‘Let’s try the other way,’ I said. I thought of all the times I had seen an unattended candle sitting on a shelf in the museum. It had been an accident waiting to happen, though there was, I knew, nothing accidental about the locked doors. With Halliday limp between us, we lurched along the passage to the doors at the other end. They too were locked.
From somewhere deep within the building I heard shouting – indistinct voices calling out. Fire! Fire! Did they know we were here? Could they save us? From beneath our feet smoke was trickling, trailing upwards to hang like a pall, gaseous and choking, in the stifling air – we would suffocate on smoke long before we were burned to death. Beneath my boots the floorboards were warm. I could hear a roaring sound, as if from a great wind, and the sound of breaking glass. The roar grew louder still, and I fought to master my rising terror at the thought of what lay beyond the locked doors – row upon row of alcohol-filled glass jars.
Halliday was unsteady on his feet, but seemed coherent enough to understand the situation. We propelled him back to the bone room he and Will had shared, and took stock of the situation. There were two skylights. If we could not go down, then our only alternative was to go up. ‘Perhaps the roof?’ I said. ‘Or might we crawl across the rafters in the roof space, like rats?’
‘I fear the roof space will already be filling with smoke,’ said Will. ‘And besides, the rafters are a precarious place to be at any time, never mind when we have a fire raging in the rooms below and a sick man to help. It must be the roof, Jem, for I will not leave him here and we cannot get out from this floor.’
The roof was north facing, the skylights letting in the daylight without the glare of the sun. Will stood on his desk and tried to open the window.
‘The roof is sloped,’ he said, peering out. ‘But if we can climb up the incline it is flat on top and we will be safe – for a time at least. It will depend how quickly the fire spreads, whether we can enter the building at a point away from the blaze.’
The roaring sound had grown louder. There was an explosion that made our ears ring, and set the bones and jars dancing on their shelves. Through the skylight, I saw a fountain of orange sparks spurt towards the heavens. Will began to cough as the smoke thickened. Halliday lay unmoving, draped across his desk as though he were fashioned from melted wax. His face wore a glazed, tearful look.
‘I remember when Jamie used to come home,’ he said. ‘He used to walk over to see us on a Wednesday night after he’d prepared for the classes the next day – it was the only time he got away. He was so proud to be working with Dr Crowe. My mother adored him. “Look at our Jamie,” she used to say. “You want to be like him and go on to become a great doctor? Jamie’s going to make them all sit up!” She was right about that, at least.’ Tears streaked his face. He blinked them away, and suddenly reared up, his eyes staring, as if all at once everything had become clear. ‘My God,’ he whispered. ‘What have I done?’
Will was wrestling with the window. He leaped down from the desk and seized a bone, a femur, from one of the shelves against the walls. Wielding it like a club, he smashed the window and battered the jagged pieces away.
I felt the air get sucked out into the night, and I heard the fire grow louder, the broken window acting as a flue to draw the air through the building. There was no time to lose. I flung my jacket over the shards of glass that remained and put out a hand to Halliday. ‘Come on!’
I pulled Halliday onto the desk, and between us Will and I somehow managed to get him through the window. He vanished from sight, so that for a moment I thought he had either fallen, or flung himself off. But then I saw his boot scrabbling against the roof tiles and I knew he was unhurt.
‘You next,’ said Will.
I climbed out onto the roof, Will appearing a moment later beside me. The smoke was thick in the air, the Hall beneath us a giant tinder box, for aside from the explosive contents of the anatomy museum it was filled with old books and paper, and choking with a cloud of dust made up of skin and hair, feathers and animal flesh – it would burn to the ground, all of it, in no time at all.
Halliday lay motionless against the slope of the roof, his arms and legs spread wide like an insect clinging to a tree. ‘We have to get him up,’ said Will. Behind us, far below, I could see the light of the flames illuminating the lawn at the front. A dog was barking and running up and down. I could hear voices, though they were all but drowned out by the roar of the flames. Beneath us, muted by bricks and mortar, I heard the sound of glass exploding. The roof beneath us shuddered, and then right below our feet, through the skylight from which we had just emerged, a great tongue of fire spurted. The flames flailed out like a whip, before falling back to lick at the night sky. All Will’s drawings, all the papers and books, the specimens collected over decades, would now be nothing but ash. The smoke stank of charred bone and flesh. We did not say a word to each other, but positioned ourselves on either side of Halliday and somehow managed to drag him up the roof slates.
