sin, and frivolity.

Where once brave Roman legionaries had used the mineral waters to harden their bodies for battle against the brutish Picts and Scots, where centurions and cohorts purified themselves by flushing the effluvia of death and corruption from their skins, now rakehells and whores revelled in disease, and silken-clad ponces traipsed effeminately to the strains of minuets, bobbing and smiling at bare-bosomed harlots bedizened with towers of silver-painted hair.

But the trumpet would sound soon! By his own calculations, assisted by scripture and signs, Dr. Tindle had fixed the First Day as December 22, 4227 B.C. The Seventh Millennium was nearly at hand! Judgment would descend at dawn, this December 22, 1773, barely a month hence, and the world would feel the wrath of the Lord of Lords.

“Confutatis maledictus flammis acribus addictus, voca me cum benedictus!” he muttered, scowling below his full-bottomed wig and turning aside so that no one would hear him — the street was crowded, and it was a bright autumn day, the sky blazing azure above them — When the damned are confounded and tossed into the acrid fire, call me with the blessed!

Oh, the damned would rue the day! But he, John Tindle, would be among the elect! Was he not the agent of God?

He patted his coat pocket where the vial of variolus rested. It was a new word for an old scourge, but he approved of its stately Latin rhythm — much more dread-sounding than the prosaic smallpox.

Was he not the Avenger?

Captain Magnus Gunn was at sea after a long stint ashore, and although he was delighted to be going to New York, where there was need for firm hands to control the stubborn colonists, his beautiful wife Charlotte was in a morose state. His absence meant giving up the residence in town, at least for the next several months, and adieu to the amusements of Drury Lane, Ranelagh, and the Pantheon. And there was the unfinished project of being invited to Almack’s — it might now never come to fruition!

And for what? Her father’s dull house in Exeter?

Alan Treviscoe noted without seeming to do so (it was his way) that the barbs she customarily hurled in his direction had lost much of their force. He had grown very skilled in the last few years at hiding his thoughts behind a pensive and languid face, a useful talent in his peculiar profession as an indagator of frauds against the assurance men at Lloyd’s. It was particularly useful when he found himself in the company of Mrs. Gunn.

The bond between them was a strange one, he thought, sitting on one of the remaining chairs and watching the handsome harpy tyrannize the laborers who were engaged in packing her most precious belongings. Although she and he mutually despised one other, they were united in their regard for her absent husband and in ties of affection for the remainder of her family, the Merwoods.

And of course, there was the simple fact that Magnus had asked Treviscoe to “watch over my lady.” A more unwelcome commission than most, however expected, but he was honor-bound to accept it with all due vigilance.

“Alan,” Charlotte said suddenly, her voice uncharacteristically sweet — she almost never called him by his Christian name — “I’ve had a most happy inspiration.”

“Indeed?”

“I think you should take me to Bath — ’tis fashionable this time of the year, and the expense will not be so great as in London. I have it in mind to visit with my Aunt Phelps, although there can be no question of my joining the household — but it is conveniently nearby Exeter, so there can be no quarrel to be expected from my father. He would want me to maintain myself in appropriate style, being the wife of a king’s officer, don’t you agree? He can’t find fault with that argument, certainly.”

Treviscoe wanted to say that even the direct Dr. Merwood would think twice before crossing his formidable eldest daughter and so she was right on that account, but discretion prevailed. “If you wish to be escorted thither, I shall only be too delighted to oblige.”

“Hero shall have to come, too, shan’t he? I do wish you’d allow me the use of him until I can find my own domestics.”

Treviscoe frowned. Her dismissal of the idea of lodging with her aunt could only be due to said aunt’s unexceptional social status; Mr. Phelps, if memory served, was a well-to-do yeoman farmer, not what one would consider a country squire. Hero, Treviscoe’s personal manservant and amanuensis, was of African extraction, and Treviscoe was aware that the presence of a black servant would confer a certain prestige upon Charlotte’s household in accord with the prevailing taste. It would do no good to point out that his relationship with Hero was based more on mutual esteem than on the exigencies of ton, so he weighed his words carefully.

“In spite of his situation, Mrs. Gunn, Hero is very much his own man, performing service at his own will, and not beholden unto me in any way,” he replied, “although should you wish to engage him temporarily for the purpose you suggest, you have my permission to present such a proposal to him.”

“That’s as good as settled, then,” she purred, apparently insensitive to what he had just said.

“Will you invite Miss Merwood to join you?” he asked suddenly. He had put his finger on the one weakness in her plan: she could hardly be expected to take up residence in Bath alone.

“Yes,” she said slowly, her large blue eyes narrowing. “Yes, I suppose I must do.” She was aware of her sister Elizabeth’s and Treviscoe’s partiality for one another, and she resented being outmaneuvered.

Treviscoe smiled complacently.

“It’s the lancet that’s needed here, Dr. Tindle,” whispered Mr. Willard Labbett, surgeon. He spoke in hushed terms of respect, his speech only mildly slurred by gin. For whatever reason, the Oxford-educated physician had enlisted Labbett as his medical factotum, and Labbett was flattered that the natural enmity between a university-trained physician and a mere surgeon had been suspended. Dr. Tindle even condescended to ask Labbett’s opinion! “Your emetics are very well, but I’ve never seen a better case for bleeding. There’s the fever and all.”

Dr. Tindle looked down at the flushed girl child and hid his distaste. The child was a beauty by any standards. The impending doom of mankind would prevent her accession to tempting womanhood, but he already felt her stirring his baser nature.

“The lancet by all means, Mr. Labbett.”

His face grimacing with a suppressed grin, Labbett unfolded his tools. “We shall be needing a bowl for the bloodletting.”

Dr. Tindle placed his hand gently on Labbett’s arm.

“I should be honored if you would use my instrument for the purpose, Mr. Labbett. It is of the finest Greenwich steel, and superior, I think, to your own.”

