‘Young Toad, sir,’ supplied the attendant.
‘You sleep in the mortuary?’ I said.
‘Ain’t got no place else.’ The man jerked a thumb towards the partly open door at the back of the room. I could dimly make out a blanket against the wall, beside it a brimming chamber pot and a cracked stone sink covered in green slime. Water dripped from a pump alongside.
‘And Young Toad?’
‘Young Toad sleeps there too, sir.’
I eyed the filthy child who stood at his father’s side. I had seen him out on the mud of the Thames at low tide, I was certain.
‘It seems that Aberlady’s body has been violated,’ continued Dr Graves in a low voice. ‘A most singular and grotesque occurrence.’
I looked down at the body. The orderlies had left him as they found him, fully clothed, though when Dr Graves flung back the shroud it was immediately apparent that the body was not quite as I had last seen it. Aberlady’s pockets had been turned out, the linings exposed, the contents – a metal stirring rod, a pipette, a pencil stub and a matchstick – scattered on the slab beside him.
‘Did you do this?’ I said to the attendant.
‘No, sir,’ said Toad.
‘This man has been here all his life, Flockhart,’ said Dr Graves. ‘He knows better than to tamper with a body.’
‘He knows precisely how to tamper with a body,’ I replied. ‘Especially if there might be a shilling in it. Empty your pockets, man.’
‘It were only a shillin’, sir,’ the man whined. ‘This dead feller ain’t got much use for it.’
‘It’s stealing.’
‘Oh, no, sir! It’s no more than my due. They got to pay the wherry man, ain’t they? Perk o’ the job, rootin’ in the pockets o’ the dead.’ He leered up at me, his cracked teeth as streaked and brown as the tiles on a privy floor.
‘So you lied when I asked you whether you had done this?’ said Dr Graves, indicating the strewn pocket contents.
‘No, sir.’
I put a hand to my head. ‘You did look in this dead man’s pockets, but you did not leave the contents spread out like this?’
‘That’s right, sir. When I does it you can’t tell.’ He looked sulky. ‘No use doin’ it and makin’ a mess so you get accused o’ stealin’. Someone else looked in ’is pockets after I done put it all away again, nice an’ tidy like.’
‘And did you find anything, apart from a shilling?’
‘Not much, sir.’
‘Come along, man. I’ll give you half a crown for it, whatever it was, and then that will be an end to it.’ I held out a coin.
The fellow stared at it for a moment, then thrust a filthy hand into the inside pocket of his overcoat. He opened his fist, to reveal a small circular object. It was a silver sixpence, new and shining like a star. And yet it was like no sixpence I had ever seen. On one side was the wreath and crown, and the date, 1850. On the other the Queen’s head had been smoothed away, and in its place another picture had been drawn, hammered into the metal with the point of a sharp instrument. I held it close to my eye. What was it? I could make out the four rounded petals of the forget-me-not – a typical motif for a love token – and behind it a spray of fine, delicate leaves.
‘This belonged to Aberlady?’ I murmured.
‘It didn’t belong to no lady,’ said the man. ‘That lady didn’t ’ave no pockets.’
‘She did ’ave a pocket,’ piped up Young Toad. His eyes, fixed upon his father’s half crown, gleamed like little black beetles. ‘I found ’er pocket, though no one else did. I found a thing in it too. Jus’ like that!’
‘The dead girl?’ I said. I cursed myself for not checking the girl’s clothes when we found her. And yet she had been wearing only a chemise. How was I to know that women’s underclothes contained pockets? ‘What thing?’ I held out another half crown. ‘Show me.’
The boy rummaged amongst his rags, and brought out a silver sixpence, wreath and crown on one side, forget-me-not and leaves on the other. Both tokens had a small hole punched in the top so that a chain might be threaded through.
‘You took this from the girl that was here yesterday?’
‘Yessir.’
‘She must o’ been a thief,’ muttered Toad senior. ‘Only thief-women ’ave pockets in their petticoats.’
‘Never mind that,’ said Dr Graves. ‘There’s a more pressing matter at hand – far more pressing and far worse than shillings and trinkets. Look there, sir!’ He pointed to Aberlady’s shirt sleeve. The fabric was ripped, or rather, when I looked more closely I could see it had been slit, cleanly, so that it could be flapped up to reveal the flesh of his upper arm.
