At six, when it was dark, Angus was loaded on a cart and taken to Surgeons’ Square. Burke and Hare were welcomed by Davey, who had a lantern ready, and quickly took them to the cellar. The partners struggled down the cellar steps with the bulky chest and set it on the floor beside the dissecting table. When they straightened up, they were astonished to come face to face with Mitchell, the only doctor in the house at the time. Knox had been called to a local mill to see if anything could be done for a worker whose arm had been severed in an accident.
Although Mitchell recognized the need for body-snatchers as much as any other medical man, he couldn’t help looking at Burke and Hare with contempt.
“You’ve done business with us before, I gather?” he said.
“Oh, aye, sir,” said Hare. “That we have. But wi’ Doctor Knox …”
“The doctor is occupied at the moment. I will attend to you myself. Open the lid.”
Hare glanced at Burke and hesitated.
“I haven’t much time,” said Mitchell.
Hare pulled a wrench from his hip pocket and prised up the lid of the chest. The wood yielded with a creak. Mitchell took the lantern from Davey and held it high to shed its light on the huddled corpse. Congealed blood trickled, from a corner of Angus’s mouth.
Mitchell’s expression was stony. “This man died only a few hours ago,” he said.
“It’s right that ye are, doctor,” said Hare glibly. “We got in quick, before the parish undertaker could put his ugly hands on him.”
“Where did you get him?” asked Mitchell, whose worst suspicions were confirmed.
Hare was reckoning on dealing with the not-so-inquisitive Dr. Knox, and hadn’t a story ready. He fell back on the same one he had told Knox when delivering Johnnie Donald.
“Well, ye see, yer honour,” he said, “the poor soul was lodgin’ in the house of my dear friend, Mr. Burke, and seemed to take ill. It was just old age, I suppose, passin’ away in the night, like so many of us do.”
“Hm,” said Mitchell, examining the side of Angus’s head. “How did he get that bruise?”
“Bruise?” said Hare incredulously. “Has he got a bruise?”
Mitchell, tight-lipped, stood back from the chest and pointed to a large dark patch beneath the crofter’s left eye. “Look for yourself.”
Hare studied the patch with a great show of concern. “Would ye believe it?” he said. “Do ye see that, Burke? It just isn’ae possible!”
Burke went over to the chest, stared at the patch and made a sharp intake of breath as he shook his head in amazement.
“He’s got a bruise right enough,” Hare agreed. “Ye know, I’m glad ye pointed that out, doctor.”
“I said: How did he get it?”
Hare had to play for time. He turned to Burke. “The doctor is askin’ how poor Angus could have hurt himself …” he said.
The pause while Hare tried to think up a tale was interrupted by an authoritative voice. “I don’t think there’s any need to cross-examine our friends, Doctor Mitchell!”
Knox was back from the mill. He stood at the cellar door in his cloak. When he came down the steps, the low angle of the lighting made his aquiline features even more cruel and forbidding. “We’ve had several fine specimens from the gentlemen in the past,” he said.
“I was merely trying to establish the cause of death, sir,” Mitchell explained.
“Don’t tell me he was a patient of yours!”
Knox glanced at the contents of the chest. “The subject,” he went on, “is about sixty-five or seventy years of age, I would say. Am I right?”
“Aye, your honour,” said Hare. “He was tellin’ us that he would be seventy next July.”
Knox took out his purse. “I think eight guineas would be a suitable price, don’t you?” he said.
“Eight guineas it is, sir!”
Knox handed the money to Hare, who accepted it with a bow and remarked: “’Tis a pleasure to be doin’ business with a gentleman like yerself!” He gave a spiteful look at Mitchell.
“Show our friends out, Davey, and lock up,” Knox instructed.
“Aye, sir.”
Burke and Hare followed Davey, anxious to get away from Mitchell. “Goodnight to ye, Doctor,” said Hare. “Goodnight.” They went up the steps.
Knox watched them go. After a further brief inspection of Angus, he was about to return upstairs when Mitchell called him. “Doctor Knox!”