“I am the one who should be honored, sir!”

Dr. Tindle smiled wisely. “Our combined skills are surely required in this case, Mr. Labbett. Together, we shall see the child through.”

He turned to the fretting mother. “With the help of God, Mrs. Phelps, a resolution to this crisis shall be forthcoming.”

Mrs. Phelps wiped away her tears with a stained handkerchief. “Please, doctor, save young Lucy! If only my brother were here! He, like you, is a man of medicine.”

Tindle frowned. Her brother a medical man? Perhaps it would be dangerous to proceed. But what of the clarion call of Gabriel? Tindle frowned more deeply. It would not do to be found wanting at the Judgment. God’s will be done.

“I promise you, Mrs. Phelps, that I shall do everything in my power.”

Their arrival in Bath was marred by the news that Charlotte’s little cousin, Lucy Phelps, had died of the smallpox. The child had been inoculated, but the prophylaxis had developed unchecked into the disease in spite of the attendance of a physician. Treviscoe got no comfort from funerals but could think of no graceful way to avoid accompanying Charlotte.

The Merwoods had arrived from Exeter in time for the solemn procession. Treviscoe found himself next to Dr. Erasmus Merwood in the train following the catafalque. The coffin in the long black carriage looked pathetically small.

“ ’Tis a most unfortunate occurrence, the death of such a well-dispositioned child,” remarked Dr. Merwood. “I told my sister the girl was too young for inoculation, but she would not listen and now Lucy is gone. I must confess to not having a very high opinion of Dr. Tindle’s judgment in this matter. He should have known it was too soon.”

“But there is always an attendant risk in the procedure, is there not?” asked Treviscoe. “Even full-fledged adults may succumb, or so I have been led to believe.”

“Aye, that is true, but ’tis a far lesser risk than braving the disease unprepared,” replied Merwood. “Why, have you not suffered the smallpox nor been inoculated yourself, Alan?”

“Why no, sir.”

“You surprise me! You, living amongst the scum of London, not protecting yourself against the scourge! Seven of ten who contract the disease are for the grave, Alan. How should you advise your assurance men on the wisdom of their enterprises were they to disregard such odds in the drawing up of their contracts? ’Twill not do, my boy. You must be ingrafted at once.”

“But—”

“I’ll hear no more on the subject, Alan. One death in the family is quite enough!”

Treviscoe’s eyebrows arched. He had not been aware that Dr. Merwood considered him a relation. His glance moved to fall on Elizabeth Merwood, who was comforting her shattered aunt. He suppressed the pang of longing he suddenly felt, and what remained was a sense of dread but of what, he was unsure.

“Very well. As you suggest, ’twould not augur well for my reputation were it to be said that I was a man who invited disaster. Shall you then perform the operation, sir?”

“I? I should be glad to do so, Alan, were I prepared with the necessaries, but I’m afraid you must apply to Dr. Tindle. In former days, before he came to Bath, he was physician to some of the most illustrious names in England — Despencer, I think, and Sandwich. He’s an Oxford man, and albeit he’s ignorant of the science of the thing, nonetheless he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and I do not doubt his competence in ingrafting a patient already full grown.”

Treviscoe nodded thoughtfully. “Then I shall do so.”

Merwood lifted his walking stick and stared fixedly at its tip.

“But if... if—”

“If? You have reservations, sir?”

“Only, I was about to say, that if you show any symptoms not associated with the progress of the disease—”

“And why should that be?”

Merwood pursed his lips and frowned. He relaxed the elevation of his walking stick and planted it in front of him as he stepped forward. “There can always be complications, my boy. Caroline, my sister, told me of Lucy’s extreme discomfort in the stomach before the end, and that is not typical of the smallpox. Perhaps it was Dr. Tindle’s emetics were the cause, but I didn’t much care for the sound of it. So I should say that if any such signs manifest themselves in your own self, it might be well to remove from Dr. Tindle’s ministrations and seek my further advice, although I will not be long in Bath.”

Treviscoe kept his face free of expression. In spite of his respect for Dr. Merwood, whose Scottish medical training made him more advanced than most, Treviscoe had seen enough misery in treatments to have a generally low opinion of doctors.

“As in all things pertaining to constitutional matters, I shall abide by your advice,” he said at length, stealing a glance behind them at the austere Dr. Tindle. The man’s eyes were lit up like fire beacons, bloodshot as though he hadn’t slept in weeks but as wide open as a fresh grave. It made an uncomfortable contrast to the general tearfulness of the assembly. Treviscoe’s sense of dread deepened.

“Emetics, then! Should I refuse ’em?”

“By no means should you do so, Alan, if you are in any condition to swallow ’em — for the disease can cause such swelling in the throat as to render the administration of medicine near impossible — but emetics are at the heart of medicine,” replied Merwood.

“Aye, then it is fortunate I had my boyhood in shadow of Comet Castle,” said Treviscoe. The look of concentration on his face disappeared beneath the customary affectation of bored listlessness.

“What’s that?”

“ ’Tis nothing but an errant thought, sir,” said Treviscoe quietly.

The march to the churchyard proceeded.

Treviscoe’s ingrafting required that he should be in quarantine for more than a week after the operation. Only those persons who would not be in danger of contracting the disease, that is, only those who had survived the smallpox or been successfully inoculated, were to be admitted to his chamber. Unluckily for him, the list did not include his manservant Hero, and so some other arrangements for his domestic necessities needed to be made. To Charlotte’s unspoken but nonetheless clearly expressed disapproval, it was decided that her sister Elizabeth should nurse him and attend to whatever needs she could in all propriety provide.

Dr. Tindle and his shadow Mr. Labbett attended him the day after the funeral.

“The common procedure requires four to five incisions,” explained Dr. Tindle, “although in the course of a lifetime of medical practice, I oft have found six to eight more efficacious, which in the course of events shall produce scarring to the affected areas. Therefore I advise that you should choose such portions of your figure as will not be exposed to public view, such as your thighs and upper arms.”

