“Are you sure this is the address?” Ella asked, looking at a front door that hung askew in a tall narrow building squashed between two shorter buildings.
“Yes, miss, he said they were on the top floor.”
Bobby lifted the lantern, and she saw the correct number in peeling paint on the door frame.
Pushing the door open to reveal a narrow hallway barely illuminated by the light coming from the gas lamp on the corner, Ella said, “You go up first with the lantern, but watch your step. The man said to go on to the top floor?”
“Yes, miss,” Bobby said and began to trudge up the stairs. Ella gathered her skirts in one hand, clutching the medical bag in the other, glad at least to get out of the cold, wet wind that held a spattering of rain.
There didn’t appear to be any heat in the building nor the usual mingle of cooking smells and coal or wood smoke. Nor were there any sounds, except for the boy’s footsteps on the stairs. “Deathly quiet” was the phrase that came to mind. Normally at this time of night, a building like this would have emitted a cacophony of children’s laughter, babies’ cries, and mothers’ shouts.
However, as they turned on the landing to go up the next flight of stairs to the third floor, she saw some light filtering down, and when they got to that floor, she saw there was a single gas fixture emitting a small flickering light.
Bobby went to the only door in the hallway that was ajar and knocked.
When nothing happened, Ella knocked again and pushed the door open a little more, saying, “Hello, I’m Dr. Blair from the Pacific Dispensary. Am I at the right place?”
Abruptly, the door was pulled open by a hunched-over old woman, and Ella stepped into a room that was as cold as the rest of the house and only illuminated by a candle sitting on a table next to a narrow bed. Dark shadows in the corners gave the impression that there was other furniture in the room, but nothing like a stove.
Ella’s immediate thought was, No chance of boiling water. Thank goodness, she had packed the bar of carbolic soap, although she wasn’t certain there would even be a source of water in the house.
The woman, her face obscured by one of the numerous shawls she was wearing, gestured towards the bed, where Ella could see someone was lying on their side, the candle only revealing a glimpse of a pale face and tangled hair.
She turned to the woman and said, “I understand that the young woman is pregnant and having some difficulty. Can you tell me exactly what has happened?”
The woman just shook her head and moved to one side of the bed. Ella wondered if she even spoke English. And where was the man who sent Bobby? A husband, boyfriend? Wouldn’t it be just like a man to make himself scarce now that help had arrived.
She put her bag down on the floor and said, “Bobby, come in and bring the lantern so I can see better.”
Leaning over to get a better look at the girl on the bed, Ella instantly recognized her as the dispensary’s missing laundress. She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and said, “Brenda, what are you doing here? Are you ill?”
Instantly, she was grabbed from behind. A large man, smelling of beer and tobacco, lifted her up and crushed her against his chest. He growled into her ear, “Don’t even try to scream, doctor. No one will hear you.”
Ella tried to wiggle free, but her feet got caught in her skirts, and all that happened was that the man’s arms tightened around her. She let out an involuntary cry of pain.
“Shut your trap or I’ll give you something real to cry about,” he said. Then he yelled something to the woman about checking to see if the boy was gone.
Ella went still, trying to catch her breath.
“That’s better. You stop flailing around, and I’ll stop trying to break your ribs. Sit in that chair and listen to what you’re going to do.”
Suddenly released, Ella was pushed down onto a wooden chair next to the bed and was able to see her attacker for the first time. Not surprised, she recognized Charlie McFadyn, who was smiling and holding a very large knife that he waved in front of her.
“Yes, I thought the knife would get your attention. Now, doctor, I suspect you know what I want. I want you to go and bring me my boy. Tonight.”
Ella tried to tell him he was insane if he thought she would do that, but she no longer seemed in command of her own voice, so she shook her head.
“Don’t you go telling me you can’t or you won’t. Not until I explain things real clear to you.”
He turned and barked out instructions to the woman, who no longer looked either old or hunched over but instead looked like the woman who’d tried to get Hilda to leave the dispensary with her.
McFadyn said, “Look into the bag, Tessa, and see what we have to work with.”
The woman brought the lantern that Bobby had left in the doorway and put it on a table, opening the medical bag and rummaging around inside. She grunted triumphantly when she discovered Ella’s set of obstetrical tools, which included two different-sized speculums, forceps, and the scissors and clamp for the umbilical cord.
McFadyn said, “What do we have here! Looks like you were planning on doing one of them illegal operations on this young lady. Got the instruments of torture all ready and waiting. So you see, you get my boy or Tessa and the girl will testify that you came here to practice an abortion on this poor girl who used to work for you.”
Finding her voice, Ella said, “No one would believe you! Every doctor who’s been called to attend a pregnant woman carries these instruments.”
Looking over at the girl, who was now sitting up in bed, Ella reached out and grabbed the girl’s hand, saying, “Brenda, are you all right? What has this man done to you?”
“Don’t you worry about Brenda. She’s pregnant, right and tight. Just ripening, so no one will believe you were here to help deliver her baby.”
“Yes, they will; there were witnesses who will testify that I was told I was being called out to attend a woman who was in early labor or having a miscarriage.”
“Witnesses, really? You think the boy’s going to talk? Not if he wants his family to stay safe. Tessa, show her the bottle.”
Ella saw the woman wave around a stoppered glass bottle then put it in her medical case.
McFaydyn said, “We’ve got a bottle of tansy. Brenda here says the rumor is that’s the stuff that Hilda used, ungrateful girl. I’ll call in the police, say I caught you here trying to abort my child, having talked poor simple Brenda into doing the terrible deed, and that bottle’s additional evidence. Get you charged on that alone. Ruin you, ruin your precious dispensary and all the doctors that work there. You really want to risk it? No matter what happens, I’ll still get my boy, just maybe later rather than sooner, and I won’t promise that Hilda will survive that reckoning.”
Ella saw the truth in everything he said. But how could she make this decision alone, a decision that could destroy the dispensary and the reputations of everyone who worked there? She had to get out of here, get to the dispensary, send for Dr. Brown, figure out what to do.
McFadyn leaned over and knocked her lightly on her forehead with the flat of the knife. “I can see you thinking, girl. Don’t even try to outsmart me. You’ll not go to the dispensary alone. Tessa here will go with you, and you’ll hand my boy over to her. Brenda’s my hostage to make sure you don’t try anything funny.”
Brenda moaned beside her and said, “Do what he says or he’ll cut me.”
Do no harm. That’s what Dr. Granger always said was a doctor’s first duty. How do I do that? If I get the child, that harms both Hilda and the baby. If I don’t, Brenda could be harmed and the dispensary most certainly will be damaged. What do I do?
McFadyn stepped back and said, “Tessa, I’m tired of waiting. Take the doctor out of here. I don’t care if she ends up with a few bruises. Just get her to the dispensary and on the way convince her that she don’t want to cross you.”
Ella suddenly noticed a slight movement in the doorway behind McFadyn and the silhouette of a man she was coming to know well. Her heart sank. She’d insisted he not bring a gun to the dispensary again. Said it was too unsafe. But McFadyn had a knife. If they fought…
I’ve got to do something to give him an advantage.
Before she could lose her nerve, Ella launched herself at Tessa, scratching and clawing the way she’d done as a child when she fought with her sister. A couple of thuds and curses to her right told her that Mitchell had tackled McFadyn.
Suddenly, a deafening sound of gun fire froze everything for a moment.
Then Ella pulled away from Tessa’s grasp and saw McFadyn and Mitchell in a tangle on the floor with Officer Blakely standing over them, holding a smoking pistol.