‘My God!’ said a voice in my ear. ‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ Halliday was standing directly behind me. His face was white. ‘Another prank?’ Behind him, Tanhauser and Squires gaped.
‘At least there can be no doubt whose hand it is,’ said Will, who had come down from his room in the eaves when he heard the commotion. There was a steady drop, drop, drop of blood from the severed end. More of the stuff had run down the door. I wondered where Dr Wragg’s face was. Perhaps we would never find it.
‘Someone take it down, for God’s sake,’ cried a voice. It was Dr Allardyce. I had not heard him come in – and yet he was always in. Will said he was sure the fellow slept in the attic. Certainly he seemed hardly ever to leave the place. I looked at Dr Crowe, who nodded.
‘Please reunite Dr Wragg’s hand with Dr Wragg’s body,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Come, my dears,’ he turned to his daughters, ‘come away.’
I was tempted to ask Dr Crowe whether he still thought it was a student prank, but he had already gone, chivvying the others away. He understood something of what was going on, I was certain. Dr Cruikshank too – usually so noisy and opinionated – was quiet. He seemed crushed somehow, defeated. He had donned his finery, his coloured waistcoat and his rings, ‘to show he could be a gentleman as well as an anatomist’. He had a streak of blood on his shirt – as if the anatomist that day had usurped the gentleman. When he saw the severed hand and the card between its dead fingers he had glanced at Lilith Crowe, his expression as fearful as his students’. And then I saw that he had noticed Will, standing beside her, giving her hand a squeeze, and I watched his face sag.
‘Yes,’ he said now. ‘For God’s sake someone take that down and clear up the mess.’ He stalked down the stairs and vanished along the passage to his office. I heard his door bang.
I took the hand and the pins. I put the card into my pocket. ‘What’s on it?’ said Halliday. ‘Is it the same? The same phrase as last time?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘What does it mean?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But what do you think? Is it a saying? Is it a motto? What about you, Allardyce? Any thoughts?’
‘No.’ The word blurted out of him. He took a breath. ‘I have no idea. Poor Dr Wragg,’ he muttered. ‘You will have a lot of work to do in the museum now, Halliday. Perhaps Dr Crowe will be able to find you an assistant.’
‘I don’t need one,’ said Halliday. ‘I can manage. I’ll ring for Gloag,’ he added, nodding to the streaks of drying blood on the door. ‘He can wipe that up.’
I took the hand back down to the dissecting room. Dr Graves had gone. I noticed that he had taken Dr Wragg’s spleen after all.
‘I can’t stand it here,’ said Will, who had followed me down. ‘The stink of the place, the horrible goings on.’
As we left the building Dr Allardyce, Dr Crowe, Dr Cruikshank and Dr Strangeway were standing in a group beside the skeletons of the twisted sisters. They watched us go in silence.
I had never been so relieved to get to the physic garden. The day was cold – too cold even for autumn – the sky overhead a deep slate grey. We sat side by side on the bench overlooking the camomile lawn and facing away from Corvus Hall. Neither of us said a word. I rested my eyes on the lavender bushes. They needed trimming back. The whole place needed it. Perhaps I should leave Gabriel and Jenny in charge at the shop for a while and devote myself to the garden. I could start some new beds, take out some old ones, work on the poison garden. I felt a drop of rain on my hand – heavy and solid, it presaged a downpour. We ran to the hot house as the skies emptied. The rain drummed on the glass roof panes with a sound like impatient fingers. I went to the stove. The gardener kept it smouldering through the winter months though the British winters and dirty London climate were too much for all but the hardiest native species. I opened the hole at the top. It was temperamental at the best of times, the flue often choked with a bird’s nest. Luck was with us that day, however, for she kindled straight away. I fed in some sticks, and some logs from the cherry tree we had felled in the early spring. I rummaged behind the door and produced two folding chairs. ‘Field chairs,’ I said. ‘I saw ones of similar design in the Exhibition catalogue.’