“Are so many necessary, doctor?” Treviscoe asked. “Reason might dictate but one.”

“That should never suffice, sir,” said Tindle, his eyes narrowing with suppressed anger. “Never, indeed! There must be an adequate admixture of the humors for the poison to be successfully overcome. Otherwise, ’twere to court death.”

“Methought danger always present in this procedure — exempli gratia, young Lucy Phelps—”

Dr. Tindle stood erect, noticeably offended. “I am but a mortal man, sir, mortal even as the girl, and cannot imagine how in my imperfect state I might be held to account for the summons of Divine Providence!”

“I should never call a child’s death providential, doctor—”

“You’re vexing the doctor, sir!” Labbett interrupted. “Him who shall deliver you from the scourge!”

“Deliver, aye, deliver,” muttered Tindle, his eyes rolling upward.

“Peace, then! Let’s get on with it,” said Treviscoe. “Am I to be blamed for pausing before the lancet?”

“There’s nowt to fear,” said Labbett. “An artist, is the doctor! Ye’ll witness that!”

“The art of medicine,” Treviscoe said, frowning. “Nevertheless, I will not have eight lacerations. One in each thigh and in each upper arm will answer.”

Tindle smiled, his composure quite restored. He reached into his medical bag and retrieved a small stoppered glass vial and a leather-bound oblong case the size of a man’s hand, which when opened revealed a set of sharply honed flat-bladed lancets. “Very good, then. Four have been known to be effectual, if not as well as eight. Now be so kind as to remove your breeches.”

Treviscoe pulled off his clothing and gripped the arms of his chair as Tindle meticulously and swiftly cut a half-inch incision in his right thigh a few inches above the knee. Blood trickled forth, but the razor sharpness of the scalpel made the wound hurt less than Treviscoe had expected. He watched nervously as Dr. Tindle gingerly unstopped the vial and used the flat of a second lancet to remove a quantity of yellow pus. Labbett stood ready with a linen bandage.

Tindle began to whisper almost inaudibly: “Dicit Dominus Deus...” Treviscoe was repelled as the putrid salve was slathered into the incision, but his attention was transfixed.

“...ab idolis vestris et ab universis contaminationibus...”

There was a sharp twinge of pain as the doctor applied the ingraft. Labbett awkwardly affixed the bandage around his leg as Tindle methodically repeated the procedure on the other thigh.

“...convertimini et recedite...”

In like manner the arms followed.

“...vestris avertite facies vestras.”

Then it was over.

“To bed with you,” said Tindle. “You are to admit no one into your presence but that he has had the disease or been ingrafted.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out another bottle, much larger than the first and labeled in illegible Latin.

“This is an emetic according to my own recipe, specific to the variolation,” he said. “You are to swallow two spoonfuls after supper and before bed and when you awaken each morn. Eat nothing but wholesome gruel, and drink nought but good strong porter. I will instruct your nurse as to other particulars.”

He closed his bag and stood. He seemed unnaturally joyous and invigorated. “Let us go, then, Labbett, and call again upon the morrow to see what progress shall transpire. Farewell until then, Mr. Treviscoe.”

“Good afternoon, Dr. Tindle, Mr. Labbett,” said Treviscoe, feeling distinctly sick.

“Yes, by all means, goodbye!” Grinning widely, exposing his stained dentures, Dr. Tindle spun upon his heel and left the room.

No man alive, or at least no Englishman of the eighteenth century, cared to appear before the object of his affections in a state of abject weakness. Dr. Tindle’s emetic was most effective, and Treviscoe found himself breaking into sweats and involuntarily emptying his stomach at regular intervals, usually in the company of Elizabeth Merwood, his nurse, and her maid Sally, upon whom fell all menial tasks. One woman was never present without the other, and so there were always two of them to witness his indispositions. He was humiliated, and it made him cross.

He lifted his face from the bucket and beheld the charming face of his beloved, her brow furrowed with concern, and he fervently wished for a sudden and painless death. Such despair seemed to invite further convulsions, and he quickly lowered his head again.

Elizabeth was in her element. As daughter to one of Exeter’s most eminent physicians, she was a skilled and unsentimental nurse. Her father referred to her as “my Hygeia” in reference to the famous daughter of Aesculapius. She exhibited a fervent maternalism that made the merely intolerable a source of morbid anguish.

It was with a deep sense of gratitude to unseen powers, therefore, that Treviscoe greeted the news that the bottle had finally been exhausted. “I must needs have the prescription filled again forthwith,” she announced.

“No,” he groaned.

“I am much concerned that there has been no reaction to the ingraftment,” she continued. “Perhaps the matter had lost its virulence when the operation was performed. At the least, we must continue the medication.”

“No,” he groaned again, rapidly facing the bucket again and retching. Nothing was forthcoming. “As to the failure of symptoms, when I was a boy—”

“Not to worry. Dr. Tindle has provided me with the name of a reliable apothecary from whom I can replenish the medicine. I shall repair there this very afternoon.”

Stunned to silence, Treviscoe closed his eyes. His lips felt uncommonly numb, and the pain in his stomach was severe. There was none of the relief one should expect. His mind was far from clear, but he remembered something Dr. Merwood had said about Tindle. He had been physician to Despencer and Sandwich. That was it. It was somehow important. But how?

His stomach heaved again, and the thought was lost.

Elizabeth Merwood found herself before the entrance to the apothecary shop. A sign above the door showed an illustration of a mortar and pestle, around which was written the legend:

She opened the door and entered.

There was a mousy little man behind the counter, wearing a modest grey wig and shoes with pewter buckles. His eyes lit up in obvious appreciation for Elizabeth’s elfin good looks, and he bowed, twice, in an unpleasantly unctuous manner.

“How may I be of service to my lady?”

“Have I the pleasure—” honor seemed too strong a word “—of addressing Monsieur Coridon, Senior, or Junior?”

