Sorley’s was warm and boisterous. The uneasiness I had felt as we left the anatomy school dispersed beneath its genial fug of hot fat, pipe smoke and beer fumes. We ordered our food – game pie for me, the promised pheasant pie and potatoes for Will, some of Sorley’s fine beer – and found ourselves a booth near to the fire. One of Sorley’s boys brought us our ale straight away, and I took a long draught of the dark, bitter liquid. My throat was dry. The way Will was glugging down his own beer told me that he felt the same. I didn’t like to tell him why he was so thirsty, nor that he would feel that way every evening while he worked at the Hall on Dr Crowe’s anatomy manual. I wondered whether he had noticed the dust that lay thickly upon every surface of his new workplace. It was the dust of dry bones, of desiccated hair and dead flesh, for such things filled the air there; they were a part of the bricks and mortar, and if he did not keep his window open he would be ill in no time.
I did not say any of this, however. Instead, I put down my beer and told him why I wished to return to the Hall. To the dead house. I waited until he had eaten his pheasant pie first. ‘There is an extra body there, Will. Its right hand has been cut off, and its face removed – not to mention where we found the hand, and the curious message that was on the card left with it. No one seems to know who this mystery corpse belongs to, though it is evidently a young man who was in perfectly good health at the time of his death.
‘It’s not impossible that what Dr Crowe says is true,’ I went on. ‘If the body came from the hospital, or from the workhouse, and was in danger of being reclaimed by relatives, then rendering it unrecognisable would be the first priority. And yet I’m certain that Dr Cruikshank was surprised to see it. I believe he recognised it, though he pretended he did not.’
‘Can you be sure?’
‘I cannot be sure. But he works here. He allocates bodies to his students and he quite clearly did not expect to have an extra one. His face when he saw it—’
‘So what is it you are expecting to find?’
‘I don’t know. At least, I am not entirely certain. I spent half the day carrying that hand around with me, and in the end I don’t even know whose body it came from. There must be some identifying marks upon it, on the body or the hand, something that marks it out as unique, but I would need to look at it more closely.’
‘It may still be a prank, Jem. Not everything is worse than it seems.’
‘I know. And yet I must do this.’
I did not tell him that Dr Wragg had warned me away, that Dr Cruikshank had ushered me out of the dead room as fast as he could, and that Sorrow and Silence Crowe filled the students with a profound and unexplained dread. He had other things on his mind, I could tell.
‘What about you?’ I said instead. ‘What happened after you disappeared with Miss Crowe?’
‘Very little,’ said Will. ‘Lilith Crowe is a charming and intelligent woman. Before the lecture she introduced me to Dr Cruikshank.’
‘What do you make of him?’
‘Eccentric. Intelligent. A little in love with Miss Crowe, I suspect.’
‘She would never look at a man like him,’ I scoffed.
‘Would she not?’ he said. ‘Women do not always mind a man’s looks. Something you for one should be glad about.’
I grunted. ‘Go on.’
‘Dr Cruikshank was civil enough. I had the impression he did not really mind who was to work on the anatomy manual, but was pleased to see Miss Crowe animated and engaged with the project.’ He sipped his beer. ‘It is without doubt the most unusual household I have ever been in.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we attended the lecture, as you saw. After that she provided me with materials – paper, pens, ink, a drawing board, and a skeleton hand. She took me to where I am to work. Her father appeared with the Exhibition catalogue and told me once again what he liked about my drawings. Then he asked me whether I would be interested in designing a new, purpose-built building at the rear of the property to hold the anatomy museum – there is more of it stored somewhere else as it is impossible to fit it all into the rooms Dr Wragg has been given.’ He smiled. ‘Miss Crowe was fascinated by my ideas, my suggestions for the design of a new museum.’
