I gave him the hand, still wrapped in its damp fold of newspaper. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry to be passing this on.’
‘Oh, to be sure, to be sure.’ He tossed the hand onto the corpse’s waxy shroud. It lay there with its fingers pointing skyward. ‘And I will get to the bottom of the matter.’ He steered me over to the door and back up the sloping corridor towards the anatomy room.
‘Dr Crowe said I may attend your lectures,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ He sounded unenthusiastic.
‘Have you known Dr Crowe for a long time? You are both from Edinburgh, I think?’
‘All the best men come from Edinburgh, sir, though it is not what it was, and has lost ground to the London schools in recent years. But we were trained by the best, and our anatomy museum is one of the finest in the country. The public are in thrall to it – I wish I could say the same about our students.’ He led me back the way we had come, ushering me hastily out of the dissection room and into the passageway. The students watched me go, their expressions blank. ‘Good day to you, Mr Flockhart.’ The door swung closed and I was alone.
The afternoon was drawing on. Skinner was lighting the lamps and the students were noticeably fewer in number by the time I emerged from the dissecting room. They had probably gone out to one of the many chop houses and supper rooms on St Saviour’s Street. I had told Gabriel and Jenny that I would be back before sundown. That time would soon be upon us, now that the nights were drawing in. They would be worried if I did not come back soon. And yet I had no intention of going home just yet. I had to locate Will, who was somewhere about the building. Was he still with Miss Crowe? I found myself wondering at the whereabouts of the Mr Halliday I had heard mentioned. He had clearly been expected by both Dr Crowe and Dr Cruikshank, and yet he had not appeared. Where was he? Dr Allardyce’s absence also seemed to be unexpected, as did that of the student Wilson. With an anonymous corpse in the dead house and three men evidently missing, was no one concerned for them? I knew students for a boorish lot, addicted to high jinks, beer and rowdiness. But that cryptic note, that severed hand and peeled, raw face – these struck me as something beyond mere japery.
I took the stairs up to the anatomy museum. The whole top floor of the building was now given over to the display of anatomical specimens. They were all about the rest of the building too – in the library, along the hall, on either side of the stairs. They were in the dissecting room and the lecture theatre. Every time I turned a corner I seemed to stumble across an orderly unpacking another crate of specimens – whole organs, healthy and morbid, a resin cast of the veins of the foot, the skeleton of an otter or a platypus, a baby with hydrocephalus, a display of foetal bones from one month to nine months. Every surface, every shelf and niche was home to something.
I came across the porter, Skinner, carrying a large specimen jar. A lump of flesh was suspended within though I could not tell what it was.
‘The anatomy museum?’ he said, when I told him where I was going. ‘I’ll come along with you, sir. And your Mr Quartermain is that-a-way too, sir. Up at the top.’
I remarked on the rowdiness of the students, and the smell of beer and pipe smoke in the hall. ‘Are they known to be playful with the corpses?’ I asked. ‘I saw Bullseye gnawing on a scapula when we arrived.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t mind them, sir,’ he said. ‘I admit our young men can be a bit boisterous but it’s nothing more than high spirits. Take that business with the hand. My money’s on Wilson, sir. Wilson’s the man for a practical joke – when he’s not pursuing the ladies. And I’ve not seen him these last two days, so my guess is he’s lying low till it all blows over.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘They’re just letting off steam. I mean, spending the day staring into the innards of a corpse, sir. Ain’t surprising they wants a bit of levity sometimes. A distraction is all it is, sir. Seems a little boisterous but it ain’t nothing. Mind you, there was one time they all got drunk. Last year it was, sir. Every man of them forgot to go to the examination the next day.’
‘And what about Dr Strangeway?’ I said. ‘Does he like the rowdies?’
He shrugged. ‘I can’t rightly say, sir. We don’t see much of him.’
‘And what does he look like?’
‘Hard to describe, sir.’ Was it my imagination or had the orderly’s stride lengthened, his urge to talk becoming strained the more questions I asked?
‘And Mr Halliday? Have you seen him today?’
‘Not today, sir.’
‘What’s he like? Dr Cruikshank seems to think him a most skilled anatomist, and yet still a student—’
‘Here we are then, sir.’ Skinner smiled, turning to me with evident relief as we reached the door to the anatomy museum. ‘The stairs up to the preparation rooms – that’s where your young friend is – they’re at the back in the corner. Ask Dr Wragg. He’ll show you. He’s the curator of the anatomy museum. You’ll find him inside.’