He tittered unattractively.

“I regret to say that Monsieur Coridon, Senior, as you have styled him, has been dead these several years. No, madam, I am, alas, the erstwhile junior partner on these premises. Mr. Joseph Coridon, fils, at your service.”

“Very good, sir. My name is Miss Elizabeth Merwood—”

“Who’s that, then?” a hoarse female voice demanded, bellowing from the rear of the shop. An obese and very short woman hauled herself through the door behind the counter and surveyed Elizabeth with suspicion. Mr. Coridon winced.

“A customer, my dear, that is all.”

Mrs. Coridon looked suspiciously at Elizabeth and then at her husband. She looked closely again at Elizabeth, nodded, and the suspicion faded. It was as though she had decided that Elizabeth was too pretty for her husband to hope for and therefore not a rival.

“As I was saying, I am Miss Elizabeth Merwood, daughter to Dr. Erasmus Merwood of Exeter. I have come hither to have a prescription filled, from Dr. John Tindle of Bath.”

“Tindle again, is it?” Mrs. Coridon curled her lip. “A mad old dog, he.”

“I am a nurse, ma’am,” said Elizabeth, “in charge of a variolated patient of Dr. Tindle’s. I have come seeking to fill a prescription for an emetic, which I had been led to believe might be acquired here.”

“Now see here, Miss Merde—” at this, Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, but it was obvious that Mrs. Coridon was unaware she had said something coarse “—if your patient is under the care of Mad Tindle, he’s like to be a corpse before the week is out. Why, I’d not wager a farthing he lives out the week, but gladly a guinea the other way! It’s the quicksilver what’s done it to old Tindle, I daresay. Better to trust simple apothecaries than the likes of him. No telling what’s in Tindle’s potions.”

“When I prepare them myself, I certainly have the knowledge, Mary. Now, Dr. Tindle has been very kind to us,” said Mr. Coridon to his wife. “He prefers us to every other chymist in Bath for the preparation of his special emetics and nostrums, and his skill as a physician has been demonstrated at court. Please do not denigrate him so, I beg you.”

His wife gave him a look of sheer contempt.

“You know your business, Joseph,” she said at length. “I shan’t interfere. But a word to the wise, miss! Don’t be stuck with Dr. Tindle alone in a room, is all!” Pulling her skirts up, she sailed back whence she came.

Elizabeth recognized the look in Mr. Coridon’s eyes as his wife departed. It was a look of utter hatred.

When he turned back to Elizabeth, his obsequiousness returned as though it had never been interrupted. “The variolation emetic? Of course, of course. I have the recipe here, and it will be but a few moments in preparation. Pray excuse me till it is done.”

As good as his word, Mr. Coridon quickly combined several powders and liquids into a uniform solution and presented it to her, charging two shillings sixpence.

She accepted the bottle and, curtseying, withdrew. She was never so glad to be back on the streets of Bath, and she hurried back to Treviscoe’s apartment.

Treviscoe’s condition grew steadily worse. Although the wounds from the ingrafting failed to develop any sign of inflammation, he developed a rash, and his stomach pains grew in intensity. When he became too weak to lift himself out of bed, Elizabeth sent for Dr. Tindle and her father.

Dr. Merwood took the stairs to Treviscoe’s bedroom three at a time despite his bulk. He threw open the door and panted, watching as Elizabeth wrung her hands, her face contorted with worry. Sally sat off to one side, weeping. Dr. Tindle leaned attentively over the patient. Willard Labbett stood by the window, arhythmically swaying.

The patient’s breathing was labored. Merwood gaped in shock at how weak his friend appeared. There was an unmistakable tinge of jaundice in the sclera of his glazed eyes.

“Tindle, what have ye wrought here?” he thundered, pushing the Oxford man out of the way and getting a closer look at Treviscoe. “You are a bigger fool than I e’er imagined! Here is no sign of the smallpox at work! ’Tis some other disease!”

Tindle stared at Merwood, his eyes red and bright. “Fool? Am I a fool? ’Ware evil words, ye unbeliever! Hos d’an, More, enochos estai eis ten gehennon tou pyros.”

“What is that? — gehennon tou pyros,” muttered Treviscoe, “...gehennon... pyros—! Hellfire! Hellfire!” He struggled to sit up. Dr. Merwood strove to prevent him.

“You are delirious, my boy!”

“Hellfire...” His hoarse voice began to fade.

Merwood carefully helped Treviscoe he down. Gradually the patient grew calmer and drifted off to sleep.

“Aye, that’s the medicine needed now. Rest, young Alan, rest well.”

Dr. Merwood stood erect, shoulders back, chin aggressively forward.

“Dr. Tindle! I regret your services are no longer required. I shall look after the patient henceforth.”

Tindle barked a laugh. “Oh no, my good sir! He is my patient! You cannot presume to replace me in such wise, contrary to the ethics of our profession. His soul is now in my care.”

“His soul, Dr. Tindle, was never in your care. I remind you, sir, that you are a doctor of physic, not of divinity. In ordinary circumstances I should never interfere, but a simple glance at the patient is enough to assure me that you are not competent to prevent his demise. I am not at all convinced that we view the ethics of our profession in the same light; in my view the life of the patient always comes first! I will thank you to withdraw.”

“You have not the power to relieve me, sir,” said Tindle. “That is a decision for the patient.”

“Oh no, it is not!” interrupted Elizabeth. “His care was entrusted to me, sir. And I for one will not fail in my obligation. You are dismissed.”

“By what power?” Tindle smirked.

“By the power of attorney granted me by Mr. Treviscoe,” Elizabeth answered smartly. “I see you did not anticipate this action on his part. But it is true.”

She walked across the room and lifted a document from the writing desk. “Here it is, Dr. Tindle, should you care to examine it.”

“But you are a woman! How can you exercise the rights of a man?”