‘I see,’ I said. I took a deep draught of my beer. All at once I felt as though a shadow had fallen across me. It was new to me to feel unnecessary, as if I might be left to one side and no one, not even Will, would mind. I knew London was growing, transforming. Her old crowded streets were being cleared, her institutions – schools, hospitals, prisons – being rebuilt on far grander lines than ever before. People like Will, who could design and build, were in demand. But me? The apothecary was a generalist. Physicians disdained his jobbing quackery, and with the coming of chloroform the role of the surgeon had been transformed from a task requiring speed and strength to something with far more subtlety and finesse. Will had a future. He was in demand. But what place did I have? All at once my apothecary shop seemed quaint and medieval – nothing but powdered leaves and barks, and bottles of coloured water. I sighed. Perhaps I should finish the book on poisons I had started once upon a time. I might take my MD, and at last call myself ‘doctor’. I might build a reputation as an expert in poisons and ways of killing, for there were plenty of corpses and little expertise.
Usually Will was attuned to my mood, but now he seemed oblivious to it, for once more he was talking about Miss Crowe. Apparently she was to help him, was to act as amanuensis, and to liaise between Will in his draughtsman’s eyrie and the two anatomists – her father and Dr Cruikshank. He was looking forward to it.
‘She is like no other woman I have ever met,’ he said.
‘She is very beautiful,’ I noted. ‘And yet, unmarried.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I cannot think why.’
‘Me neither,’ I said dryly. ‘Which leads one to think that she either does not like men, does not want to saddle herself with one, or—’
‘Or?’
‘Or something else.’
‘Such as?
I shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
I thought of my father. He had not married again after my mother died. It had been because of a hereditary malady, one that prevented him from sleeping and eventually drove him mad. I too lived beneath its shadow, and I feared it almost as much as he. But I could not possibly speculate as to what malady Miss Crowe might be afraid of. More likely was the realisation that any man she married would – no matter what he might say before the event – insist that she stop her work at the anatomy school, for it was evident to me that she was as involved with the place as her father.
Sorley kept two of our pipes behind the bar. The long clay stems we both favoured did not survive well in the pocket of a top coat. Sorley’s boy brought them over when Will caught his eye. ‘I’m surprised there aren’t any students in here,’ I said. I cut a lump of tobacco and began rubbing it in the palm of my hand with my thumb.
‘No doubt they are used to going west,’ said Will. ‘Towards St Bride’s and in the opposite direction to us. If we’re lucky they won’t come this far down St Saviour’s Street at all, though I see one of them at least has found the place.’ He nodded over my shoulder. In the corner, against the wall at a small table on his own, sat a tall red-headed man. He had a stack of books beside his empty coffee cup, and he was bent over a sheaf of papers, his pen moving rapidly across the page. In front of him was a jar inside of which a large pink organ bobbed in preserving fluid.
‘Should we disturb him?’ said Will.
‘Oh, I think so,’ I replied. ‘Excuse me, sir!’
The man looked up, his expression alarmed.
‘Would you care to join us? My name is Flockhart, I own the physic garden beside Corvus Hall, and this is my friend Mr Quartermain. As of this afternoon he’s a colleague of yours, for Dr Crowe has just employed him to work on his new anatomy manual – I’m sure you know of it.’
The man hesitated, evidently unsure, but then
he gathered up his accoutrements, stuffed the specimen bottle into his bag, and came over to us. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘A pleasure to meet you both. I’m Dr Allardyce.’
‘Dr Allardyce, the anatomy demonstrator?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘I am relieved to meet you, sir.’ I grinned. ‘Dr Cruikshank was becoming worried about you.’
‘Have you eaten, sir?’ said Will.
‘I have,’ he replied.
‘I mean have you eaten since lunchtime?’ said Will. ‘I saw you come in, and you have had nothing but a mug of coffee.’ He pulled out his pocket book. ‘It would be my pleasure—’
Dr Allardyce began to protest, but Will waved him aside. ‘But you must! How else might we enjoy your company if we know you are hungry? Besides, one must take advantage of the return of one’s appetite that the absence of the smell of cadavers brings. I had no desire for food myself earlier. Once away from Corvus Hall, however, I discovered I was starving. I have no doubt at all that you feel exactly the same, and it is only your natural diffidence that prevents you from saying so. I can recommend the pheasant, and a pot of Sorley’s best ale.’
