‘Give it away?’ I said. ‘To whom?’
‘To the crippled girl he sits with in his study,’ she replied. ‘She is there now.’
I made my excuse and went in to the study. I found Dr Crowe sitting beside the fire in the company of Thrawn-Leggit Mary. She was wearing the green dress, which Mrs Crowe had looked most comely in and which she had often worn. She was sitting on a low stool for she could not manage a chair, her legs, hips, and back being all awry, and her shoulders lopsided. In the hearth lay the crutches she used to get herself about the place. She seemed somewhat cowed by her surroundings. I saw her eyes darting everywhere, as if she were calculating the cost of Dr Crowe’s possessions, and wondering whether she might be able to slip a candlestick, or a snuff box, into her pocket and take them to her friends in the Grassmarket.
Mary Anderson certainly bore a likeness to Dr Crowe’s wife – it was in the greenness of her eyes and her dark and glossy hair, the line of her cheek and lip, and she was an uncommonly pretty girl for all that she was a cripple. To anyone in their right mind the similarity was but superficial – evanescent, depending on the light, or the angle of her head. But I fear Dr Crowe was not in his right mind, not at that time, at least. As I left them alone to return to Miss Crowe I heard the girl singing too. She had a beautiful voice, but in my heart I likened it to the cry of a siren, for Dr Crowe was clearly lost on a sea of grief and sorrow, with no sight of land or homecoming no matter how much his friends and daughter might wish it.
I could see that Miss Crowe was sorely tried by all this. Not only had she lost her mother, but now, it seemed, her father too. He had always delighted in showing her his work, no matter that she was a woman, for he claimed that medical knowledge was never wasted. She had become adept at the dissecting table, her small fingers quick and agile, so that he often said he was as skilled with the anatomist’s knives as he was himself. There is no house in the city like Dr Crowe’s for specimens, and she would leave treasures out for him – a frog she had preserved, a pig’s heart she had dissected, a resin cast of the veins of the hand. But now, Dr Crowe seemed hardly to notice his children at all. I knew it caused Miss Crowe distress. She was the eldest child by some twelve years, the others being mere babies, and she felt her isolation from her father keenly. I vowed to do what I could to remedy the situation.
I asked her to keep me informed of her father’s behaviour, for I had my duties in my private practice, as well as at Surgeons’ Square to attend to. At the end of the week she told me that Mary Anderson had been to the house every day; that her father made the girl sit in the window where his wife used to sit, with the light falling over her shoulder, and that she sang for him whenever he asked it of her – songs her mother had sung. I said that I was sure it would pass, and that for the time being we should say nothing.
For the next two weeks it continued. In the end I had no choice but to warn him of the consequences his behaviour was having – on his reputation at the anatomy school and amongst his colleagues, on his family and household, and private patients, for rumours spread quickly in Edinburgh, and already it seemed that the whole of the town knew how Dr Crowe had become enamoured of a crippled beggar. He grew furious at what he described as my ‘interference’. He said he would not be monitored and reproached by me, or by anyone. It seemed an impossible situation. And so one day, with the agreement of Miss Crowe, I arranged to try to rid him of his infatuation.
I enlisted the help of Dr Wragg. He knew everything that was going on in the dark streets of the old town – he had young footpads in his pay, Davie Knox amongst them, who kept him informed of any deaths that occurred in desperate places, so that the bodies might be brought up to us without delay. At my request, he asked these miscreants to keep him acquainted with what went on at the foot of Robertson’s Close. The following night, as I was preparing for the next day’s classes at Surgeons’ Square, he sent word to me that we must act, and act now. I took a hansom to Dr Crowe’s house. Under pretence of needing his assistance with a troublesome case, I bundled him inside.
Dr Wragg was waiting for us when we arrived at our destination. ‘Are we too late?’ I asked.
He shook his head, and replied, ‘No. In fact, I am glad you did not come sooner.’ His cheeks were flushed, and his glance seemed half amused, half surprised.
