Pure Poison, Part 4
“Hurry up!”
“Ugh…”
After a short wait, three prisoners were dragged into the corridor.
They looked starkly different from anything you would see in modern films or period dramas. The moment you laid eyes on them, one impression slammed into your gut: these men are truly being punished.
Come to think of it, when regular working folks in the streets could neither eat properly nor wash, what hope was there for convicts? If a rumor ever spread that prisoners were fed decent meals, London’s police stations would be overrun daily by commoners turning themselves in just to get a bite to eat. That was the grim, unrelenting reality of nineteenth-century London.
“Look at these bastards. Still walking under their own power, are they?”
“The welfare is far too generous,” Liston scoffed. “A dark stain upon the British Empire… If we have the coin to fatten up scum like this, we ought to be founding another colony instead.”
Naturally, the mindset of a genuine nineteenth-century Londoner was an entirely different beast. Liston was outright disgruntled that condemned criminals possessed enough vitality to walk on their own two feet.
Well… I couldn’t entirely blame him. Working in a hospital—especially one in London—drilled into you the horrific reality of what chronic starvation did to a human body. Every single day, quite literally, the destitute were found collapsed on the hospital steps, starving to death on their own or abandoned there by others.
Then again, I have no idea how I’m supposed to fix that either.
Synthesize chemical fertilizer and ramp up agricultural yields? In London, of all places, starvation wasn’t a problem of harvest volume that could be solved so neatly. It was a complete and utter failure of distribution.
In any case, the three prisoners, gaunt enough to pass for walking corpses, were lined up before their assigned chambers. Utter bewilderment was written across their hollow faces. And why wouldn’t it be? Arsenic wallpaper might be lethal, but its vivid emerald luster was genuinely gorgeous. Even in the twenty-first century, I had never seen a pigment with such radiant richness. Perhaps that was because I had died just as I was beginning to earn money and prestige, but regardless, the color looked undeniably luxurious.
“W-What is all this?”
Unable to bear the suspense, the prisoner slated to enter the room lined with green wallpaper—and be forced into a ballgown to boot—finally stammered out a question.
The constable hauling him didn’t answer right away. Instead, he glanced toward the officer in charge, whom I had internally designated as the superintendent for convenience’s sake. Only when the superintendent gave a tacit nod did the constable bark his reply.
“None of your concern.”
Hardly a satisfying answer for a condemned man. Not that I felt the slightest pang of pity. If someone had been caught red-handed for murder and rape in an era with virtually zero forensic science, you were dealing with an irredeemable monster.
“And what’s this…?”
This time, the prisoner standing before the chamber containing only the green dress spoke up. It was a dress, through and through. Not men’s attire. Did anyone honestly think the constables would take the trouble to tailor it into trousers and a waistcoat? They had simply taken shears to the constricted waistline, collar, and armholes to widen the openings.
You might wonder why even an emaciated convict would need alterations, but nineteenth-century corsetry was genuinely absurd. Without modern breast augmentation, high society demanded wasp waists beneath voluptuous bosoms, paired with spindly necks and impossibly slender arms.
Wait… did cosmetic surgery even exist back then?
No, impossible. Attempting such procedures in this era would guarantee death. If a destitute pauper died on the operating table, it was dismissed as well-intentioned misfortune; if an aristocrat died or was butchered, the surgeon was guilty of manslaughter regardless of intent.
“Shall we dress him, sir?”
“Aye, let’s get on with it.”
“Put it on,” the constable ordered.
“T-This…?”
The prisoner’s face fell in sheer mortification. He probably thought we had dragged him out to make him a laughingstock. And to be fair, a row of chairs had been arranged right in front of the cells, where we were currently seated. A plush sofa had even been set up a little farther back for Sir Jamie.
In reality…
Well, it is a spectacle, isn’t it?
Scientifically speaking, it was clinical observation, but the practical distinction was razor-thin.
“Isn’t this a bit much, sirs…?” the man whined.
His dismay was understandable. It was lavishly expensive evening wear, dripping with tassels, cascading ruffles, and an enormous, billowy skirt. But what was truly “a bit much” was this bastard’s own crimes. His victims had surely pleaded with far greater desperation before he murdered them.
