The Bermondsey Poisoner by Emily Organ

Author:Emily Organ [Organ, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

“You’re asking me about a man I treated six years ago?”

Dr Townley was a grey-haired man with a large nose and a wide, bushy moustache. I had been relieved to discover that he still occupied the rooms on Lambeth Walk.

“I don’t expect you to recall him specifically, but I was hoping you might have kept a record of the treatment you provided.”

Dr Townley sighed. “Miss Woburn!” he called toward the door of his office, which stood ajar.

A silver-haired lady in a dark blouse and skirt peered through the gap.

“Bring in the diary for ’78, would you please?”

The secretary nodded and disappeared for a short while before returning with a large, leather-bound volume. She placed it on his desk.

“Very good. Thank you, Miss Woburn. Now then, Miss Green, what was the chap’s name again?”

“Benjamin Taylor.”

He began to leaf through the diary. “And what month would it have been?”

“Oh, I’m not entirely sure.” I paused to consult my notebook, in which I had recorded all the relevant dates. “Here we are. His wife married again in November 1878, so it must have occurred a little before then.”

“Did I hear you correctly? His wife remarried?”

“He asked her to leave, so she married someone else.”

“Bigamy, eh? Was she prosecuted for that?”

“No.”

“Interesting. So, before November 1878, you say? That gives me ten months to search through.”

“I should think it more likely that he saw you earlier in the year. If his wife was ready to marry someone else by November she must presumably have met him by the summer at least.”

Dr Townley gave me a bemused nod. “Possibly, but what if there was some overlap between the two?”

“I don’t know enough to say either way, I’m afraid.”

Dr Townley sighed again and began to look through the January entries, examining the appointments recorded there in a small, slanting hand. “Benjamin Taylor… Where did he live?”

I consulted my notebook again. “Lollard Street.”

“I know it well. What symptoms did he present with?”

“Vomiting, and most likely diarrhoea as well. His symptoms would have been quite severe, I imagine. You apparently told him he was lucky to be alive.”

“Did I indeed?” The doctor reached the end of January and began to skim through February. “He must have been taken quite unwell in that case.”

I prayed that something would jog the doctor’s memory or that he would come across the notes he had written about Benjamin’s illness.

“He may have joked with you that he was being poisoned.”

“Really? Can you describe him to me?”

He would have been a young man; about twenty-three or twenty-four at the time. Tall, with red hair and whiskers. He previously worked as a builder and is now employed at the Doulton Pottery.”

“I see. Poisoned, you say?”

“That’s what he now believes.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with this Bermondsey poisoner business, does it?”

“It might do. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

The doctor closed his eyes in concentration, as if trying to recall a patient named Benjamin Taylor.

“I think I do remember a chap who was quite fearfully unwell.

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