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“I despised Gordon. The only good thing he did was make Annis seem positively charming by comparison. He was the worst sort of gentry—the sort that mistakes the luck of birth for an actual accomplishment. As if he chose to be born into money and title and had nothing but contempt for those of us lacking the foresight to do the same.” She pauses. “And speaking of contempt, that was rather too far in speaking of the newly dead.”
I work on loosening her stays. “Since I’m the only one here, you can be as contemptuous as you want. I only met the man briefly, but I already wasn’t blaming anyone for poisoning him. Even on his deathbed, he was nasty to everyone around him.”
“Particularly Duncan, I presume.”
I accidentally tighten a stay, making her gasp and then laugh softly. “That answers my question. Yes, he was always terrible to Duncan.”
“And to you?” I ask.
She stiffens.
“Sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t trying to pry.”
“No, you’re trying to be a friend. Gordon was… fond of Lawrence.”
“Shocking,” I mutter. “Absolutely shocking.”
Lawrence was Isla’s husband, who’d married her for her money and treated her like shit until she agreed to fund his expeditions abroad just to get him out of her life. He died two years ago, and she’s still working off his debt.
“We’ll drop the subject of dead asshole husbands,” I say as I finish loosening her stays.
She smiles over her shoulder at me. “The Gray women are notorious for finding them. I could blame my mother for setting the example, but that would be an unkindness she ill deserves. Nor is it entirely true in Annis’scase. Mother and I were too easily wooed by men who accepted our eccentricities. Annis knew exactly what she was getting, which is why I cannot imagine her killing Gordon. Their relationship suited their needs. Also, poison?” She shakes her head as I button her dress back. “That is too sly for Annis. She’d have stabbed him in the heart. Or lower, given that Gordon outdid both Lawrence and my father for philandering.”
“But the charge is poison,” I say. “Which worries me… for your sake.”
“Because I’m Annis’s sister. And a chemist.”
“Yes.”
“I do not have thallium or arsenic, and I am quite willing to have my laboratory searched for them, if that helps. First, though, we should head upstairs and see what those tissues tell us.”
FOURTEEN
I take Isla’s glass downstairs before Mrs. Wallace finds it and gives me shit. Then I head up to her laboratory, which is in the attic along with my bedroom and Alice’s. The normally locked door is cracked open, and I enter to see Isla at her laboratory table, wearing a pair of goggles that won’t look out of place on early pilots. She motions me over to the table, where she’s about to conduct the Marsh test.
Here’s where Idoknow a bit of forensic history, because the Marsh test was a milestone development. It allows a scientist to detect even the smallest trace of arsenic in food, tissue, or stomach contents. A chemist named James Marsh was hired by the prosecution in the case of a guy believed to have poisoned his grandfather’s coffee. Marsh tested using the old method and found proof of arsenic, but the telltale evidence evaporated before the jury could see it. Upon his acquittal, the accused confessed to killing his grandfather, and Marsh was so pissed off that he developed a new test with more permanent results.
Isla begins by placing a small sample of Leslie’s stomach contents in a glass beaker with arsenic-free zinc and sulfuric acid. The zinc and acid will create hydrogen, but if there’s arsenic in the sample, it’ll also produce arsine gas. The gas rises into a horizontal length of glass tubing, where it is heated with an open flame. The heat will turn the result back into water vapor and arsenic, if it is present. The arsenic should then appear as a silvery-black powder.
Isla conducts the experiment… and we don’t see so much as a smudge of gray at the end. We have enough sample that she lets me try it. Same result. No arsenic.
Next we use the Reinsch test, and there we get a positive result. What does that mean? Only that Leslie’s stomach contents contain one of a subset of six heavy metals. We know it’s not arsenic. While it could be mercury, bismuth, antimony, or selenium, there’s one other heavy metal on that list. The only one that matches Lord Leslie’s symptoms.
Thallium.
I’m in the library with Isla. The newspapers and broadsheets are spread over the desk. I have one of the papers in my hand, and I’m struggling to read the article. It’s not the language that’s a problem. Even with unfamiliar words, I can fly along as fast as I could with a Dickens novel. The problem is Isla. She wants to talk chemistry, specifically poisons, and any other time, I’d be hanging on her every word. Right now, though, I’m trying to get a better understanding of the previous murders, and without Gray to summarize them for me, I must rely on these damnable newspapers. Also, yes, I’m still annoyed about Gray taking off.
“I do not know how Dr. Addington could see heavy metal poisoning and conclude arsenic without any testing,” she says.
“Hmm.”
“I suppose, giving him the benefit of the doubt, arsenic is the most common method. And if it is thallium, he would never have heard of it being used in such a way. He might not even be aware of its existence, being a medical doctor and not a chemist. Still, would it hurt him to leave room for doubt? To say that he suspects arsenic but requires analysis to be certain?”
“Hmm.”
She sighs. “You are already annoyed with him, and I am not improving the situation by reminding you of his incompetence.”
I make another noise and reread a line for the third time.