We smoked our pipes while Allardyce wolfed down a plate of meat and potatoes and a pint of beer. None of us spoke. Will and I exchanged a glance as our new friend sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes and wiped his lips with a handkerchief. I caught a whiff of the dissecting room as he did so, and I noted the stained appearance of the linen he was swabbing at his lips with. Will saw it too. His smile wavered, but he recovered himself quickly enough. ‘You feel better, sir?’
‘I do,’ said Dr Allardyce. ‘Thank you. I have had a . . . a busy few days. One sometimes forgets to eat.’ He looked about as he quaffed his second pint of ale. ‘Not a bad little chop house,’ he said, as if he had not noticed the place earlier. He pulled off his glasses and buffed the lenses with his shirt sleeve. His eyes were red and watery from lack of sleep, and, I presumed, from staring into the bodies of the dead all day. I guessed his age to be some forty years or more – rather old to be an anatomy demonstrator. Demonstrating was something I had always associated with younger men; men with ambition.
‘You enjoy your work?’ I said, nodding to the bag into which he had shoved his books, his preserved specimen and his notebook. I hoped the beer he had drunk, and the food he had eaten at Will’s expense, would put him in a mood of garrulous frankness.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Though I would value some help in the dissecting room.’
‘Do you not have this fellow Halliday?’ said Will.
Dr Allardyce gave a snort. ‘Halliday! I hardly think so.’
‘Oh?’ I said. ‘I understood him to be a most capable fellow who is set to make a name in the world of surgery. A man to rival Liston in strength and skill, to outshine Syme in speed and daring – a man likely to one day take over from Crowe himself—’
Sorley’s was warm, the atmosphere genial and welcoming. Will and I were lounging in our seats in a relaxed, familiar manner. As I talked, I watched Dr Allardyce’s face grow darker. In my experience, one is more likely to get someone to talk if one presents them with a set of groundless assumptions on a subject with which they are both familiar and opinionated. So it proved with Dr Allardyce. I knew nothing of Halliday, only that Dr Crowe had warmly anticipated him at tea that afternoon and had been disappointed to find Will and me instead, and that Dr Cruikshank had asked for Halliday before he had looked for Dr Allardyce.
Dr Allardyce slammed his tankard down and leaned forward. ‘He is nothing of the s-sort,’ he cried. ‘John Halliday is the very worst kind of man. It has been my misfortune to have to work with him these last two years and on not one occasion can I say that he has shown himself to be anything like the man you describe. He is a duplicitous, self-serving, d-debauched.’ Spittle flew from his lips. ‘I know I should not say it,’ he said. ‘And yet I must. Only last week I heard that he had won the Sir David Brewster prize essay – some £200 in prize money, plus the opportunity to have his w-work published by one of the most reputable medical publishers.’
‘Is it not a work of great merit?’ I said. I adopted a tone of awe – and perplexity. ‘The David Brewster medal! One of the highest honours in anatomy. And he is still a student?’
‘Yes, sir, and that honour would have been mine if I had handed my essay in. He stole my work, gentlemen. He stole my work on the spleen and he . . . he passed it off as his own. We were both working on the subject at that time. Some of my p-papers went missing, the specimens I had prepared and upon which I was working were lost. Lost? Stolen, more like!’ He sighed. ‘But I did not notice the missing p-pages until I was writing up. Some of my key observations. Drawings too. Findings based on dissections I had performed, microscopic work of the most detailed and intensive kind – all of it gone. I did not notice until it was too late, until days had passed, by which time he had transferred my work into his own hand and would almost certainly have destroyed my pages.’
‘And you did not speak up?’ said Will.
‘I did not. I could not. Everyone knows we have the same interests; they would simply have said that I was speaking out of jealousy. He’s a thief,’ muttered Dr Allardyce. His face was dark with fury. ‘He deserved what he got.’