“Women are not without rights in England, Dr. Tindle, as you would be aware were you a doctor of law. Now let us end this discussion. Good day to you.”

Tindle grabbed the document from Elizabeth’s hands. He gave it a cursory look, and rage played across his features. He crumpled it in his hand and let it drop to the floor. “Labbett! We are leaving!”

“Eh? Very good, doctor.”

Tindle stormed from the room, and Labbett followed him unsteadily.

Merwood looked up at his daughter, pride radiating from his face. “Odd’s teeth, girl, that was well done!”

“Thank the foresight of Mr. Treviscoe,” she said. “He had the document drawn up after my return from the chymist’s, for what reason I cannot fathom. But it has served.”

“Served indeed!” replied her father. He mopped Treviscoe’s brow with his handkerchief. “I only hope it was not served too late.”

Sally continued to sob.

When Treviscoe awoke the next morning, feeble but coherent, he surprised Elizabeth by rejecting the gruel and porter appointed for his breakfast and insisting on milk.

Although she knew her father could scarcely approve, she was so ebullient with joy that he had taken some interest in his surroundings that she hastened to obey him. He drank an entire pint in a single draught. She could tell from his grimace that he was still in pain and feeling queasy. He took a deep breath. “I will have none of any emetic from this moment hence,” he told her flatly.

There was a firmness in his eyes that strongly contrasted with his normal affectation of ennui.

“I have discharged Dr. Tindle,” she said by way of reply, unsure of his reaction.

He simply nodded.

“I will have a nap now, if you’ll be so kind as to pardon me,” he announced, and within minutes was asleep again.

Sally had long since cried herself out, but Elizabeth suddenly felt tears brimming in her eyes as she realized that Alan Treviscoe might live after all.

Nevertheless, his convalescence was not rapid. Eight days after the ingrafting the danger he might pose to others had expired, and he was allowed to attend some of the amusements the city had to offer. He tired so easily, however, that a Bath chair was required wherever he went, and Hero wheeled him everywhere, even up and down the steep hills that separated the Upper Rooms from the Lower Rooms and the Crescent.

He took special pleasure in concerts and recitals. At one soiree he made acquaintance of an Hanoverian cellist, one Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; besides music, they discovered a common interest in optics, although Mr. Herschel’s fascination was with the macroscopic rather than the reverse. Still, Treviscoe found it refreshing to converse in the language he had used in his student days in Heidelberg.

Bath being a town filled with valetudinarians and others recovering from the ravages of various illnesses, his presence in the chair excited no comment, even when he attended a ball.

He was attended by Charlotte and Elizabeth. As a married woman, Charlotte politely refused offers to dance, smiling and politely curtseying with each refusal. Treviscoe reflected that although it must cost her dear to say no, at least she had the satisfaction of knowing her beauty drew every gallant in the room over to her.

Elizabeth was also inclined to refuse such invitations, which were fewer than her sister’s. She was dressed less resplendently than Charlotte, and she lacked her sister’s spectacular Grecian beauty, but she was still very pretty in her slender and delicate way.

“I perceive, sir, that you are the cause of Miss Merwood’s refusal to grace the company with her participation,” a young nobleman informed him between pinches of snuff. “It cannot answer, sir. We are not all confined to wheels to cross the floor, y’know. Have pity and instruct her to honor me with her assent!”

Treviscoe smiled. “He’s quite right, Miss Merwood,” he said. “No harm shall come to me for watching you dance, but au contraire, the sight of it shall afford me great pleasure.”

“The patient’s judgment should never be allowed to supplant that of his nurse,” she replied. “I must refuse.”

“I shall not be in this Bath chair forever,” said Treviscoe, “and when I am out of it, I shall beg the honor of being your partner myself. In the meantime both of us should forget every step to the minuet unless you practice enough to instruct me when the time comes.”

The young nobleman clearly disliked being cast in the role of Treviscoe’s substitute, but manners forbade withdrawing now. Elizabeth dropped her fan and stood, accepting the nobleman’s hand, and he led her out onto the floor.

Another well-dressed man, his waistcoat ornately embroidered with Italianate floral designs, approached them. “Good to see you so well, Treviscoe!”

“I do not believe I’ve had the honor, sir.”

“ ’Course you have. Lloyd’s, you know. Jervase Barkway, shipowner. Did some business with your friend Josiah Barron.”

“Ah yes. Forgive my short memory.”

“Cost me a pretty penny, sir, when you pulled out of it. Still, ’t’s one bet I’m glad to have lost. You’d be sore missed at Lloyd’s, I must say, had your illness claimed you.”

Treviscoe looked up at him in shock.

“Got to push off now. Just paying my respects and all.”

Treviscoe recovered quickly.

“Good evening to you, Mr. Barkway.”

“They make a most handsome couple, do they not?” asked Charlotte, who’d ignored Treviscoe’s exchange with Barkway, a man of business and therefore beneath her notice. She was looking at Elizabeth and her partner. At another time, this comment would have been waspish, but Treviscoe knew from her tone that Charlotte was trying to be pleasant. He could tell she was vexed at being compelled to be amiable and polite to him on account of his condition. This delighted him no end, and he was careful to appear as fragile as possible.

“I’m sure they must do,” he said with a falsely plaintive note.

“Look — there is Mr. Labbett,” she said, indicating with her fan.

The surgeon staggered through the dancers, interrupting the flow of the stately procession, drawing objections and a few curses from the participants. He approached them, but before he drew next to them, he was heralded by the reek of gin.

“Mr. Trevishcoe. Madam.” He attempted to bow, but could not keep his feet under him and spilled onto the floor. Liveried attendants appeared from nowhere and lifted him by the arms. From the opposite end of the gallery the ball’s host approached, his face darkened with disapprobation.

“I’m afraid we will not have the pleasure of your company for very long, Mr. Labbett,” said Treviscoe. “Was there something you meant to say to me?”