“Mitchell?”
Mitchell felt that the time had come to speak frankly. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“Really? You surprise me.”
“Are you satisfied that this man died a natural death?”
“I am a doctor, Mitchell,” Knox told him. “Not a policeman. Why do you ask?”
“What about the bruise on the head?”
“He could have struck a table as he fell.”
“But every sign is consistent with a sudden and violent death.”
“Are you expecting congratulations on what you assume to be accurate powers of observation?”
Mitchell countered with another question. “What do you know about these men?”
“I know little,” Knox replied truthfully. “And I care less.”
“So you will continue to accept bodies from them without question?”
“You seem prepared to forget,” said Knox icily, “that I am a teacher of anatomy. I will continue to teach anatomy, using the best specimens that are available to turn out doctors who will replace quacks. I must now dress for dinner. Is there anything else?”
Mitchell was defeated. “No, sir.”
“Then goodnight.”
He mounted the steps, leaving Mitchell appalled that his chief, whom he respected, obviously had no scruples whatever about buying the victims of common murderers.
No sooner had Knox taken off his cloak and gone to his study to check on the topic for the following morning’s lectures than the front door bell rang violently. Davey, grumbling, shuffled across the hall to answer it. Outside in the porch stood a formidable group of four top-hatted men—Dr. Elliott, Dr. Ferguson and two other eminent surgeons, Doctors Lyon and Mackintyre.
“Come in, gentlemen,” said Davey.
Once inside the hall, they took off their hats and waited, looking extremely angry. Elliott was the spokesman for the party. “Is Doctor Knox engaged?” he asked.
Davey sensed the visitors’ mood and replied: “He has no wish to be disturbed.”
“We’d like to see him on a most urgent matter. Kindly inform him that unless …”
“Come up, gentlemen!” called Knox. He had heard the men arrive and was standing at the top of the staircase. “I was almost expecting you!”
Without a word, the doctors stalked up the stairs and marched into the study. Knox, unsmiling, closed the door and faced them.
“This is a great honour,” he said cynically. He counted them. “One, two, three—four of Edinburgh’s leading surgeons. Dear me!”
“I hope you will consider it an honour when you have heard the purpose of our visit,” said Elliott.
“Nothing,” said Knox pleasantly, but with sarcasm, “will shake my opinion of you gentlemen. Proceed—but first, please make yourselves comfortable and sit down.”
“We prefer to stand,” said Elliott.
“As you wish.”
With the air of a conjuror producing a rabbit, Elliott pulled from his pocket the latest issue of the Lancet. “Have you seen this?” he demanded.
“Indeed,” said Knox, “I am a subscriber.”
“It appears that you are also a contributor. On page thirteen there is an article by Doctor Knox.”
Elliott started to thumb the pages, but Knox stopped him. “Don’t trouble to search for the place, my dear Elliott. I have an excellent memory.” He began to recite swiftly and dramatically, in hard tones, the item of news he had told his class several weeks previously.
“A country labourer from the neighbourhood
of Tranent came to the Infirmary a few days ago with an aneurism of considerable extent, connected with one of the main arteries of the neck. Notwithstanding of it being obvious to the merest tyro that it was an aneurism, the most distinguished surgeon in Europe, after an apparently searching examination, pronounced it to be an abscess … Do you want me to go on?”
There was a shocked silence.
“I wrote the article because I feel that everyone should know what is happening in the medical world. We mustn’t start keeping secrets, must we? Another inducement, I confess, was that the anecdote went down so well when I told it to my students.”
“Of all the damned effrontery,” said Elliott. “How dare you!”
“Dare?” Knox retorted. “Is that a challenge?”
Ferguson intervened. “Why didn’t you name the surgeon? Or are you frightened of a law suit?”
“Since we all know your name and reputation …” Knox replied.
Ferguson turned to the others. “You heard that, gentlemen?” His companions murmured in assent.
“You surprise me, Doctor Ferguson,” said Knox.
“Why?”