The dead don’t bleed, not like the living, and what I saw beneath made me catch my breath, for in the centre of the corpse’s upper arm a disk of flesh, some four inches in diameter, had been cleanly excised: cut out and peeled away. The red musculature below the skin was exposed, a wet crimson circle against the surrounding white flesh. It was the arm that I had looked at when Aberlady had been dragged from the water. The part that had been sliced away was the same area of skin that Aberlady himself had sought to burn off with the tip of a red-hot poker.
‘You haven’t been out of here since this body was brought in last night, Toad?’ I said.
‘No, sir.’
‘Did you sleep? Were you drunk?’ I leaned forward and sniffed at the man. He stank of sweat and urine, of dirt and mildew and drains, but he did not smell of beer – at least, not much.
‘Only a ha’penny bottle, sir. Small beer, from the White Anchor up on Spyglass Lane. Young Toad ’ere went for it.’
‘So you could have fallen asleep?’
‘I ’as to sleep, sir. But I weren’t drunk.’
‘And you heard and saw nothing?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And what about you?’ I was speaking to Young Toad now. The lad was silent, turning his half-crown around and around between his fingers, his gaze fixed upon its glittering surface. His face was pinched and crafty, his beady eyes shifting. He glanced first at the door, then at the slab; from Dr Graves, to me, and then back to Aberlady, lying dead and cold between us. I saw how afraid he was, and I crouched down and put my hand on his, stopping their restless distracted motion.
‘Well, boy?’ I said. ‘Did you hear anything? Did you see anything?’ From somewhere far away came the slow plop . . . plop . . . plop . . . of water.
‘Oh, I heard ’im, all right, sir.’ Young Toad’s face was green and sickly, his voice a whisper, as if he feared the dead might rise up there and then to gainsay him. ‘Saw ’im too, though I pretended I were asleep.’
‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who did you see?’
‘A man.’
‘Did you know him? What did he look like?’
‘A tall man. Tall and black as night. All of ’im black, like the Devil—’
At that moment Dr Proudlove entered with Will. ‘Am I late?’ he said. He pulled out his pocket watch. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, I had what might have been an urgent case to attend up on Spyglass. Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing. And yet it is only two minutes past seven—’
Behind him, young Toad had shrunk back into the shadows, his gaze fixed on the tall dark figure of Dr Proudlove. His face beneath the streaks of dirt was pale with fear. Before I could put out a hand to stop him he had scampered up the mortuary steps, and disappeared into the noise and bustle of the wakening riverside.
I thought at first that Dr Graves was going to refuse to work with Dr Proudlove. But it appeared that his love of dissection outweighed his prejudice. He forgot the ‘violation’ to the flesh of the corpse, and set to work unpacking Aberlady’s body with the brisk efficiency for which he was famous.
Dr Proudlove talked about the case that had made him late, a dock worker who had been bitten by a spider that had crawled from a bunch of bananas. The spider had been large and furry, and he had taken it home in his tobacco pouch to show his children. The bite t
he man sustained had turned red and angry-looking, the skin that surrounded it darkening in colour. Deciding that the creature was murderous rather than a plaything, he had killed it with his shoe.
‘I have the creature in my pocket,’ said Dr Proudlove. ‘And a remarkably large specimen it is too, gentlemen, if a little squashed. Would you like to see it?’
‘I would indeed,’ I said. I looked at Dr Graves, but he was peeling back Aberlady’s scalp and did not answer.
‘The fellow sent his wife up to the Seaman’s Dispensary, and finding it closed she almost broke the door down with battering upon it, she and her children screaming and crying beneath my windows that their father was at death’s door,’ Dr Proudlove continued. ‘Meanwhile, back at home, the dying man had drunk a bottle of gin to “chase out the poison” as he had heard that whisky had a good effect against snake bites, and so why might not gin serve as a remedy for spiders?