“Put it on, you wretched cur.”
Having arrived at the same conclusion, Liston strode forward, the amputation knife at his hip swinging with each heavy step.
“Hold on, sir! If you kill him now—”
The constable tried to intervene, but it was futile.
“Just as the officer said,” Liston snarled, turning the warning into a direct threat. “Would you rather die this very second, or put on the bloody gown?”
“I-I’ll put it on! I’m putting it on!”
As always, Liston’s intimidation worked like a charm. The prisoner scrambled into the dress with frantic haste. Thanks to the slit seams, slipping it on proved surprisingly easy. Normally, an aristocratic gown of this era required several maids to fasten, but terror of Liston enabled him to manage entirely on his own, trembling all the while.
“And what are you waiting for?” Liston snapped, wheeling on the next cell.
“I-I’m putting it on right now!”
The second convict hastily pulled on his green gown as well. His was a somewhat simpler day dress, but it was bound to be just as laden with arsenic. It would slowly poison whoever wore it—and anyone lingering too close.
“You. Just step inside.”
“Yes, sir!”
The third prisoner, who had been tasked with occupying the green-papered room while keeping his regular clothes, sighed in visible relief and hurried through the door.
Thus, all three condemned men were settled into their respective chambers. Suddenly, the convict wearing the green dress inside the green-papered cell spoke up.
“Sirs… there’s an awful moldy stench in here!”
“What, you expecting maid service?” the constable sneered.
“N-No, sir! I’m just telling you it smells foul!”
“Your old cell reeked of damp anyway. What’s so special about this one?”
“No… this is completely different. It’s ten times worse than back there!”
“Eh?”
The superintendent tilted his head, looking puzzled. In fact, so did the rest of us.
The cells where these felons were normally held lay much deeper in the basement, where ventilation was non-existent. By contrast, these holding cells near the staircase were reserved for suspects who slipped bribes to the constables—they had decent air circulation and even caught faint sunlight filtering down from above. By all rights, this area should have smelled far less damp and moldy than the dungeon depths.
Wait…
A sudden epiphany struck me like a blow to the skull.
A moldy stench… I had smelled that exact scent before. At home. Well, not my home, but Alfred’s family estate.
Could it be…?
Arsenic wallpaper was wildly popular in France as well, yet reports of unexplained deaths weren’t circulating there at nearly this rate. People certainly died, of course, but not in conspicuous clusters that drew public scrutiny. What was the critical difference between London and Paris?
The climate.
France enjoyed much clearer, drier weather. London, on the other hand, was perpetually soaked in humidity and fog.
When arsenic wallpaper reacts with moisture, does it produce that peculiar, pungent mold-like odor?
That was it. It had to be!
“Taepyeong. Where on earth are you going?”
Before I even realized it, my feet were carrying me deeper into the subterranean holding block—toward the condemned ward where convicts awaited the gallows.
“An idea just hit me, sir.”
“Now, see here,” Liston said, trailing after me. “Those scoundrels may be guilty of unforgivable atrocities, but that doesn’t mean you can subject them to just anything.”
“It’s nothing like that!”
“Don’t give me that nonsense. As if I don’t know how wicked you can be. You can be honest with me.”
“I said it’s not like that!”
“Look at you getting defensive. I knew it.”
Giving up on reasoning with Liston, I ventured further into the corridor. The constables guarding the cells stepped forward to block me, only to hastily back off the moment they spotted Liston behind me. His face was well-known, and more importantly, terrifying. If he drew the massive blade hanging from his belt, this narrow stone hallway would become a slaughterhouse in seconds. Given that his lightning-fast amputation demonstrations were all the rage in London, nearly every commoner could vividly picture the carnage.
“There’s definitely… far less of that moldy smell down here,” I murmured, taking a deep breath of the dungeon air.
“Are you fussing over what that felon blabbered about?” Liston asked, arching a brow. “The man’s out of his mind. How could a condemned murderer’s senses be trusted?”
“No, it’s not that. I’ve smelled that precise moldy odor from arsenic wallpaper before.”