“I would have preferred to remain anonymous!”
Ferguson raised his voice in fury. “I intend to sue you to the last penny of your possession!” he roared.
“A most laudable enterprise. And no doubt your preoccupation over a rich harvest will inspire a more adequate excuse for your next—failure.”
Ferguson almost leaped forward with an arm raised, shouting: “Why, you …” But his colleagues held him back.
Knox didn’t move. “Why not let him strike me?” he asked. “Or are you thinking it would have provided a more potent weapon in the law courts than a wrangle over an indisputed fact?”
Knox smiled at their baffled faces. “I can see before me,” he went on, “four white, angry men. Why? Because I have written an article? Because I have accused one of you of murder?”
He paced up and down as he continued: “My friends, go ahead. Take me to the High Court and, in the words of your puppet”—he glared at Ferguson—“sue me for every penny I possess. A business-like venture! I wish you better success in the field of commerce than you enjoy in the sacred task of your profession!”
“Is that all you have to say?” asked Elliott.
The door opened. Mitchell entered. He had resolved to have another word with Knox before leaving the house, even if it jeopardised his prospects with Martha. He was taken aback at seeing that his chief had company, and immediately felt the tenseness in the room. Knox, very sure of himself, merely paused and smiled at him before returning vigorously to the attack.
“I am aware that the path of truth was never strewn with roses. Croak your miserable way to the law courts if you dare! I will meet you on the steps with a torchlight to scorch into your souls and leave them bare as a warning to your future victims! And now, if you will be so good as to incline your heads slightly to your left you will see the door. Please use it.”
In a profound, awestruck silence, the surgeons trooped out, leaving Knox alone with Mitchell. Ferguson, the last surgeon to go, slammed the door.
“My apologies for coming in like that,” said Mitchell.
“Not at all,” Knox replied. “What I had to say was perfectly open.”
“Why do you insult them?”
“Are you criticising me?”
“No; I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.” But Mitchell added boldly: “I’m warning you. Those doctors will harm you if they can.”
“How can they harm me? I am not a fool. They can’t take me to law for anything I’ve said. They wouldn’t risk the scandal!”
“There are other ways of possible harm.”
“Such as?”
“Making capital out of the barest whisper of gossip.”
“And what have they to gossip about?”
“An association with men like Burke and Hare.”
“Who will listen to them?” said Knox with a laugh. “Should I be as scared of expressing the truth as they are at hearing it? I tell you, Mitchell, it will take more than a handful of quacks to shake me. I am producing surgeons who’ll fight for humanity—not destroy it.”
He took out his watch and looked at it. “Dear me,” he said. “It’s an evening when events seem to conspire against me getting any dinner. I still haven’t dressed.”
With that, he turned abruptly and left.
Remarks made to Burke by Hare during the next few days clearly showed that Hare assumed himself to be the master-brain of the partnership. Whenever he’d been drinking, he would regale the slower and more oafish Burke with the story of killing the old woman whom Mrs. Hare had lured indoors from the street. It improved with each telling until the woman became a veritable Amazon and Hare needed Herculean strength to grapple with her. The actual murder acquired the thrills and excitement of a major physical combat, from which Hare emerged triumphant.
“Ye are not the only one who can work on yer own,” said Burke one night at the Merry Duke.
“Well, I’d like to see ye!” said Hare.
“And so ye shall,” Burke promised. “Just gi’ me time.”
The opportunity came sooner than Burke expected. He returned home to find Helen half-stupified by a can of gin.
“Where did ye get the money for it?” he asked.
“From the new lodger. She paid in advance!”
“In advance?” said Burke in disbelief. Such a thing had never happened before in the history of Tanner’s Close.
“Aye. I told her it was the rule o’ the house,” Helen explained, “an’ she paid up like a lamb. If ye ask me I’d say there’s more money in her purse than she knows what to do wi’. She’ll be asleep soon. Then ye can go in an’ pinch it if ye want. I’m for bed.”
“Have we any other lodgers?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll go and see her now.”