“Please, sir. Dr. Tindle no longer—” his lips bulged with a suppressed belch “—no longer calls upon me,” he said. “My practishe — practice — is ruined. They say I killed ’em, the patients, I mean! How now, what? Ain’t it prep — preposh — damn’d unfair?”

The servants began to drag him away. “Look at ye!” he bellowed. “You’re well enough! Will you not call upon the doctor? Explain it’s all some ghastly mistake?”

He was indecorously ejected from the assembly.

Charlotte waved her fan so violently that it mimicked a hummingbird’s wing. Her lips were pursed, her eyebrows arched, and her cheeks flushed. Treviscoe scarcely noticed.

“Aye, call on him I will,” he said pensively, “and soon.”

The next day he refused the chair and accepted the loan of Dr. Merwood’s walking stick to keep him stable. Hero buckled his swordbelt around his waist.

Elizabeth and Sally were in a flurry. “I cannot approve,” Elizabeth’s voice was pitched low with passion. “That man was nearly the death of you.”

“That he wanted me dead I certainly cannot deny,” he replied, “but ’t’s of the highest necessity that I proceed with my indagation. There are more lives than mine in the balance, and I mean to see the scale tipped in the favor of justice.”

“Elizabeth,” said her father mildly, “you may as well ask a hound not to hunt.”

Treviscoe smiled at this back-handed compliment and placed his tricorn squarely on his head. Earlier that morning his dark brown hair had been dressed most handsomely by Hero, almost making up for the wanness of his face, and now, in spite of the lingering weakness, he felt more like himself than he had in days.

Hero entered the room, a fine sweat covering his brow. “I have just returned from Mr. Barkway, sir, per your instructions,” he said breathlessly. “It is as you suspected.”

“I thank you, Hero. Let us keep to our plan.”

“Very good, sir.”

He hired a chair — a concession to his infirmity, since he was customarily a fine walker. Before rapping at Dr. Tindle’s door he consulted his watch. Hero should be en route to their rendezvous.

He was admitted to Dr. Tindle’s study. The blinds were drawn, but good wax candles burned everywhere, providing enough light to read by. And there was plenty to read. The room was strewn with books, open upon every available surface, showing scripts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic. A superficial survey revealed tomes on medicine, philosophy, religion, astrology, and history.

“Mr. Treviscoe,” said Tindle. “I had hardly expected to hear from you again.” The physician was in his shirtsleeves at his escritoire, a quill in his hand, his fingers stained with ink.

“I have come, Dr. Tindle, to offer my repentance.”

“Repentance, sir?”

“Did you not so urge me during the ingrafting?”

Tindle laid down his pen. “I did not know you had understood me. I spoke so softly.”

“And in the Latin, the comprehension of which you plainly did not allow me credit. You knew I was from Lloyd’s; doubtless you thought that I was a commercial citizen rather than a gentleman of information. But I was educated at university, and I were a poor Christian who should not recognize such an entreaty as you pronounced. The Latin was from the prophecies of Ezekiel, I believe, and the King James Bible has it so: ‘Thus saith the Lord God; Repent, and turn from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.’ ”

“You did understand! I did not think that you could, and yet you gave me the hint when you spoke of Lucy Phelps: exempli gratia and all.”

“So I did.”

“Do you truly repent of your sins, then? But of course you do: I see the Lord hath delivered you from the scourge.”

“Deliverance, I believe, is your vocation.”

“I can tell you it is not easy being the instrumentality of God.”

Treviscoe moved a large book from one of the chairs and sat down. “But before you were chosen, you too must have repented.”

“Yes! Yes! But not before I felt His wrath!” Tindle joined his hands together and squeezed them tightly, almost as if he were in an ecstasy of prayer.

“It was the wrath of God that required the tincture of mercury, was it not?”

Tindle dropped his hands. “How did you learn of that?”

“Why, it was communicated to me,” replied Treviscoe. “But I didn’t fully recognize the import of it until the night of the crisis.”

“Which crisis?”

“The night Miss Merwood terminated your services. Dr. Merwood called you a fool, and you quoted scripture.”

“The words of Christ are mightier far than my own.”

“Mightier than us all. It was from the Sermon on the Mount, according to St. Matthew: hos d’an, More, enochos estai eis ten gehennon tou pyros.[1] Have you ever felt yourself become the vessel of revelation, Dr. Tindle? You must have done.”

“To be filled with the Word of God,” Tindle said in awe, “is an experience not soon forgot.”

“I had a similar experience then, sir, to the words gehennon tou pyros — your reference to hellfire. ’Twas then I understood my danger. You see, Dr. Merwood told me you had been physician to Lord Le Despencer — the former Sir Francis Dashwood — and the Earl of Sandwich.”

“The thought of hellfire has oft reclaimed the errant lamb,” said Tindle, “but I know not what my personal history has to do with it.”

The bloodshot whites of his bulging eyes shone in the candlelight.

“Alas, ’twas not the thought of hellfire that moved me but the words themselves. Have you ever been to Medmenham Abbey on the Thames?”

Tindle gaped at him.

“I thought as much,” Treviscoe said. “It was your headquarters, your place of secret assignation, your temple of Satanic and orgiastic rites. Your society called itself the Order of St. Francis, but to all others you were known as the Hell-Fire Club. I learned of its existence in the year ’68, but we need not go into that now. Dashwood was your leader, and Sandwich one of your most eminent members.”

“Where have you learned this?”

“ ’Twas there you contracted the syphilis that moved you to repent, was it not? That is why you take mercury, to treat the same. It is also written in the Bible: therapeuson seauton.[2]”

“Aye!” Tindle’s voice near burst with agony. “Aye! A moment of pleasure with the harlot, a lifetime of torture! And at the end — madness, death, despair! Only two things stood between me and perdition: the tincture of mercury, the only effective medicine for the venereal pox, and God’s infinite mercy.”