Dr Crowe opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand. ‘Please, sir,’ I said. ‘Say nothing until you have seen, and then decide if you would speak, or if you would remain silent.’ I nodded to Dr Wragg, who turned and flung open the door to Mary Anderson’s lodgings. The girl was wearing the green silk dress. She was on all fours. The man who mounted her had left his payment on the table top.
The matter of Dr Crowe’s fascination with Mary Anderson was never alluded to again by any of us.
On the evening of the 18th inst. Franklyn and I were commencing our work in the dissecting room when Mr Allardyce came in to tell us that Thrawn-Leggit Mary had been murdered. I had not witnessed her attack on Dr Crowe’s person, though I had been apprised of the situation by Dr Strangeway. It seemed likely that the exertion had caused a haemorrhage of some kind, and the girl had died in childbirth before anyone could attend to her. This was my conjecture, for ‘murder’ seemed a rather improbable circumstance. But we were in need of a body and Mary’s was considered something of a treasure amongst us anatomists. Allardyce’s excitement was palpable. He already had his coat and hat on, and had picked up a lantern from the store.
‘Come along then, gentlemen!’ he said. ‘Do you think we are the only ones young Davie has told?’ It was true enough, for we are not the only anatomy school at Surgeons’ Square, and I knew the agents of Dr Knox and Dr Lizars would be down there before us if we did not have a care. Franklyn went to get his hat and coat, abandoning his knives and saws where they lay. I could see in his face that he was disappointed that Allardyce had brought us the news, though he hid it as best he could. I went to find Dr Wragg, who I knew to be about the place attending to some new acquisitions for the museum that had come in from the Chirurgical Society, and Dr Strangeway. In the event I could not find Dr Strangeway, and although we were fewer in number than I would have liked, I was too impatient to look for others at that time of the night. In less than five minutes we were walking down Infirmary Street. At the top of Robertson’s Close we bumped into Dr Strangeway, who agreed, though with some evident reluctance, to accompany us.
As I suspected, the mob had gathered in force outside Tanner’s Lodgings. I was afraid we might not get inside, but despite their ill will towards us they let us through. I went inside the women’s room with Dr Strangeway, and the apprentices Franklyn and Allardyce. Dr Wragg guarded the door. The place was dark and chill, and thick with the smell of blood. The girl was lying on the bed. Something was wound tightly about her neck, a scarf or a shawl of some kind in a sky-blue silken material. It was quite evident that she was dead, though I considered it my duty to check for her pulse nonetheless. I saw too that she had been delivered of a child by caesarean section. The babe was nowhere to be seen. Whether she had been throttled to death by the band at her neck, or had been killed by the removal of her child I could not say. The quantity of blood that covered the bed led me to assume the second – that she had been strangled, not to the death, but very nearly so. Her death had been secured by the fact that she had been cut open soon after – the blood loss looked copious, suggesting that she had been alive, but was not as much as might be expected had her heart been beating strongly. Those, at least, were my impressions at the time.
I knew we could not stay, that we had to act quickly, for the mob was howling outside. And yet I also wanted to capture something of the scene, and so I asked Dr Strangeway if he might draw the girl where she lay. His hands were shaking as he opened his bag and brought out his materials. He was well used to corpses, so I knew it was not that. But the dead girl had resembled his beloved sister, and he had drawn the cripple many times while she had lived. To see her dead
– throttled and butchered – was, I thought, too much for him. And when I looked closer at what we had before us I saw with revulsion that my decision was the right one, for the skin of her face had been stripped away, removed in its entirety – lips, lids, cheeks, all precisely and meticulously filleted from the crimson tissue beneath. Even in the dim light I could see that the fascia, the gossamer-like membranes that lie beneath the skin, were still intact, the muscles that had given her face its beauty and expression, set out in glistening layers. It took my breath from me, and in all conscience I could not suffer Dr Strangeway to draw her as she now was. I took his pen and ink, and his notebook, and bade him await us by the door.