‘In fact, these large hairy spiders, tarantulas, as they are called, are less frightening than they look. They might be able to kill a small animal, but aside from some localised pain they are no threat to a fully grown human being. Still, I had to go, as there have been far worse cases – usually with far smaller spiders. The brown recluse, for instance, or the black widow. Both small, both deadly. Fortunately, they only arrive on these shores by accident. We have had a number of them on board the Blood, brought to us by seamen or dockers.’
‘A fascinating story, sir,’ I said.
But Dr Proudlove had clearly hoped to impress Dr Graves with his morning’s adventure, for he continually looked in the older man’s direction as he talked. But Dr Graves made no response at all. Dr Proudlove sighed. ‘Aberlady would have enjoyed the tale,’ he said looking down at his friend’s corpse. ‘He had a large collection of spiders.’
But Dr Graves was not interested in spiders or, indeed, in any conversation at all, and the only remarks he made were with regard to the procedures of anatomy or the state of the cadaver. It did not take three people to conduct a post-mortem, but as Dr Proudlove and I had agreed to do it, and Dr Graves was not a man to turn his back on a corpse, we all stayed, and in fact the job was done in no time at all. We worked together in silence, opening the body, examining the organs one by one, noting down our observations in Dr Graves’s post-mortem ledger. I was preoccupied with my thoughts, wondering what I might say to Dr Proudlove afterwards, as he was sure to deny it if I accused him of stealing a circle of tattooed flesh from John Aberlady’s corpse. I had seen him perceive the red patch of flayed flesh on his friend’s arm as we had removed the shirt. His knuckles had turned white as his grip tightened on the handle of his scalpel, but he had not remarked on it. I wished he had not come. Not because of the colour of his skin, but because I did not want him to be privy to whatever evidence I might find about the body. Will was right, we could trust no one, and if Dr Proudlove had also rummaged through Aberlady’s pockets then he was evidently looking for something. And so, I too worked in purse-lipped silence. I felt Dr Proudlove looking at me, at my stony face and downcast eyes, and I was sorry for the conclusion that he was sure to be reaching: that my hostility was caused by the same prejudice about his abilities that he met with every day of his life.
As for Aberlady, how thin and white he looked when he was stripped bare and lying on the mortuary slab. I was looking for something – anything – that might tell us what his body had endured in his final hours, though his corpse, at first, yielded no surprises. There was evidence of opium use in the smell of the lungs and the costive nature of the bowels.
‘Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus tell me he was a habitual opium eater,’ I said.
‘Is this your understanding, Dr Proudlove?’ said Dr Graves. ‘As the dead man’s colleague I assume you knew him better than most people did, in the end.’
‘I’m afraid it is more than likely,’ said Dr Proudlove. ‘The unfortunate consequence of an experimental turn of mind and a ready supply of the drug on Spyglass Lane. And yet there are many who are addicted, and few who behave wildly when under the influence. It tends to stupefy, rather than excite, and I never saw Aberlady in either state. His habit was a private affliction, and one he managed well. It never impinged upon his work.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dr Graves. ‘Though his irrational behaviour might be an aspect of the mania that results from abstinence after a prolonged bout, rather than as a consequence of the drug per se.’ He shrugged. ‘Such a conclusion would be enough to convince any magistrate.’
And yet it did not convince me. Besides, did I not have the charred seeds of henbane in my pocket? And so, I looked for other clues that might tell me why he had died, and who had killed him.
‘Excoriations to the oesophagus,’ said Dr Graves, who was bent over the head and neck. ‘Rather unusual to find scratches in the throat like this – unless he sought to induce vomiting by violent means. The stomach might tell us more.’
‘And the heart?’ I said.
‘Haemorrhage in the epicardium, and throughout the endocardium,’ said Dr Graves, shouldering Dr Proudlove aside so that his face might hover intimately close to the corpse’s gaping viscera.
‘What does that mean, sir?’ said Will. He was still standing by the door. I had expected him to faint at the noise of the saw, at the cracking sound of the rib cage being pulled open, or the moist squelch of our hands moving amongst the internal organs, but so far he had remained upright.
‘It means his heart is congested,’ said Dr Proudlove. ‘The chambers are full of a thick, dark blood.’
Dr Graves jabbed at the delicate tracery of the lungs with the handle of his knife. ‘Severe hyperaemia and oedema here too.’
