“That is the smell of genius,” Horace said.
Daniel had to look away and cough again.
Jeffers leaned in for a look, the mint fumes of his handkerchief forcing tears from his irritated eyes. “May I?” he asked, waiting for a nod from Daniel before touching the skin. “I don’t understand,” he said, pressing gently. “We can smell the gangrene, but there’s not a trace—”
“Rinse with more tea and then plaster him again.” Horace adjusted his spectacles, cheeks pink with amusement. “You smelled old, foul bandages. Not necrotic tissue. That was rotting pus and blood, not flesh and bone.”
“How did you know?” Daniel asked, happy for his patientbut nettled by Horace’s self-satisfaction.
“I didn’t,” Horace said with a shrug. “Iwas just patient enough to check. Go call in the others so we can educate them before we throw the bandages away.”
Jeffers stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket, clearly relieved to be sent on an errand and escape the sickening smell, however briefly. He paused at the door. “Dr. Croft, how does the smell not affect you?”
Horace looked at the young doctor in training. “You learn control with time. Then you can command your hands not to shake. Your head not to doze off after a night without sleep. Your nose to overlook upsetting smells. But I must have filled buckets with vomit when I was your age.”
Jeffers smiled, his shoulders loosening. Daniel hadn’t realized they’d grown so tense.
“It was good of you. To give Jeffers some encouragement,” Daniel murmured once his dresser had left the room.
“They all need it,” Horace said. “Besides, it’s no fun showing them up. Much more satisfying to do that to you.”
This time, Daniel did roll his eyes. “Get ready,” he said. “I can hear them coming.”
Right on cue, a half-dozen doctors and dressers filtered into the ward, surrounding the patient’s bed. Several handkerchiefs appeared, but Jeffers resisted the urge to employ his again.
Horace held up the putrid, sopping bandages, explaining the case in theatrical style, with gestures and embellishment. Then, mercifully, he ordered the bandages removed from the room to be burned with the other diseased dressings and linen. After Horace washed the leg thoroughly, only the echo of theformer smell remained, replaced with the strong fume of soap.
The students began to disperse, revealing two colleagues conferring a short distance away, arms crossed, brows furrowed. They frowned at Daniel.
Whatever for? While he wouldn’t mind taking credit for this, the discovery—and the ensuing theatrics—were Horace’s. Ten minutes later, the last student was gone, off to observe another case, but Adams and Howe remained, still casting dark looks in Daniel’s direction.
Leaving Horace to examine the next patient, Daniel approached. “Is there a problem?”
“We’ve just come from your wife’s obstetric lecture.” Adams insisted on an absurdly pointed little beard that made it difficult for Daniel to think of anything else, but he perked up at the mention of Nora.
“And?” Daniel crossed his arms, all too accustomed to complaints about his surgeon wife.
“Oh, stop bristling,” Howe sneered. “We paid to go, didn’t we?” He fumbled his pocket watch in his loose fist. “The lecture would have been fine if she taught it.”
“What do you mean?” Daniel demanded.
“She had a trio of common midwives there. Halfway through, she invited one of them to explain a case—just because the creature had been lucky enough not to kill the woman. Once your wife let that hedge witch take over the lecture—”
“Take over the lecture?” Daniel echoed. That didn’t sound like Nora, with her careful notes and rehearsed presentations. And three midwives? This morning, she’d said there would be one. “There must have been a reason.” Though what it mightbe, he couldn’t imagine. When midwives had “interesting” cases, they sent for her or Horace.
“Indeed,” Howe said. “Even if the woman’s claims are true—and I don’t believe them for a second—I won’t attend another lecture from your wife, no matter how impressive her résumé. And I certainly can’t recommend them to my students or anyone else. Deferring to midwives!” He shook his head.
“Nora doesn’t defer to them,” Horace said, drying his hands as he joined the conversation. “She uses them. As do I. The good ones are valuable.”
Howe frowned. “For fetching water and cleaning babies. Perhaps for uneventful cases when the child needs merely to be caught. But one never knows which births will be uneventful.”
“Your wife was supposed to be instructing doctors on delivering with short forceps.” Adams’s dark eyes glinted. “I’ve been using them for five years and—”
“You never thought of teaching anyone,” Horace said. “Why not? Didn’t want to cut into your own business?”
Adams flushed. “If she thinks she can put tools like that into the hands of illiterate women—”
Daniel grunted, a heavy weight in his stomach. Nora wouldn’t hand a midwife a pair of forceps. It sounded like a sure way to decapitate a child. “I’m sure you misunderstand. My wife wouldn’t—”