All at once we were on the flat roof of the building. If we made our way along it to the other side there would surely be another way in – a skylight, a trapdoor, a window – something that would lead us back down into the building. Halliday was looking worse than ever. His steps were unsteady, but he seemed to understand that he had to move – and quickly. A dribble of yellow vomit glistened on his chin.
‘Over there,’ said Will, pointing to the eastern wing of the house. ‘Where Dr Crowe’s rooms are. There’s much less smoke. Besides, the museum takes up the whole of this side of the Hall. Wherever we go it has to be as far away from here as possible.’
We moved towards the far corner of the building, though it meant that we had no choice but to cross the expanse of the roof. Behind us, there was another roar, and a great wumph sound, and flames and smoke poured into the sky. Beneath our feet more smoke began seeping through fissures in the roof. At first it seemed like gossamer, as if a great cobweb were drifting and billowing about our ankles. Beneath our feet dark cracks appeared, the smoke grew thick and black as ribbons, and a rending, tearing sound filled the air.
‘We must move faster,’ cried Will. I saw from his face that he was terrified.
Halliday dangled between us like a drowned man, an arm over each of our shoulders. We staggered forward, but something was not right. I could hardly say what it was at first, but as we moved, we seemed to glide and undulate. Beneath our feet the roof shivered, and then all at once a great chunk of it yawned open. A pillar of fire burst out before us, the sudden ingress of cold air giving the flames a new and terrible fury. It tore upwards, rearing into the night, not orange, the way fire should be, but a deep and bloody crimson, shot through with green and blue and streaked with searing yellow. The smoke that accompanied it was thick, dark and oily, the air about us alive with whirling black particles and glowing cinders. I felt my hair smoulder, the heat against my face and hands making my skin burn. I reeled back. I saw the others do the same, flinging their arms up to cover their faces. My feet skittered from under me as the roof sagged. I flung myself down and scrambled clear, hoping that by keeping low, by spreading my weight I might stop the roof from sinking further. Beside me, Halliday seemed to have realised the horror of our situation and he too dropped down, scuttling crab-like up the sagging rooftop.
Only Will was unable to follow. He had been closer to the edge, closer to the great crack that had opened up, and when the roof began to sink, he sank with it. For a moment he lay there, flat out like Halliday and me, clinging like a starfish on a rock while a sea of flame billowed and roared at his back. And then I saw him start to slide. His feet and hands clawed to find a hold, to get a purchase on something so that he might lever himself higher, might scramble to safety – but there was nothing. I crawled forward and held out my hand, craning to reach his fingers as the roof bowed lower. Will stared up at me, his face anguished, his mouth and eyes round with terror. His cheeks were black with smoke smuts, and streaked with tears, the
skin red and blistered from the terrible heat. I saw his hair smouldering as an ember settled.
What happened next will be imprinted upon my mind for ever. I watched Will scream as he slid towards the fire, scrabbling frantically now, his fingers bloody. And then all at once Halliday lurched to his feet beside me. He flung himself down the slope towards Will, seized him by the hand and in one heroic wrench dragged him up. It was no more than twelve inches but it was enough. I reached out and hauled him up still further, and then leaned back out to grasp Halliday.
‘Give me your hand, John,’ I cried. ‘Quickly!’
Halliday swayed on the edge of the abyss: a tall, angular silhouette against a great wall of flame. He put out his hand to seize mine, but then seemed to change his mind. He stood for a moment looking up at me – and then all at once he smiled, opened his arms, and let himself fall back. I saw his body drop like a rag doll onto a flaming wooden beam. His back must have broken for he made no sound at all. And then the fire roared and leaped so that I had to look away. When I turned back, he was gone.
How we managed not to follow Halliday into the inferno I will never know. Somehow, we managed to skirt the hole, traversing the roof – or what remained of it – by a long circumnavigation. We entered a skylight on Dr Crowe’s wing of the Hall, and from there made our way down through the building and out into the garden.