I gave the job to Allardyce instead, for he is a passable artist, and a man always keen to do something, especially if it meant leaving Franklyn looking idle. He asked me whether he might draw the face, if I would turn the girl towards him for she was in shadow. But I would not. I could not. The blood from the dissecting tables still glistened on the lad’s fingernails so hastily had we left our work at Surgeons’ Square, and at that moment I felt keenly the horror of our profession. A sorrow, and a heaviness, afflicted my heart at what wickedness we had stumbled upon.
Franklyn and Allardyce began arguing over which of them might claim the body. Franklyn said that he had arranged the matter with Clenchie Kate, who knew her sister’s death was inevitable, and who had taken his shillings eagerly on the promise that the corpse should be his when the time came. Rabbie McDade the skeleton-maker had already been commissioned, he said, for the bones of the dead girl had been his even while she had walked the streets. Allardyce retorted that he had paid Thrawn-Leggit Mary herself handsomely while she was alive, with the understanding that he might take ownership of her corpse when she was dead. How else did Franklyn think the girl had got the dress back from the pawnbrokers? I told them both to shut their mouths, for the corpse would not belong to anyone if we did not get it up the close to Surgeons’ Hall in the next five minutes. I wondered, not for the first time, whether we did our young medical men a disservice when we so inured them to the sight of death that they would argue over a woman’s corpse as if were a side of beef won at a country fair. But there was no time for such musings, and I bade Allardyce make haste with his drawing. I called Franklyn to help me wrap the corpse, and then we were ready.
It was as well that I hurried them for the crowd was in no mood for us that night, and as we emerged from Tanner’s Lodgings it was all we could do to keep a hold of our burden. Allardyce’s squabbling with Franklyn had annoyed me, and as he was the last man out I was half temped to ask him to stay until the constable came to make sure no one entered the house. But there was every chance he would be torn limb from limb by the mob, and so I shouted at him to make haste. We had a brief tussle with the crowd, admirably managed by Dr Wragg, and then I heard the sound of the constable’s whistle. Faces turned to look out for him, and we seized our moment and ran.
We took her to Surgeons’ Hall. Dr Wragg had a key to the place; being curator of the museum he came and went as he pleased. We had not been at our work for long when we heard a battering at the door and a jangling of the bell. As I had expected, it was the constable. I had met him before – a strong, upright fellow named Wilson. He asked to see the body. I warned him it was not a sight for the faint at heart, but he would not listen. It is a common misconception that fainting is a woman’s prerogative. It is not – I have seen Miss Crowe remain upright in an anatomy demonstration while the young gentlemen about her are falling like skittles. Constable Wilson took one look at the girl laid out on the slab and sank to the ground in a dead faint. It took Dr Wragg and me, along with Franklyn and Allardyce, to lift him onto one of the tables.
When he came to he told me that he had arrived at Tanner’s Lodgings shortly after we had left the place. He reached for the canvas bag that he had been carrying over his shoulder, and pulled from it a folded piece of soft leather. Wrapped within was a knife. He told me he had found it beneath the bed against the wall – easy to miss, he said, making my excuses for me, for the room was dark and beneath the bed darker still. No doubt the murderer had dropped it and had not noticed. He asked me whether I recognised it.
I took the knife and turned it in my hand. The blade was sticky, the stuff that coated it drying a dark, reddish black. I rubbed at it with my finger, scraping clean the flat surface of the steel where it met the smooth wood of the handle. The initials of its owner, engraved neatly into the head of the shaft, were etched in blood.
True on soul and conscience,
[signed] Henry Cruikshank
Halliday appeared just as Gabriel was closing up the shop for the evening. He had brought some oranges and a pineapple. Gabriel held the pineapple reverently, in the manner of a monarch holding the Orb of State. ‘I’ve never seen one of these before.’
‘I have,’ said Jenny. ‘I used to live on the Seaman’s Floating Hospital, and we had all kinds of fruit. Dr Aberlady, the apothecary, he used to get things all the time. Oranges, lemons, limes. We had pineapple too.’
‘Then you will know how to prepare it, won’t you?’ I said. I handed it to her. ‘We are relying on your expertise.’
‘I got it from a street hawker,’ said Halliday. ‘Contraband, no doubt. He vanished into a side street the moment my shillings were in his hand.’