‘Don’t talk to me about the Exhibition or the catalogue,’ said Will. ‘I have begun to see it as the source of all our current problems.’ He shivered. I pulled out a blanket and draped it across his shoulders. It smelled of grass and lavender, and he sniffed at its coarse fibres with pleasure as he pulled it close.
We sat side by side, our legs stretched out towards the stove. The hot house grew warm – the heat, and the smell of the place comforted us both. At once earthy and familiar, it was the smell of damp twigs and leaves, of drying herbs and moist geraniums, of warm loam, and soily roots. After the Hall it was heaven itself. We had been up since before the dawn, and had eaten nothing and we were both hungry. I rooted in my bag. I had a lump of cheese in there somewhere. I sliced it into chunks and we sat toasting it, each piece skewered by a stick of cherry.
‘One must be careful not to use sticks of oleander when toasting cheese,’ I said conversationally. ‘The oleander bush is poisonous. Bees with their hives set nearby make a poisonous honey if they drink nectar from its flowers. A piece of cheese toasted on an oleander stick would absorb the sap and kill you in an instant.’
‘Oh,’ said Will.
‘Whole families have been wiped out by innocently toasting cheese on skewers of oleander.’
‘Somehow death by poison does not seem anywhere near as awful as what is going on next door.’
‘I think they are not interested in poison next door,’ I said. ‘They are surgeons and anatomists, they have no interest in the subtleties of physic, whether to cure or kill. You remember that procedure you watched, Will, when you first came to St Saviour’s? The excision of the hip joint?’ It had been his first day there. Anaesthetic had not reached St Saviour’s and the job had been a grisly one. The blood, the agony of the patient, the muted screams – Will had lain in the bloody sawdust at the surgeon’s feet in a dead faint.
‘How could I ever forget?’ he said.
‘You saw how these men are. They are trained with the knife. Trained to cut fast and deep, without fear or hesitation. To hear cries of pain and suffering and to press on no matter what. There is not a single one of them who is not capable of these crimes. Not a single one.’ I sighed. I had grown impatient with my work at the apothecary, had felt bored by its mundanity. But now? Now I wanted nothing but the scent of hops, comfrey, camomile and peppermint. Corvus Hall held nothing for me and the sooner I could turn my back on it the happier I would be.
Will clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Let’s not think of it.’
‘But we must, Will,’ I said. ‘We have stumbled upon horror, but we cannot just go away, we cannot leave it.’
‘It is between them. Something between the surgeons.’
‘I know that. But nonetheless—’
‘You think there is worse to come?’ Will looked shocked.
‘I am quite sure of it,’ I said. ‘But we must prevent it, if we can. Let us consider what we have seen so far. What might the connections be between people and events?’
‘Between Wilson and Wragg? They were both medical men.’
‘Yes.’
‘They were both Scots – Edinburgh.’
‘Yes. And there was something Dr Wragg said to me in the anatomy museum. That I should let sleeping dogs lie – Dr Cruikshank intimated the same thing.’
‘You think there are past events at work here?’
‘No doubt,’ I said. ‘And Dr Graves was telling me what he knew of Dr Wragg. Wragg was an old rogue. He’s done Dr Crowe’s bidding for years.’
‘Bidding? In what sense?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But Wilson was young,’ said Will. ‘Dr Wragg is an old man. I can see no way for them to be connected.’
‘
And yet there is a connection. Wilson’s father was a constable in Edinburgh. Wouldn’t he be of an age with Dr Crowe and Dr Cruikshank?’
‘It is certainly possible.’
‘And what about Mr Halliday? And Dr Allardyce? Dr Allardyce was also in Edinburgh, years ago, with the others. He despises Halliday, but then Dr Allardyce strikes me as a weak, complaining sort of a fellow who will blame anyone but himself – especially for his lack of progress. I like Halliday, but is that enough to say he has nothing to do with all this?’ I thought of Skinner’s tight-lipped refusal to say anything about Halliday, perhaps you should find that out for yourself. Dr Wragg had been provoked by the fellow too. ‘His fellow students adore him,’ I said. ‘He is the winner of a prize essay, and beloved by Dr Crowe. Who are we to believe? And we cannot discount the women either. Miss Crowe—’
‘Miss Crowe?’ Will’s face turned pink. ‘I hardly think she—’
‘Why ever not?’ I said sharply. ‘She is no more above suspicion than anyone else. She is strong. Passionate too, I have no doubt.’ I felt my port-wine birthmark grow warm – it always did when I felt uncomfortable. ‘She certainly has the skills,’ I added. ‘And we know very little about her – or any of them.’