‘What is he like?’ I persisted. ‘This mysterious Mr Halliday?’
Skinner’s eyes flickered over my shoulder. I turned to look. Was there a movement? The swish of black skirts whisking away into the gloom? I could not be sure, but – ‘You’re new amongst us, sir.’ His voice was louder now, smile fixed, his gaze uneasy. ‘Perhaps it’s best if you find out about Mr Halliday for yourself.’
The museum was dark, the shades drawn down over the windows so that direct light did not fade or corrupt the specimens. At first I thought the place was deserted, but then I saw a light moving in the shadows, a wavering candle held by a shaking hand. I heard a throat being cleared, long and lavish, and the sound of sputum being hawked up from moist lungs.
‘Hello? Dr Wragg?’ I followed the sound, past ranks of glass jars, lead-sealed, organs and body parts floating within like curious sea creatures. The light moved away, drifting before me like the glow of an anglerfish swimming in the deep.
I was so focused upon it that I did not notice the dark shadow approaching me. I heard no footstep, no breath, and I thought later how silently they moved, how they might creep up on anyone if they so chose – without a light too, as if they knew every turn and obstacle, and could have passed through the place blindfolded.
‘Mr Flockhart?’ It was Sorrow who spoke, her blank eyes pearlescent in the darkness. I wondered how she knew it was me, for she could see nothing, and I had not heard her sister speak. ‘I understand you have been talking to Dr Cruikshank,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘About the hand.’
‘Yes.’
‘It is nothing,’ she said. ‘There is some rivalry between Dr Strangeway and Dr Cruikshank on the matter of how best to teach anatomy. Dr Cruikshank favours the cadaver, with many hours spent with the corpse. Dr Strangeway prefers models – precise and exact in every detail but wax models nonetheless. He says the excessive use of the dead encourages a lack of respect for the living, a callousness—’ She stopped. ‘I fear the students can be rather provoking.’
‘I’m sure you are right,’ I said. ‘But one must be certain.’
They watched me, their faces expressionless, their white skin flawless and beautiful in the darkness. But for Sorrow’s fish-scale gaze the two of them were identical. For a moment I thought the girl was about to speak again, but then all at once I heard footsteps, rapid and confident. I saw the glow of a candle reflected on the jars like a million glittering eyes, and then out of the darkness a man appeared. It was one of the students I had seen in the dissecting room. In his hand he held a bundled handkerchief. He stopped dead when he saw the sisters. He took a step back, his glance darting from one to the other, as if he feared to take his eyes off either of them. Sorrow put her head back, her blind gaze fixed upon him. I saw her nostrils flare.
‘Mr Tanhauser,’ she said. She smiled. ‘No Mr Wilson with you today?’ Tanhauser’s face flushed. He glanced back the way he had come, as if he wanted more than anything to tu
rn tail and flee.
‘I’ve brought something for Dr Wragg,’ he muttered.
Sorrow Crowe reached out, and deftly took the bundled handkerchief from him. He did not object. He seemed mesmerised by them both, terrified, like a mouse suddenly confronted by a pair of angry cats. The girl searched amongst the folds, and pulled out a kidney. It had been sliced neatly down the middle so that it opened up like the two halves of a broad bean. She ran her long, slender fingers over its surface, and held it to her face for a moment so that for an instant I thought she was about to take a bite. Tanhauser evidently thought the same for he cried out in horror and lurched back from her. But it seemed she was merely smelling the thing.
‘Your corpse is old,’ she said. ‘But you have a good specimen here. A renal carcinoma, even one as small as this, is an excellent addition to any collection of morbid anatomy.’
‘How did you know what it was?’ I said.
‘Oh, they always know,’ said Tanhauser, backing away.
‘I can feel it,’ she replied. ‘A slight firmness, a granular texture to what would otherwise be smooth. And the smell of the thing. It is quite clearly morbid.’
‘I was looking for Dr Wragg,’ repeated Tanhauser. ‘You seen him, miss?’
She turned her dead eyes to him. ‘Have I seen Dr Wragg?’ Her voice was mocking. ‘Even a dolt like you would know the answer to that.’