‘What did he get?’ I said. My voice was mild. I took a swig of ale, glancing up at our new friend casually. My gaze, I hoped, was sympathetic.
‘I must g-go,’ Dr Allardyce lurched to his feet.
‘Wait—’
He swayed where he stood. The alcohol had warmed his tongue, and his opinions, and the rage that had evidently been gathering within him for some time now spilled out like bile.
‘I am forty-three years old, Mr Flockhart,’ he said. ‘I have seen men come and go, I have seen them p-pass me by, overtake me, leave me behind, laughing at me over their shoulders as they make their way in the world. I saw Halliday laughing with the others, taking part in their drunken games while I was still working. I know they wonder why I am no more than what I am. Even Dr Crowe does not trust me to give any but the most basic of lectures. He says that I lack charisma, that I stutter and mumble, and it is true. Even worse—’ He held out his hands. They were shaking. ‘I can cut the f-flesh when it is dead, but when it is l-living?’ He shook his head. ‘I do not have what it takes actually to be a surgeon. I do not have the courage, the speed, the delicacy of touch and p-precision, though I wish to God I did.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again I saw that he had mastered himself. He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I am aware that resentment is a corrosive and vile emotion, Mr Flockhart. I have done my b-best to overcome it, and on the whole I have succeeded. And yet there are times—’ He looked spent, as if voicing such opinions was as exhausting as keeping them secret. He turned about and lumbered towards the door.
We returned to the apothecary, having already sent Sorley’s boy down with a game pie and ale enough for three. I had no wish to watch Mrs Speedicut eat, and hoped she had had her fill by the time we arrived home. Sure enough, the apothecary table bore evidence of a meal recently finished. Pie crusts, empty beer bottles, plates smeared with chutney. Mrs Speedicut was sitting in my father’s armchair before the stove. I saw that she was about to doze off, but I was having none of that.
‘Wakey wakey, madam,’ I cried as Will and I burst in. ‘Shake some life into that fire and let’s hear what you have to say.’
‘About what?’ she said crossly. She pulled her shawl about her shoulders and shifted her great bulk, settling herself into a more comfortable position for sleeping. ‘Close that door, can’t you?’
‘Tell us about Corvus Hall and its various residents,’ I said. ‘It’s what I invited you for, after all.’
She watched me through half-closed eyes. ‘But I’ve only been there a week!’
‘Long enough for you to winkle out every rumour in the whole place,’ said Will. ‘And to discover that the alcohol used to preserve the spec
imens cannot be siphoned off and drunk.’
‘Oh, it’s vile, sir,’ cried Mrs Speedicut, her eyes snapping open. ‘Quite vile! Though it smells a lot like gin! I were quite surprised it didn’t taste like it too.’ Will and I exchanged a glance. He had been joking. Had she really tried the stuff?
‘Well,’ I said, unwilling to pursue the matter. ‘What a pity it’s not gin, or you would be supplied for life. Still, I have a bottle for you now if you can tell us what you know of the place.’
I’d bought some gin from Sorley, who knew Mrs Speedicut’s rough tastes well enough and who had assured me that the very cheapest bottle would serve my purposes. I had added a bag of the evil-smelling shag tobacco she favoured too, to sweeten the bargain. ‘Come along,’ I said. ‘What have you learned after a week at Corvus Hall?’
I had used Mrs Speedicut before to find out what the backstairs gossip might be. As a professional slattern with years of experience bullying others to do her work for her, she had more time for tittle-tattle than anyone I had ever met. Now, she told us that Dr Crowe kept himself to himself and had little interest in anything but his work; that Dr Cruikshank was beloved by the students and Dr Allardyce was not; that Dr Strangeway worked alone and unseen in the upper reaches of the house. It was all very well, but it was nothing we did not already know. I could not help but feel disappointed. Were the secrets of the Hall so tightly guarded by its residents that even a gossipmonger like Mrs Speedicut could not fathom them?
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