‘I cannot believe it,’ he said. ‘She is quite the most delightful companion. Kind, amusing, interesting. She admires my work greatly. It was she who recommended me to her father even before we arrived, and she is to write much of the book my pictures will be in, though of course it’s her father’s name that will be on the cover. She is graceful and ladylike—’
‘Despite the blood and bones she is so at home amongst?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘Even despite that! She is not like any of them.’
‘How can she be any different? She must be as inured to the sight of blood and death and corpses as any anatomist. You are quite deceived if you think she is not.’
‘How can you say that? You are not like that and you have spent your life surrounded by surgeons and disease. You were twenty years at St Saviour’s! Why must a man lose his humility, his decency just because he works amongst the dead? Just because he treats pain for a living by cutting it out? Why might a woman be any different?’
All at once there was a knock at the door.
‘Hello? Gentlemen?’ It was Halliday, his shoulders beaded with rain drops. How long had he been out there? Had he been listening? ‘May I come in?’ He smiled. ‘It looks cosy.’
‘Of course.’ I sprang to my feet. So did Will. We did not look at one another.
‘I can’t stand it in there today.’ Halliday sank into the chair Will had pulled up for him. He held out his hands to the fire. A faint smell of putrescence rose off his damp clothes. No doubt Will and I smelled little better. The thought that I might stink like an anatomist perturbed me. ‘Poor Dr Wragg,’ he said. ‘He must have been in such pain. One can only assume he was at the end of endurance and perhaps no longer in his right mind.’
‘He could just as well have taken an overdose of laudanum,’ I said. ‘It would surely have been a more pleasant ending.’
‘Indeed,’ said Halliday.
‘And he left no note – not that I could see, and I looked through his papers and in all the obvious places.’
‘Perhaps he hardly cared,’ said Halliday. ‘Why should he explain himself? He had no family who would be interested. There is every chance the pain, or the laudanum he had already taken, had disturbed his mind.’
I shrugged. Perhaps he was right. But I was not prepared to accept it. I was sick of the place, sick of them all. ‘Why did you come here?’ I said to Halliday. ‘Can we not be free of you all that you must traipse round here too?’
‘Jem!’ said Will. ‘For God’s sake—’
‘Oh, it’s a fair question, Quartermain.’ Halliday blushed. ‘The thing is, I saw . . . I saw your smoke. I knew the garden was yours. I hoped it was either empty in here, or that I might find the company of someone . . . someone who was not from Corvus. Just to get away for an hour.’
He rubbed a trembling hand across his eyes. How young he looked. He was only about twenty-four, younger than Will and me. Apart from his work he seemed to have very little else in his life. He would surely have known Dr Wragg very well. Despite their differences, the older man must have been something of a mentor. It was a lonely business forging a career in medicine without a family to lend succour, and all at once I felt a rush of pity for him. I knew what it was to have no parents, to have one’s work as the sole comfort in life. I had Will now, and Gabriel and Jenny. They were my family. Might I not share a little of my good fortune?
‘Look, Halliday,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to sound harsh. It’s been a trying day and we have been up since five. But why don’t you come up to the apothecary for tea?’
‘Really?’ He looked so grateful I was quite ashamed of myself. He shook my hand. ‘I’d like that very much,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mr Flockhart, I will.’
Outside the rain had stopped. The air hung still and quiet, disturbed only by the distant sound of starlings, and water dripping from leaves and twigs. It was rare for the air to be clear, and when all was wet and shiny the world had a gleaming beauty to it that I loved. The berries of the dog rose gleamed, so that for a moment I was reminded of drops of blood, thick and crimson.
‘And there will be no talk of death and corpses either!’ I said. ‘Just warm food and good company.’ I hoped it was not too much to wish for.