“But swallowing mercury is not your only experience with the ingestion of poisons, I have cause to believe. For was it not a condition of membership, or rather a rite of initiation into the Monks of Medmenham, that you dose yourselves with arsenic, to learn the limits of your tolerance?”

“What of it?” Tindle demanded, clenching his fists.

“What of it, sir? Do you think me incapable of reason? Do you think I can be insensible to the fact that I was myself being poisoned with arsenic through the agent of your patent emetic? All the symptoms were there, and unhidden by the ingraft!”

“Impossible! ’Twas the Hand of the Lord that doomed you to death!”

Treviscoe leaned back in the chair. “But I yet live, and I think that I would not had I continued to take your treatment. Even so, I can well conceive it were not by your hand that the arsenic was introduced into your purgative. There is oft a touch of naivety to the faithful that clouds their reason.

“Harken, doctor! Dr. Merwood informs me that seven of ten who catch the smallpox meet death, and that the evolution of ingraft into disease, while not unknown, is relatively rare. How, then, have the last several of your variolated patients fallen victim to smallpox? I will tell you: their constitutions were weakened by arsenic so that any resistance to illness they should have had if healthy was therewith in abeyance. The smallpox took hold of them, and they died. So it would have been with me, too, had I been vulnerable to the disease at all.

“You have been the agent of death, Dr. Tindle, not by the will of God but by the will of Lucifer in his influence over the evil of mankind.”

“No! Nor!”

“Deny then that the symptoms are those of arsenic poison.”

“There are many such causes for such symptoms.”

“But none of them are associated with smallpox! You have been hiding the truth from yourself, sir!

“Did it never occur to you, that between the effects of your self-ad-ministered treatment for the French disease and the disease itself your mind may have become unhinged? That your holy revelations were the product of an imbalanced mental faculty? It has been known before, sir! Come now, you are a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians! What are the effects of mercury upon the reason? Why do we call a lunatic ‘mad as a hatter,’ that is, as mad as one who is exposed to the ill effects of quicksilver in the facture of felt?”

“God is merciful. He hath forgiven my trespasses.” Tindle buried his face in his hands and began to weep.

“And were you aware, Dr. Tindle, that the survival of your patients greatly concerns the gamblers of Bath? My own survival whilst in your care was the object of a large wager.”

There was no reaction. Tindle was beyond reach. His body was wracked with sobbing.

“I shall let myself out, sir,” said Treviscoe. “I have another call to make that will not wait.”

There was a silver bell attached to the door of Joseph Coridon’s shop. It tinkled merrily, a welcome and comforting sound bespeaking the normality of daily commerce. Treviscoe found no comfort in it. It might as well have been a death knell.

Coridon looked up from where he was packaging medicines in paper. “How may I be of service to the gentleman?”

“I had your name from Mr. Jervase Barkway,” said Treviscoe. “He told me that you were in the way of arranging certain contracts.”

Coridon laughed. “I? I’m but a simple apothecary, sir. What sort of contracts had you in mind?”

“Of the life insurance variety.”

“Oh no, sir! I mix preparations of physic.”

“ ’Tis most strange — Mr. Barkway was pointedly specific in his recommendation. He and I are colleagues of a sort — we met at Lloyd’s in London. Many a wager is laid down there in the form of a contract.”

“Then it’s a wager you’re after, sir,” said Coridon. “Now, that’s a different matter, isn’t it? But no contracts if you please. While there’s no harm in a wager, it mightn’t appear that way to the Assizes, if you get my meaning, were there a document signed and sealed and all.”

“I apprehend your point, Mr. Coridon. Some might take it as callous that wagers were made on whether, say, a little girl might die as the result of an ingrafting.”

“Still, as I said, where’s the harm in it? Some good may come of winning a full purse, after all.”

“I perceive we understand each other. But I was led to believe that you only give odds concerning the patients of Dr. John Tindle.”

Coridon paused. “Were you now, sir?”

“As it happens, it is a patient of his I am interested in. Have you known the doctor long?”

“Oh yes, sir. Many years. You might even say I was apprenticed to him, after a fashion. My father — Mr. Coridon, Senior, that was — sent me with him when he looked after many worthies — earls and baronets and such. My father thought it would be good training for an apothecary to learn at the side of an eminent physician. I was constantly by his side in those days.”

“But he has declined in his age, has he not?”

“Aye, sad to say — taking up with that drunken butcher Labbett, for example, if I may be so bold, although I don’t mind a tankard or two myself on occasion.”

“And the prognoses of his patients have similarly declined?”

Coridon laughed. “Oh, they have done that, sir, especially where there’s the smallpox! Here’s the game: you can wager whether a patient will live or on the hour he goes to meet his Maker. I will lay the appropriate odds. Of course, not all patients are worthy of speculation — only he whose illness has the possibility of gravity. Now, who was it you wished to wager upon?”

“Another man of Lloyd’s. His name is called Alan Treviscoe.”

Coridon frowned.

“That’ll never do, sir. I have learned that Mr. Treviscoe has discharged the doctor and that he is on the mend. The wagers respecting his condition are closed, and the winnings all collected.”

“Then it might interest you to hear that Mr. Treviscoe called upon Dr. Tindle this very mom,” said Treviscoe. “I have been led to understand that Dr. Tindle has been rehabilitated. It had something to do with a misunderstanding concerning the daughter of Mr. Treviscoe’s other physician.”

“Miss Merwood, you mean?” Coridon’s eyes lit up. “She was in this very shop last week, sir. A winsome bit, I must say! Wouldn’t mind some meself. We should all have such a nurse to comfort us.” He winked and chortled. “Mr. Treviscoe must have been feeling better, no mistake. Attempted something he oughtn’t, did he?”

“In any event he has engaged Dr. Tindle again. ’Tis said he is still very weak, confined to a chair. There is every possibility that his disease might return, wouldn’t you say?”

“You have no love for Mr. Treviscoe, have you, sir?”