We lay side by side on the cool grass near the wall that bounded the physic garden. Neither of us spoke. I held Will’s hand tight in my own. I had almost lost him again, had almost watched him slip into the flames, and I could not let him go. But his fingers were dead in mine, and I knew that something inside him was changed. I closed my eyes, as above our heads burning cinders whirled like stars into the night.
It was fortunate that the fire occurred on a Sunday night, for there had been hardly anyone inside the Hall. Dr Crowe and Dr Cruikshank had been sitting up in Dr Crowe’s little parlour when Silence burst in with news about the attempted murder of Dr Strangeway, the doctor’s severed right hand, still warm, tightly clutched in her own. Lilith was in her bedroom. Tanhauser, Squires, Dr Allardyce and Gloag had been in the dissecting room – Gloag helping the students bring up a body, Dr Allardyce coerced into giving them late night instruction in anatomy, as they had both drunkenly determined to demonstrate their ability to master the subject as well as any woman.
Dr Allardyce, Lilith and Dr Cruikshank had saved as much as they could from the blaze, assisted manfully by Gloag, Squires and Tanhauser, whose unexpected presence there was at last put to some useful purpose. Some stuff was neatly set aside in boxes, other things – piles of books, a group of stuffed sea birds, Dr Cruikshank’s favourite armchair – lay scattered about the lawn like flotsam beached by a retreating flood. Dr Cruikshank and Gloag had carried Dr Strangeway from the building, Dr Crowe bandaging the stump of his brother-in-law’s wrist as best he could. Then, from the front garden they had watched the building burn. They had seen Will, Halliday and me crawling up the slates and onto the flat roof. They had observed us as we made our way across the roof, though when we had vanished, and the flames had burst upward, they assumed we had all perished.
Appalled, horrified, they stood transfixed while Corvus Hall burned down. Then, they took themselves off to Dr Cruikshank’s house – a tall town house some half a mile west of the Hall. We found them – all of them – there the next day. Dr Strangeway was upstairs in bed, though whether he would live or die was still unclear. The others sat in silence in the parlour, their expressions stunned. Dr Allardyce, Tanhauser and Squires, who had done their best to rescue some of Dr Crowe’s artefacts, were sitting amongst a lumber of miscellaneous objects – one of Dr Strangeway’s anatomical Venuses, slightly melted, a box of bones – legs and arms mainly – and another filled with skulls. Eve the écorché had been rescued, along with the moulage of Mrs Roseplucker’s face, a singed stack of anatomy books and the coal scuttle from the students’ common room. Dr Allardyce sat with his arm protectively around a packing case of assorted items culled from the museum, the library and Dr Strangeway’s wax modelling studio. He exchanged a glance with Dr Cruikshank, and Dr Crowe, and then catching sight of a smoke smut on the portrait of Mrs Crowe that one of them had saved from the blaze he pulled out a filthy handkerchief, licked the corner, and began to wipe the face clean. Once more they had rallied round each other, I thought. As they always had. As they always would.
‘I’m . . . I’m glad to see you looking so well, Flockhart,’ said Dr Crowe. ‘And you, Quartermain.’ His chin trembled. ‘And I’m sorry you were so nearly . . . so nearly killed.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
Dr Cruikshank cleared his throat. He was standing by the door, as if he hoped he might be able to leave at any moment. ‘And Halliday?’ he said.
‘Dead,’ I replied. ‘But it was quick, and it was unlikely that he felt very much at all.’ I glanced at the three sisters, two of them, Sorrow and Silence, standing arm in arm beside the fire, Lilith sitting still and silent in an armchair. She looked pale and drawn, the dark circles beneath her eyes making her, for once, look her age.
I told them what Halliday had said, how he had confessed to the murder of Wilson, and of Dr Wragg, that it was he who had assaulted Dr Strangeway. ‘But he had ingested some yellow cadmium,’ I said. ‘The poison took hold of him soon enough. He would surely have died from it, and yet in the end he died saving Will. Sacrificed himself to save my friend—’ I felt the tears prick my eyes. ‘So perhaps we can forgive him some of the worst of his actions.’
‘But why?’ said Dr Crowe. ‘Why did he do these things? And who poisoned him?’
