Read Online The Alchemy of Murder by Carol McCleary - Free Book Online
Authors: Carol McCleary
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slashes the essence from women. Only this time I had to avoid the police and an invisible killer from the sewers.
At first it seemed quite a well-behaved epidemic.
Dr. Brouardel, deputed to investigate it by the public authority, reported that the disorder was trifling and that a few days at home by the fire was all the treatment it required.
This was complacently published in the newspapers and became a standing joke. “Have you got it?” “Not yet?” “Well, you will, because we’ve all got to have it.”
In the cabarets they were singing: Everybody’s got the influe-en-za-ah!
But they soon began to find out that it was not a joke. The death toll began to mount alarmingly and the people got into a state of panic. It was useless for the Press to publish reassuring statements; their own obituary columns gave them the lie. Public services became disorganized, theatres closed, fêtes were put off, and law sittings suspended. Under this cloud of panic and depression the year 1889 passed out. And the winter following was not calculated to reassure anyone.
—J ULES B ERTAUT , Paris
9
Tomas Roth, Paris, October 25, 1889
“We’ve come to find a murderer.”
The remark was so unlike Dr. Pasteur, it gave Roth pause as they gently rocked back and forth in the carriage. It was after eleven on a gloomy Saturday night as the three of them—Dr. Louis Pasteur, a sewer worker named Michel, and Tomas Roth, Pasteur’s assistant—made their way to the dark river beneath the city’s boulevards.
Michel—who was to be their guide into this strange world beneath the city’s streets—looked askance at the great scientist sitting across from him. Pasteur, caught up with his own thoughts, didn’t notice the concern.
“A killer who creeps in dark places and strikes without warning, or mercy.”
Pasteur was not talking to his companions, but to the night outside the carriage window.
Just hours ago the Minister of the Interior, the man entrusted with the safety of the nation, had personally come to the institute to implore Dr. Pasteur to leave the security and comfort of his laboratory and make a secret examination of the sewer system.
“No work you’re doing for mankind is as important to France as discovering the source of this contagion. If you do not find and destroy this disease there will be no Paris and perhaps no France.”
A compassionate man, the terrible burden placed on Pasteur weighed heavily.
The examination had to be under the cover of darkness and cloaked with secrecy.
“We must not fuel the panic that is already spreading as fast as the contagion.” The statesman’s voice cracked from the strain as he pleaded with Dr. Pasteur for his help in fighting a microbe so small, it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.
* * *
M IST LINGERED IN the night air, creating wet penumbras in the glow of the gas lamps they passed. The cold hand of winterkill was already hard upon the land, stripping trees into skeletons and wilting plants.
When they picked up Michel several blocks back he knew nothing of the reason for the mission, only that he was needed to take them into the sewers.
In the carriage behind them was Dr. Brouardel—the Director of Health—and his assistant. Separate carriages reflected the different stances that the health department and the Institut Pasteur had taken about the contagion.
“A damnable time to be on the streets,” Pasteur said.
“The time of the wolf,” Roth muttered, using an old expression of peasants.
Roth had been Pasteur’s assistant for six months; long enough to know that it wasn’t the wintry night that disturbed Pasteur. It was their destination—the Montmartre, the city’s tawdry bohemian quarter, a place Pasteur would not visit voluntarily. He would rather be back in the quiet citadel of his laboratory than mingling with the long-haired, shaggy-bearded painters and poets—purveyors of art and revolutionary plots that smelled of cheap beer and
At first it seemed quite a well-behaved epidemic.
Dr. Brouardel, deputed to investigate it by the public authority, reported that the disorder was trifling and that a few days at home by the fire was all the treatment it required.
This was complacently published in the newspapers and became a standing joke. “Have you got it?” “Not yet?” “Well, you will, because we’ve all got to have it.”
In the cabarets they were singing: Everybody’s got the influe-en-za-ah!
But they soon began to find out that it was not a joke. The death toll began to mount alarmingly and the people got into a state of panic. It was useless for the Press to publish reassuring statements; their own obituary columns gave them the lie. Public services became disorganized, theatres closed, fêtes were put off, and law sittings suspended. Under this cloud of panic and depression the year 1889 passed out. And the winter following was not calculated to reassure anyone.
—J ULES B ERTAUT , Paris
9
Tomas Roth, Paris, October 25, 1889
“We’ve come to find a murderer.”
The remark was so unlike Dr. Pasteur, it gave Roth pause as they gently rocked back and forth in the carriage. It was after eleven on a gloomy Saturday night as the three of them—Dr. Louis Pasteur, a sewer worker named Michel, and Tomas Roth, Pasteur’s assistant—made their way to the dark river beneath the city’s boulevards.
Michel—who was to be their guide into this strange world beneath the city’s streets—looked askance at the great scientist sitting across from him. Pasteur, caught up with his own thoughts, didn’t notice the concern.
“A killer who creeps in dark places and strikes without warning, or mercy.”
Pasteur was not talking to his companions, but to the night outside the carriage window.
Just hours ago the Minister of the Interior, the man entrusted with the safety of the nation, had personally come to the institute to implore Dr. Pasteur to leave the security and comfort of his laboratory and make a secret examination of the sewer system.
“No work you’re doing for mankind is as important to France as discovering the source of this contagion. If you do not find and destroy this disease there will be no Paris and perhaps no France.”
A compassionate man, the terrible burden placed on Pasteur weighed heavily.
The examination had to be under the cover of darkness and cloaked with secrecy.
“We must not fuel the panic that is already spreading as fast as the contagion.” The statesman’s voice cracked from the strain as he pleaded with Dr. Pasteur for his help in fighting a microbe so small, it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.
* * *
M IST LINGERED IN the night air, creating wet penumbras in the glow of the gas lamps they passed. The cold hand of winterkill was already hard upon the land, stripping trees into skeletons and wilting plants.
When they picked up Michel several blocks back he knew nothing of the reason for the mission, only that he was needed to take them into the sewers.
In the carriage behind them was Dr. Brouardel—the Director of Health—and his assistant. Separate carriages reflected the different stances that the health department and the Institut Pasteur had taken about the contagion.
“A damnable time to be on the streets,” Pasteur said.
“The time of the wolf,” Roth muttered, using an old expression of peasants.
Roth had been Pasteur’s assistant for six months; long enough to know that it wasn’t the wintry night that disturbed Pasteur. It was their destination—the Montmartre, the city’s tawdry bohemian quarter, a place Pasteur would not visit voluntarily. He would rather be back in the quiet citadel of his laboratory than mingling with the long-haired, shaggy-bearded painters and poets—purveyors of art and revolutionary plots that smelled of cheap beer and
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