The pineapple was the centrepiece of our table, for I had nothing special for supper. I had not wanted to make a fuss, but simply wished to give Halliday a break from Corvus Hall, to let him relax for an evening somewhere that was away from his usual world of corpses and body parts – somewhere that was not his cold and lonely lodgings above the butcher’s shop on Orchard Street. Gabriel had made some mutton stew, Jenny had prepared herb dumplings. It was almost ready, the smell of it warm and inviting, mixing with the scent of rosemary and mint from Jenny’s chopping board.
‘Thank you,’ said Halliday as we sat down. He directed his remark at Jenny, who he seemed to think had made the whole meal.
‘I made it,’ said Gabriel, looking cross. ‘I can do some things.’ They started to argue – who had gone to the butcher, who had browned the meat, who had cut the herbs and made the gravy.
‘I think we must thank both of you,’ I said.
Jenny pressed her lips together. ‘You’re getting fat,’ she said to Gabriel. She eyed the straining buttons on his waistcoat critically. ‘You should eat less. I saw you dipping into the pot while Mr Jem was out.’
Gabriel’s expression grew sorrowful. ‘Am I fat, Jenny?’ He spread his hands across his stomach. ‘I suppose I am a bit. Is it too fat?’ He looked crushed.
‘Oh!’ she flung her arms about him. ‘I’d much rather you were like this than thin.’
‘Don’t tease him, Jenny,’ I said. ‘You tell him he is fat, then you take it back. No wonder he’s confused. Make yourself useful and get us some ale from the pantry.’ She danced off. She still wore one of my old hats, a stovepipe with a rather old-fashioned appearance, though I made her take it off at meal times. She kept cutting her hair short, and it stood out from her head in a mess of ragged tufts. I had persuaded her to wear her dress, however, for I was determined that she should qualify as an apothecary without having to hide who she was. It was her only concession to her gender, for she still wore a pair of Gabriel’s old boots beneath it. I had saved her from the Seaman’s Floating Hospital, and she was proving to be the brightest and most efficient apprentice I had. Poor Gabriel, some two years her senior, and years longer as an apprentice apothecary, was already far behind. But they adored one another, and he was less annoyed about being left alone in the apothecary when I went out about the town now that he had Jenny to keep him company.
Halliday seemed rather ill at ease at first. He talked about Corvus Hall, how much work he had to do about the museum. ‘Dr Allardyce is supposed to be helping but he always seems to find something better to do.’ He talked about the paper he was writing, how worried he was about presenting his
work to the Medico-Chirurgical Society. All at once he stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m such a bore these days. I seem to have forgotten what it’s like not to talk about medicine and anatomy and what-not. And yet I cannot talk about politics as I have no time to read the newspapers. I cannot talk about the theatre because I never go. I have no idea about the races, or the cricket. I have not read the latest novel and cannot comment on what might be fashionable in coats and dresses as I never buy such things and I do not have a wife or sister to inform me.’ He threw up his hands. ‘I am a hopeless dinner guest, gentlemen. I fear you will never have me back.’
‘You’re always welcome here,’ I said.
‘The lads tell me I’m too serious,’ he said. ‘I probably am. I’m probably rather dull for most people, though I manage to be less so if I have a glass of ale or two.’ He took a swig from the tankard Jenny had poured, and grinned. ‘You see? My demeanour is already much more cheerful!’
‘But you are not dull at all when you are talking about anatomy,’ I said.
He blushed. ‘So Dr Crowe tells me. He had me showing the lads – the new men – their way about a corpse yesterday. He often asks me to demonstrate as it’s too much for Dr Allardyce alone. He’s been very kind.’
‘I hear you are all charisma and humour when you are about a corpse,’ said Will. ‘I applaud you, sir. I am all nausea and fainting.’
‘And yet the whole place seems rather serious,’ I said. I thought of the way the students had looked when Sorrow and Silence had appeared in the dissecting room. The way the sisters had been with Tanhauser in the anatomy museum. ‘It’s unusual to have women about, in such a place, is it not?’
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