“At Sir Jamie’s? I didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary there.”
“No, at another estate. It was absolutely foul… Yet even deep inside this dank cellar, that particular stench isn’t present.”
“Well, you certainly reveal your delicate aristocratic breeding,” Liston chuckled. “Fancy a gentleman being so unfamiliar with common mildew.”
Ignoring his quip, I turned on my heel and headed back, my brain working in overdrive the entire way.
It smells like mold, but it isn’t mold at all. London is drenched in moisture year-round… Could the dampness cause the arsenic to vaporize, or react with fungi to release a toxic gas? Solid arsenic compounds might be odorless, but if moisture triggers a chemical reaction that produces a gaseous byproduct, that changes everything.
Though my chemistry knowledge was too rudimentary to formulate the exact chemical equation on the spot, nothing else could account for the phenomenon.
“This looks like it will take quite some time,” the superintendent grumbled, shuffling toward the staircase.
My brief excursion had taken roughly fifteen minutes. Naturally, the prisoners had not dropped dead in the interim. But to the constables, who had perhaps anticipated an immediate collapse, the wait was already growing tedious.
“Rather than all of us standing about down here, why don't we set up shifts?” the superintendent suggested, looking between our medical party and Sir Jamie’s servants.
It was a remarkably sensible idea.
There’s no reason for all of us to stand guard like punished schoolboys.
More importantly, while our exposure would be far lower than that of the convicts inside the cells, lingering near that quantity of arsenic was still hazardous. Rotating shifts was the safest course of action.
“Shall we rotate in one-hour shifts, then?” I asked.
“Aye, that sounds prudent,” the superintendent agreed. “Sir Jamie cannot wait here indefinitely in any case. We are to send word the moment there is a development, and he will return.”
“Then let’s have pairs of two—one to keep watch and one to run for messages. Alfred, Colin, you two are first up.”
“Wait… but I…” Alfred whined.
“Understood, sir!” Colin answered crisply.
With a word from me, Alfred and Colin became Team One. After all, the first hour was almost guaranteed to yield nothing.
Team Two would be myself and Joseph.
Team Three would be Liston and Blundell.
The constables offered to form shifts of their own, but I shook my head. A medical professional’s trained eye was essential for detecting subtle systemic symptoms. I had already briefed my colleagues on the clinical signs of arsenic toxicity on our way here.
And so, our three pairs began their rotation.
“How was it?”
“Nothing…”
Team One: a bust.
“Anything?”
“Not much…”
Team Two—my shift—was also a bust.
“How did it go, sir?”
“Are you certain this stuff is lethal at all?”
Team Three, Liston and Blundell: another bust.
The entire first rotation produced no visible change. The second rotation went by with equally stagnant results.
The shift occurred during the third round.
Just as exhaustion was setting in from snatching fitful naps on wooden chairs, the convict in the middle room—the one wearing the emerald gown inside the green-wallpapered cell—began to drain of all color.
“Urrgh…”
A guttural groan escaped his lips as he curled forward in agony.
“Quick! Summon the families! And send for Sir Jamie at once!”
Naturally, “the families” did not refer to the convict’s relatives. In an era where common citizens barely enjoyed basic human rights, condemned felons certainly possessed none.
Alerted that the prisoner had begun to writhe in torment, the victims’ surviving kin came rushing down the cellar stairs, panting for breath. Sir Jamie’s townhouse was farther away, so he would take longer to arrive—unless he was deliberately dragging his heels, loath to admit that his beloved green wallpaper was deadly poison.
“That bastard! He’s suffering, isn’t he?!” one of the family members cried out.
“Indeed. He is likely experiencing severe, violent abdominal cramps.”
“Good! Serves him right!”
“Praise the Lord!”
Hearing the bereaved families rejoice washed away the faint twinge of discomfort in my chest.
Yes… when a man commits cold-blooded murder—not by accident, but slaughtering multiple innocent souls in malice—he deserves retribution. And if his wretched demise could advance the cause of human medicine and save countless future lives, perhaps it wasn’t merely a punishment, but a stroke of grace.
With that cold resolve, I watched the murderer dying slowly in his cage of vibrant green.