Burke’s visit was ill-timed. The newcomer, a stoutish woman of fifty-eight, had just got into bed and instantly put a bad interpretation on the entry of a tipsy landlord. However, she was experienced in repelling advances, having spent the greater part of her life in mixed lodgings. She leapt out of bed with an agility which did her credit, wrapped her blanket round her and raised a shoe in one hand.
“I’ll have ye know I’m a lady,” she warned. “Another step nearer and I’ll crown ye with the heel o’ this!”
Burke needed all the persuasion in his tongue to convince her that his intentions were honourable (at least, honourable in the sense that the woman was worried about) and that he was simply paying the type of social call that a good landlord ought to make. They got talking. Burke, on discovering that her name was Fay Price and that she sold firewood for a living, pretended to be vastly interested in the finer points of that trade and in the fact that business was at last looking up after February’s mild spell. Eventually he insisted that it was his duty as host to go out and buy a can of whisky.
This he did, and the two of them settled at the table to enjoy it, Fay sitting on the end of the nearest bed and Burke occupying the chair. Burke, playing the murder game solo for the first time, felt the responsibility keenly enough to see that the larger share of the whisky went to his victim. As the night wore on, and the liquor took effect, it became all too evident that Fay was less of a lady than she pretended to be. Declaring Burke to be a fine, strong, attractive man, she put a fat arm round his shoulder and launched into a slurred, sentimental rendering of “Loch Lomond”.
Burke realized the moment for action had arrived. At the end of Fay’s next verse he suddenly stood up, slapped a hand over her mouth and pushed her down on the bed on her back.
He made the mistake of letting his hand slip, with the result that she shrieked: “Murder! Murder!” Also, she hit out with the mug she was holding and gave him a sharp blow under his right eye.
Fortunately for Burke, so much noise was being made at a party in the Lawries’ room that no one heard he
r cries. Within half an hour, the hapless Fay was dead, stripped of her clothes, and inside a packing case. Burke was disappointed to find that despite her grand talk about building up a “nice little business” she had only 4d. in her purse. Nevertheless he pocketed the coins and decided not to tell anyone—especially Helen—about them. They were, he felt, one of the perks of the job.
The £10 which Knox paid for the corpse was distributed on the usual basis of £5 for Hare, £4 for Burke and £1 for Mrs. Hare. When Burke argued that Mrs. Hare hadn’t contributed anything at all, and that the murder was Burke’s own, unaided effort on behalf of the partnership, Hare spun him a dazzling yarn about having to keep on the right side of his wife in case she went to the police. Burke forgot that by now Mrs. Hare was almost as much a member of the firm as the partners.
The morning after the murder, the flesh round Burke’s right eye turned a shiny purple. “Did the old girl hit ye one?” asked Hare.
Burke was ashamed to admit that he’d let himself be struck by a woman. He said stiffly: “A man in the market was sayin’ things about Ireland that shouldn’t pass anyone’s lips. I considered it my sacred duty to put his thinkin’ to rights.”
The next occasion Burke and Hare went to the Merry Duke, Mary Paterson and Maggie O’Hara sat at their table. The girls helped to make it a boisterous evening by laughing, shouting and singing, but Maggie’s affections diminished when she overheard Hare whisper to Burke that the money had ran out.
Mary turned to Maggie and asked: “Wha’s the time?”
“Does it matter?” Maggie answered.
“Well, I’ve a feelin’ it’s after eight, and I promised I’d be at Chris’s place by then.”
Daft Jamie came into the tavern and on seeing Mary went over to her. “Hello, Jamie,” said Mary.
“I’ve got a new rhyme for ye,” said Jamie proudly. “It goes like this:
“There’s creepies an’ crawlies
“An’ six-legged bogies
“An’ things tha’ go bump
“In the nicht …”
He paused, trying to think of the next line.
“That’s very good, Jamie,” said Mary kindly. She felt in her skirt pocket. “Here’s a penny for ye. That’ll help ye to remember the rest of it.”
The Flesh and the Fiends Page 9