I glanced at Tanhauser. Like me he seemed surprised by her change in tone, and yet he evidently found her hostility easier to deal with, for he replied, ‘Well, miss, have you smelled him anywhere?’
She scowled at him.
‘Look,’ he passed a hand across his brow, ‘I’m sorry. I just want to find Dr Wragg. And may I have my kidney ,please?’
‘Of course,’ She held the organ out, but as Tanhauser reached for it she squeezed the thing tightly in her fist. We heard it squelch horribly.
Tanhauser gasped, and stepped back. ‘Keep it then,’ he whispered. ‘And welcome to it.’ He threw me a pitying glance, and then vanished the way he had come.
‘Dr Wragg is waiting for you, Mr Flockhart,’ said Sorrow. She dropped the kidney onto the floor. Her sister pointed into the darkness, where I could see a light burning dimly. When I turned back the two of them were gone.
Somewhere far off a door banged. A dog barked and voices shouted. The light began to move off again.
‘Confound this place,’ I muttered. ‘Hello?’ I shouted. ‘You there! Dr Wragg?’
I found a candle sitting beside a display of gunshot wounds, lumps of punctured skin and flesh, greyish now, rather than the screaming scarlet they would once have been. Beside it, wiping the glass with a slimy leather cloth, was a small man in a woollen topcoat with a high shawl collar. The elbows were worn down to the very weave of the fabric, the cuffs shaggy with frayed edges against a grubby shirt.
‘Good evening, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m glad I caught you. You move like a will o’ the wisp through these exhibits. Are you the curator here?’
‘I am.’ He took up a bottle containing a blob of flesh I was unable to identify in the gloom and buffed it lovingly with his handkerchief, the leather hank he had been using now tucked into his belt. ‘At least, I’m one of them. The other fellow’s new. I’m not new. I’m old. Very old.’ He turned to me. ‘Flockhart, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’ There was a pause, a silence filled only by the squeak of cloth against glass. He stopped, and turned red-rimmed eyes upon me. ‘What do you want with us, sir?’
‘Why, nothing. That is, I’m looking for Mr Quartermain. Dr Crowe has employed him as an artist. A draughtsman. I believe he is nearby? If you could direct me?’ I frowned. ‘How long have you been here, Dr Wragg?’
‘Long enough,’ he said. ‘I’ve been an anatomist, man and boy. Always.’ He laughed, a hollow rattling sound like pebbles caught in a drain.
‘What about this museum? How long have you been looking after this place? Here.’
‘Here? Since the place was closed. I knew Dr Magorian – he owned the Hall before Dr Crowe bought it. But then you know that, don’t you? He was an Edinburgh man too. And when he died, well, we couldn’t just let the place rot.’
‘We?’ I said. ‘You and who else? Dr Crowe?’
He did not reply, but replaced the jar on the shelf, turning it this way and that, until he was happy.
‘Did Dr Crowe know?’ I persisted. ‘Did he know you were coming in here to look after the specimens even while the place was boarded up?’
He smiled at me then, revealing the most curious set of teeth I had ever seen, for they appeared to be real human teeth, but set into a plate of polished wood. They had clearly originated from a number of different mouths, for they were different sizes and colours. ‘Dr Crowe doesn’t stick his nose in where it’s not wanted,’ he said. ‘Dr Crowe is a gentleman. He knows when to ask questions and when not to ask questions.’ He picked up his candle. ‘I advise you to do the same.’
‘And who is the young curator?’
‘Fellow called Halliday.’ His face darkened. ‘He’s not here.’ He turned away from me. ‘Your friend’s up there.’ He pointed to a dark corner of the room. I could just about make out the serpentine coil of a spiral staircase winding up into the ceiling. A faint, flickering glow filtered down from above. I felt the old man’s gaze follow me as I walked away.
Precognition for the murder of Mary Anderson,
18th December 1830.
Statement of RICHARD ALLARDYCE, apprentice surgeon-apothecary to Dr Crowe. Currently residing at 22 East Newington Street, Edinburgh. Aged twenty-two years.
19th December 1830
I was made aware of the death of Mary Anderson on the night of the 18th inst. by the arrival of one Davie Knox, a young lad of some eleven years of age who, on account of sharing his name with the most brilliant and infamous anatomist of the day, had decided that the two of them must surely be cousins. As a result, for the price of a shilling he and his gang of fellow miscreants inform the gentlemen surgeons of any deaths they know to have occurred in the Cowgate and its surrounding streets.