“His every action has its effect on me.”

Coridon nodded. “Aye then. I’ll take a wager on him. To live, or did you wish to guess the time of his passage?”

“What are the odds?”

“Oh, I’d say ’tis not likely he’ll survive, sir. Three to one on life, at a guess, others depending on what is wagered, now that the book is open again.”

“Then the long odds are that he shall live.”

“That’s it. Your wager, sir? And how much? And your name?”

“I’ll wager on life because, after all, he’s escaped death once. Let the sum put forward be twenty guineas, for that should see me quite fair. As to my name, perhaps it is familiar to you, for I am called Alan Treviscoe.”

“Alan—!” Coridon went pale and turned to flee through the back of the shop, where he was stopped by the tall and imposing figure of Hero.

Hero grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him back into the front.

“I have no intention of dying for your profit, Mr. Coridon, especially not abetted by the arsenic you include in every emetic you prepare for Dr. Tindle,” said Treviscoe.

“I do not know what you mean,” Coridon replied, cringing.

“Deny it if you will, it matters not. I have proof of your murderous intent: the bottle, prepared by you in the sight of Miss Merwood, of Dr. Tindle’s patent emetic for ingrafted patients, still containing most of its deadly contents.”

Coridon struggled against Hero to little avail.

“There is nothing to be gained from attempting escape,” said Treviscoe. “I have you now.”

“Have me? ’Tis I who should have you, nailed in a coffin!” said Coridon bitterly. “You should not now be among the living had Dr. Tindle’s ingraftment of you succeeded. Then no one should have suspected anything! Trust him in his madness to botch the operation.”

“It was your plan, I expect, to disgrace Dr. Tindle, knowing that before long the invariable fatal results of his consultations for smallpox inoculation must come to public notice. I’m sure your gambling earnings padded your purse well enough, but I suspect your main purpose in accepting wagers on his patients was to call attention to the trail of death he left behind him. And yet just now, you spoke of your years with him almost with affection. What has he done to you that made you turn to murdering the innocent merely out of spite?”

Coridon sneered. “They were grand days when he and I frequented Medmenham Abbey. I see you know what that means. No, I was too low to be admitted to the inner circle, but there were amusements even for the likes of me, entertainments enough to sate the most jaded appetite. The beauties from the finest brothels in London! Young virgins heretofore unsullied by any lusty swain! Wine flowing like beer! It was a life, I can tell you. But then he caught the pox, and turned to religion: the very thing the Order had been founded to mock! He even forced me to wed that virago, my wife.

“Aye, she was once fair to look upon, the trull, but when Tindle knew he could not ever again have carnal knowledge of her, he thought to recompense her by passing her on to me.

“Well, if he could become the agent of the Lord, why should I not become the agent of the Devil? When his reason began to wane, I saw my opportunity and took it. ’Twas not difficult to convince him that he’d become the living angel of death and that his failures as a physician were signs of his success as God’s deputy on Earth. He is awaiting Judgment Day in our time, did you know that?”

Treviscoe stared at him in deep disgust. “For you, Mr. Coridon, it will come sooner than later.”

Dr. Merwood and Alan Treviscoe sat in Treviscoe’s drawing room smoking.

“I should have detected that it was poison,” said Merwood. “When you cried hellfire, I thought you delirious.”

“I was near enough to delirium that you cannot be found at fault for believing so, sir,” said Treviscoe. “Indeed, my wits were at such an ebb that at that moment I thought that Dr. Tindle was the man who meant to murder me.”

“So did we all.”

“But, of course, it made no sense, not after I realized the nature of the poison.”

“You mean because he had not e’er touched the bottle Elizabeth brought from Coridon.”

“Even without that, it could never have been poor mad Tindle who supplied the poison. Don’t you see? He believed the deaths to be miraculous, the intervention of God. He wouldn’t interfere with the work of the Lord. He believed himself to be merely the vessel of God’s power. And why would he, even mad as he is, choose to administer arsenic in an emetic, of all vehicles? Why, he would know that the patient should disgorge most of the poison in the course of events. An inefficient method, sir! Were Dr. Tindle the poisoner, he must surely have chosen a better means. No, he who poisoned the emetic must have done so because it was his only avenue, and that meant it had to be Coridon.”

“You were uncommon lucky, Alan, to discover in time what was being done. If the variolation had taken, you would now be in the grip of the scourge, weakened beyond any hope of recovery by the poison, like Lucy Phelps, poor moppet.”

“I am lucky if to be maliciously poisoned by an utter stranger can be called luck, but there was never any danger of the smallpox, Dr. Merwood, as I tried to tell you,” replied Treviscoe. “Remember how at the funeral I told you that I spent my boyhood in the shadow of Cornet Castle? Comet Castle is the ancient fortification on Guernsey. My father was Cornish, but my mother is of the Channel Isles; ’tis how I came to speak French.

“Guernsey is rich in cattle, Dr. Merwood, and although the island is blissfully free of most of the diseases that plague mankind in Britain and on the Continent, there has never been a herd of cattle where the cow-pock is unknown. I had that disease as a boy, and it is well-known that, once having suffered from the cow-pock, it is quite impossible to contract smallpox.”

“An old wives’ tale, Alan!”

“Then why did the ingrafting fail to take hold? Especially in my weakened state?”

“Medicine is an art, my boy, and art is filled with mystery. Only God is omniscient. But if you believed yourself immune to smallpox, why did you agree to the ingraft?”

Treviscoe laughed. “You gave me little option, if you recall, sir! Besides, I could not see that it would do any harm.”

Hero entered the room, bearing a newspaper. “I have some tragic news, sir,” he said. “Dr. Tindle has taken his own life. He left a note proclaiming it to be the will of God.”

“Another victim, then,” said Treviscoe quietly. “I hope that by destroying his faith I did not in the end destroy him.” He took the broadsheet, containing all the news in Bath for that day, December 22, 1773.