Precognition for the murder of Mary Anderson,
18th December 1830.
Statement of HENRY CRUIKSHANK, surgeon, police surgeon, and anatomy demonstrator at Dr Crowe’s anatomy school, 13 Surgeons’ Square, residing at 4 Montague Street, Newington, Edinburgh. Aged thirty years.
19th December 1830
Dr Crowe’s wife died some twelve months ago of the smallpox. Her death, and the manner of it, affected the doctor deeply, and he shut himself away, ignoring his friends and his children, for many weeks. I carried on his business – as a surgeon and as an anatomist and teacher – as best I could with the help of Dr Wragg and Dr Strangeway, as well as Mr Allardyce and Mr Franklyn, Dr Crowe’s two apprentices, both of whom live in, and who were invaluable at this time. Dr Crowe did not come out to the college, nor go up to his school, and nor would he see any patients, for some two months.
Dr Crowe is a man who has given his life to the study and teaching of anatomy, and I feared a melancholia had settled upon him, one not helped by the long dark winters we suffer here, and which had been particularly hard that year. His daughter Lilith was of the same opinion, and she and I both felt that it would be in the doctor’s interests if he were able to return to his teaching duties as soon as possible. I said as much to Franklyn and Allardyce, and we agreed to coax him back to Surgeons’ Square if we could.
It was Mr Franklyn who told Dr Crowe about the crippled sisters who had appeared at the gates to the Infirmary. ‘The Twisted Sisters o’ St Giles,’ he called them. The students were most taken with them, he said. He was right, too, for the sisters were objects of fascination for us all, though I could see that Mr Allardyce disapproved of their lewd jokes and coarse humour.
Franklyn was younger than Allardyce, but a brilliant student. He knew his master’s interests – and shared them – and on this occasion he succeeded where myself, Allardyce and Miss Crowe, had all failed. ‘It is their spines, sir,’ he said. ‘The alignment of the vertebrae, the angle of the pelvis and the position of the shoulders, that is where they are especially unique. They are like nothing I have ever laid eyes on. They are like nothing you have ever laid eyes on. Sir, you must come and see them.’ He added that as Dr Knox was away in London, and likely to be so for some weeks or months. Knowing that Dr Knox and Dr Crowe were competitive in their appreciation of the vertebrae in all its manifestations, it would be an opportunity of one-upmanship not to be missed.
And so Dr Crowe returned to his anatomy school at Surgeons’ Square. I was g
lad to see that he seemed to be a little more cheerful now that he was out of the house every day. And yet, although we could initially not get him to go out, he now seemed determined to go to the other extreme, and he spent more and more time away from home.
It was Mr Allardyce who first brought up the delicate subject of Dr Crowe’s fascination with Thrawn-Leggit Mary. ‘Well, Dr Cruikshank,’ he said to me one day. ‘I hope Dr Crowe recovers himself soon, for it is a disgrace to the school and an insult to the memory of his wife if he carries on like this.’ I asked him what he meant, but he would not say.
I asked Mr Franklyn what Allardyce alluded to, and he tut tutted. ‘Allardyce is as purse-lipped as a dog’s arse about it,’ he said. ‘But it seems Dr Crowe has become enamoured with the crippled beggar Thrawn-Leggit Mary, and they say it is more than her spine that he admires.’ It pains me to say it, but the next day I followed Dr Crowe after he left the dissecting room. I saw him go down Robertson’s Close and into the home of Mary Anderson.
A few days later I went to Dr Crowe’s house on an unrelated matter. I found Miss Crowe in the morning room, her work basket out and one of her mother’s dresses across her knees. I said to her that I thought all her mother’s clothes had been burned, as was customary after the smallpox, and if there were any that had not been then she should not touch them, for fear of catching the disease herself. She replied that no, the blue dress remained, and the green one too. She had found them in her mother’s dressing room, though she did not know how they had escaped the pyre. She asked if she might keep it. I said that she should ask her father. She replied that she would do no such thing, for he would give it away, as he had done the green one, if he knew that she had it.
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