Young Davie and his entourage came up to 13 Surgeons’ Square at some time between nine and ten o’clock in the evening of the 18th. He told me that there was a devil of a commotion going on at the foot of the close, ‘At the hoose o’ Thrawn-Leggit Mary,’ he said. ‘She’s murthered, and there’s the de’il tae pay fer it.’
‘Murdered?’ I said. ‘By whom?’ He looked askance at that and said that surely I knew who it was, ‘fer it’s yer ain Dr Craw,’ he said. ‘Auld Corbie, himsel’!’ I told him that this was preposterous, that Dr Crowe had gone home some hours earlier, but he would not be persuaded.
Dr Cruikshank was in the dissecting room with Franklyn. It was late for them, but the corpse they were to work on was more than a week old already and would not last much longer. Dissection by candlelight is a vile business and, for all that they had done such work a hundred times before, they were both looking very green. I told Dr Cruikshank what I had heard, and he clapped his hands, saying, ‘Excellent, Mr Allardyce. This cadaver is almost beyond use, and we could do with another. Besides, a little night air and an adventure will be sure to do us good.’
There were five of us who went down to the Cowgate that night: Dr Cruikshank, Dr Strangeway, Dr Wragg, Mr Franklyn and myself. I did not send a runner for Dr Crowe, judging it best that, given his known sympathy for the girl Mary, and his recent contretemps with her in the lecture theatre, he would be better off elsewhere. The night was chill; dank and bitter with the haar, which takes on a sulphurous tang in the wintertime due to the smokiness of the air. Our lanterns were of little help, their light reflecting off the fog so that we might have been standing at the bottom of the Nor’ Loch for all the difference they made. As we reached the top of Robertson’s Close we could hear the murmur of voices drifting up from the dark thoroughfare below.
‘Sticks at the ready, gentlemen,’ said Dr Cruikshank. ‘It’ll be
an ugly crowd that greets us.’
I had mine to hand, as I knew that feeling towards us ran high in those parts of the town, especially since the West Port murders. The mob had come boiling up from the Cowgate during those days, and our work at the dissection tables had been brought to a standstill. Dr Knox’s house had been besieged, and a number of us had been attacked in the streets. Acquiring the bodies we needed to learn our craft had become harder than ever since then, and yet without them we could not be trained. We were all decided: if we had to brave the mob to get a corpse then so be it. Besides, the body of Thrawn-Leggit Mary would be a rare trophy indeed. Dr Knox himself had been after it, though as he was away in London at that time he had missed his opportunity. I gripped my stick and followed the glow of Dr Cruikshank’s lantern as we headed down the close towards the waiting mob.
I could see that they were drunk. I could smell it too. The dark and the alcohol had given them courage, and we were jostled and pummelled as we passed through their ranks. I felt a wet splatter of spit against my cheek, and saw more of the same strike Dr Cruikshank’s hat. But we marched forward nonetheless, the crowd reluctantly parting to allow us passage. The door to the sisters’ house stood open, though it seemed no one had dared to enter.
‘Be quick about it,’ said Dr Wragg. ‘We have no friends down here tonight.’ I saw him look to the crowd, and his grip tightened about the shaft of his stick.
Dr Cruikshank, Dr Strangeway, Franklyn and I went inside. Dr Wragg, who was no stranger to the less salubrious parts of the town, awaited us in the street, guarding the door whilst we readied the corpse. The room was dark, the shadows thick and black, for the place seemed to be built into the bowels of the city itself. The women lived at the very foot of a tall tenement, a lodging house, one of the most dilapidated, crowded and labyrinthine I have ever come across. There was hardly a stick of furniture save for a rickety table and two low chairs, the legs of which had been sawn off so that the sisters might sit in comfort on either side of the fire. The fire itself was little more than a dark hole, with a crooked iron trivet bearing a kettle, furry with soot. An equally filthy cooking pot stood on the hearth. There was a large box bed in the corner. Upon it lay the body of the woman we had known as Thrawn-Leggit Mary. She was wearing a green silk dress, and I recognised it as one that had once belonged to Mrs Crowe. Dr Cruikshank bent over her. I saw him hold his fingers to her wrist, though there was no doubt at all that she was dead.
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