‘I did,’ said Silence. Her voice was loud, the words gummy. ‘I saw the tooth in his pocket. I knew he had killed Dr Wragg, that he would come for us all—’
Lilith reached for her sister’s hand and looked into her face. ‘It is no use, Silence,’ she said. She turned to me. ‘Mr Flockhart, it was I—’
‘He died in the fire,’ I said. ‘It matters very little who poisoned him.’
‘But why did he do these things?’ said Dr Crowe. ‘He was such a gifted boy. I was prepared to do all I could to help him. I knew he came from modest beginnings, but I have always sought to support those who deserve it. He was to be demonstrator, you know. So young! Why, I have no one so young since . . . since—’
‘Since James Franklyn?’ said Will.
‘Why, yes!’ His face clouded. ‘We never speak of it. How did you know?’
I still had the papers Halliday had given me in my pocket. I had read them. Will too. I held them out. ‘Read these, sir. They will no doubt be familiar to you anyway.’ I watched his face for any flicker of emotion, and glanced around at the others. But if they knew what was contained in the bundle of ragged, sooty papers, they gave no sign of it.
‘Precognition Papers for the Murder of Mary Anderson.’ Dr Crowe looked up, his face pinched and wary. ‘So?’ He still did not understand.
‘John Halliday was James Franklyn’s younger brother,’ I said. ‘When Franklyn died, his family was torn apart. Halliday was the mother’s maiden name – did you never notice, sir? He was James Halliday Franklyn.’
Dr Crowe shook his head. ‘No. It is not an uncommon name. I have no recollection of ever seeing it.’
‘John Halliday worshipped his brother, a lad o’ pairts, as they say in Scotland – a young man without connections but with brains and ability who must rely on himself rather than on breeding and acquaintances to get on in the world. A lad who showed such promise that he was made demonstrator above those who were older and more experienced. To have all that snatched away, to be shamed and disgraced, his brother James branded a murderer. Halliday’s mother died of grief. John Halliday stepped up to take his brother’s place – and to take revenge on all those who had signed written statements which, in his mind, had led to his brother’s untimely death. You see, not one of you spoke in defence of James Franklyn, but you allowed the law to hang
guilt upon him, even though he was dead.’
‘And Halliday harboured this for twenty years?’
‘He knew no other way of viewing the world, no other way of thinking. Resentment, rage, desire for revenge, it was in every fibre of him. But he did not know who had killed Mary Anderson, nor who it was who had left the knife that had condemned his brother. If he had, there is every chance he would have killed only that person. He had no idea.’ I looked about at them. ‘I, however, I do know who killed her.’
‘No one knows who killed Mary Anderson,’ said Dr Crowe sharply. ‘If it was not Franklyn then who was it?’
‘Franklyn had spent the evening with his mother and brother. No one saw him on the road when he returned to Surgeons’ Hall, but that does not mean that he did not go there. He had been seen going into Mary Anderson’s lodgings, but any man might look like Franklyn if they chose to, especially if the fog was thick, if a coat is held high at the collar, the hat pulled down low. It could be a man, it could be a woman. It is impossible to be certain, though there is someone in this room who knows. Who has always known—’
Lilith Crowe staggered to her feet, the sound of her chair scraping across the wooden floor cutting the air like a scream. Her face was ashen. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I did not mean to . . . I tried to . . . Oh, God! After so long. Will I never be free of it?’ Her hands flew to her mouth. It was the first time I had seen her appear afraid, confused, anything less than self-possessed. She looked about at us, from one face to another, as if searching for sympathy, for understanding. A teacup Tanhauser had left on the floor crunched beneath her heel, a severed toe in a jar of preserving spirits was swept to the floor by her skirts. ‘Henry,’ she said. ‘Please.’ She held out her hands to Dr Cruikshank, and then crumpled to the ground in a faint.
Womb
For many hundreds of years it was believed that the womb travelled freely around the body causing illness. Medieval doctors proposed that the womb might be possessed by demons, that it was the root cause of women’s evil ways. Those who were old, or childless, whose wombs had not been put to use, were particularly susceptible. They were witches, of course, and must be put to death. Am I witch or demon? My name suggests the latter, and that I was born to be the bane of men.
Surgeons’ Hall Page 27