Henbane, I thought. It left no trace in the lungs, but its effects – hyperaemia and oedema – were quite evident. Of course, opium smoke would have a similar result.
‘Again, we’re seeing the effects of opium,’ said Dr Graves, as I knew he would. ‘And the stomach contents, Mr Flockhart?’ He grinned.
I had always hated stomach contents, and Dr Graves knew it. The smell of them was, to me, even worse than the smell of the bowels, and for a moment I was tempted to tell Dr Graves to examine them himself. I glanced at Will, who had chosen that moment to look over at us, and was watching me as I lifted the stomach clear of the body and slithered it into a bowl. The corpse twitched, and let out a belch of air. Will’s face drained of colour completely and his bottle of salts clattered from his fingers. But he was familiar now with the clammy skin, the tingling limbs and tunnel vision of an imminent swoon, and he sank to his knees and slid to the floor in one graceful movement.
‘He’s not getting any less lily-livered, is he?’ remarked Dr Graves without looking up. ‘I’d have thought he’d have toughened up by now, what with all the time he spends with you.’
‘I thought he’d ’it the ground much ’arder,’ said Toad senior, his tone conversational. ‘Bein’ so tall an’ all. But some men don’t. Some men just sorts o’ melts away, like. I seen it before.’
‘He knows what to expect,’ I said. ‘He’s fainted often enough. Put my coat under his head will you, Toad? And use his salts.’ I pointed with the blade of my scalpel. ‘They’re on the floor over there.’
Dr Proudlove clicked his tongue. ‘You cannot just leave him there!’ he said. ‘Is this the way you treat your friends?’ He put down his knife and went to crouch down at Will’s side. ‘Mr Quartermain?’ he said, slapping at Will’s face and reaching for the salts. ‘Mr Quartermain?’
‘He’ll be quite well in a moment,’ I said. My voice sounded high-pitched and cross, like a jealous girl’s. I did not want to leave my task and see to Will, and yet I did not want anyone else to touch him either. I knew him better than anyone, and I knew he would revive in a moment or two. He was always fainting, always being fussed over by others; he didn’t need Dr Proudlove mollycoddling him.
I swallowed my irritation, my possessiveness, and bent to my task, slitting open the tough silken bag of the sto
mach. It contained no charcoal – Aberlady had evidently failed to ingest any of the stuff, despite his intentions. There was no sign of the other emetics he had pulled from the apothecary shelf either. Instead, I found the usual mixture of half-digested food – though there was little enough of it, as though he had had no interest in eating during his final hours. I felt something hard, like a bone of some kind as I sifted through the slime, and I caught it up between finger and thumb. I rinsed it in the bucket of water at my feet, and examined it beneath the light of the lantern. Its shape was familiar, though I could not for the life of me imagine why it should be. I squinted down at it in disbelief, for it was not a bone at all, but a tiny key, little more than half an inch long. Was this what Erasmus Proudlove had been looking for when he rifled through the dead man’s pockets?
On the mortuary floor, Will was stirring. Dr Proudlove helped him to sit with his back to the wall, his head between his knees. Beside me, Dr Graves had turned his attention to the brain and was quite oblivious to anything else. I slid the key into my pocket.
Chapter Eight
It did not take long to finish our examination, and there were no other conclusions to be drawn from John Aberlady’s body. Dr Graves said he would be informing the magistrate that he had leaped from the window whilst under the influence of a mania related to opium addiction. I did not gainsay him, neither did Dr Proudlove, and we helped to load our friend’s remains onto Dr Graves’s corpse wagon in silence. The night before it had been clear that Dr Proudlove had wanted to talk. Today, apart from his initial keenness to discuss the tarantula found in the bananas, it appeared he wanted to say as little as possible. He seemed agitated and restless, as if the sight of Aberlady’s flayed arm had made him nervous – afraid almost – and he made his excuses and walked hastily over to the Blood as soon as Dr Graves’s wagon had disappeared from view.
‘I’m sorry I fainted,’ said Will. He was looking pale still. ‘I keep thinking I will get used to it, but I never do.’
The Blood: What secrets lie aboard? (Jem Flockhart Book 3) Page 9