by Tessa Harris
Although his features were now barely discernable, there was no mistaking the hideously contorted mouth and the swollen tongue that protruded from it, denoting he had died in great agony. Reddish purge fluid had leaked from his nose and there were signs that creamy grave wax was beginning to form around his mouth. As one might expect, the skin was badly bruised in many areas but Thomas was not sure if its yellowish tint was attributable to natural decomposition or, alternatively, the result of massive liver or kidney failure.
The young anatomist had never worked on such a badly decomposed cadaver before and did not relish the prospect. Water. He remembered he would need water, but where might the nearest source be? It suddenly came to him there had been a font in the chapel. Ascending the stairs once more he walked over to the large stone receptacle near the altar. In the unusual circumstances, he decided he would be forgiven if he scooped a few jugfuls out in order to clean his instruments and his hands. He had just dipped his hands into the font when there was an almighty flapping of wings. Terrified, he looked up, only to see a bewildered pigeon teetering on the rafters. His heartbeats matched the rapid flapping, then slowed when he realized the bird had entered through a broken pane of glass. He was now ready to proceed.
Once more in the bowels of the chapel, he knelt down beside the coffin and stared at its grisly contents. As he started to examine the corpse, Dr. Carruthers’s words began to ring in his ears. “Keep an open mind,” he would say. Any number of factors could have combined to end this young man’s life and Thomas could not rule out any possibility or discount any suspicion without having thoroughly checked it out. So, despite the fact that he did not want the procedure to last a moment longer than it had to, he knew his examination would have to be thorough.
Thomas puffed on his pipe once more before reaching for his knife. With a steady hand he cut away the white linen shroud from the corpse’s torso to reveal graying, bloated flesh. His blade sliced through the epidermis swiftly and cleanly, letting the foul smelling gas that had built up inside the body cavity escape, as if he had just deflated a ball. For a moment he retched, then recovered his composure, puffing voraciously on the pipe. He did not have high hopes. He knew that bacteria would have fed on the contents of the intestines and would have started to digest the intestines themselves.
When he reached the stomach, however, he discovered that although it was much distended, not all of the tissue was in an advanced state of decomposition, thus enabling him to cut through the pyloric sphincter and remove a large portion of the lining. While his knife did its work, Thomas noticed the intestinal lymphatics, or lacteals, that resembled cream-colored skeins of wool were still intact. He was reminded of poor Mr. Smollett, lying on his dissecting table in London, and taking a scalpel, he carefully began to untangle the threadlike channels so that he could cut off a good length. It suddenly occurred to him that these might harbor vital evidence. Satisfied with a foot-long section, he put the lacteals in a jar of formaldehyde and the stomach tissue in another. He puffed once more on his pipe.
Next Thomas turned his attention to the chest cavity and examined the heart and lungs. He could not rule out the possibility that young Lord Crick had suffered a heart attack, or some form of lung disease, but neither showed any signs of anything untoward.
Undaunted, Thomas continued on his journey, focusing on the liver. There it crouched in the shadow of the belly, divided into two great lobes. Like a large brown-stained snail its smooth back nestled into the dome of the diaphragm, unwilling to yield up any of its secrets.
“I will have you,” muttered Thomas, slicing through the large internal ropes that once tethered the slain beast to its cavity. A man’s liver could be read like a private journal, divulging many of his secrets, and Thomas intended to peruse it in his own time.
It only remained to conduct the most unsavory part of the examination. The words of the apothecary returned to him as his eyes worked their way down to inspect the genital area. “Lord Crick had the pox,” he had said.
“Indeed he had,” muttered Thomas to himself as he looked at the chancre. He suddenly wondered if the young earl’s dalliances might have any bearing on his death.
Usually, out of deference to his patients, he would sew them up after a dissection, but this corpse was too far gone for the needle. Instead he merely folded the cut shroud back into place and stepped away from the coffin as soon as he could. He quickly cleared his instruments away and, without bothering to rinse them, returned them to their bag. The sample jars he placed carefully into lined cases and strapped them into his bag for safekeeping.
Still with his pipe in his mouth, he rinsed his hands in the holy water and dried them on a small napkin he had brought with him. Putting on his topcoat once more, he walked up the narrow flight of steps and through the open door at the top, back into the deserted chapel. Here the air was fresher. The outside door had been left open and Thomas began to breathe deeply once more. He poked his head outside and saw Kidd and Lovelock standing outside. “If you please, gentlemen,” he called. They simply looked at each other before venturing forward with as much enthusiasm as schoolboys for a caning.
Captain Farrell, who had also been waiting outside, followed them back into the chapel. “Find anything, Dr. Silkstone?” he asked in what to Thomas seemed a casual manner. He may as well have been enquiring after a country walk or a foray into Oxford.
“I will have found something, all right,” replied Thomas. “But everything will need to be analyzed first.” He did not like Farrell. He found him to be arrogant and flippant. Nevertheless he doffed his hat to him. He would make his way up the path and back to the hall, where he would take his leave of Lady Lydia and collect Sir Theodisius, who had taken refuge at the dinner table.
Meanwhile Kidd and Lovelock had reluctantly returned to the vault, still gagging with the noxious fumes that filled the entire chapel. They deliberately tried to avert their gaze from the grotesque being that lay inside, but picked up the coffin lid and struggled, as quickly as they could, to position it on top of the casket. Farrell had followed them, but this time he was seemingly oblivious to the stench. Instead of merely supervising the closure of the lid, he positioned himself so that he looked inside it once more. Just before the men were about to place the cover on the coffin for eternity, Captain Farrell simply stared at his brother-in-law’s distorted, bloated face and with a sneer said softly, but quite deliberately: “I always said he was rotten to the core.”
Thomas breathed in deeply the scents of a fine autumn day: damp, fallen leaves melding back into the earth, smoke on the air from a nearby bonfire. His senses were heightened after having to keep them so tightly in check in the stinking vault. He could smell the heavy sweetness of the late honeysuckle in the hedgerow and the acidity in the brambles. Colors, too, took on a new intensity, as if sunlight had penetrated every blade of grass and every leaf on the trees, making them somehow radiant and magical.
For a few seconds he forgot the reason for being in this place. His sense of reality was momentarily suspended as daylight lifted him out of the gloom. It was only when his eyes began to focus and he saw the gravestones peering out at him through the long grass like uneven teeth that he remembered his purpose. The dead man’s hideous face flashed into his consciousness once more and it took all of his strength to banish the grotesque image. He walked on toward Boughton Hall. He was so preoccupied that he did not notice a woman and her two children in the far corner of the churchyard. The girl was placing a posy of flowers on a fresh grave: poker red dahlias from the kitchen garden. The young boy was messing around in the soil, picking up pieces of flint and pocketing them.
“Stop that. You’ll go through your pockets,” scolded his mother. The boy duly ceased his activities and, looking around, wiped his hands on his shirt.
“Who’s he?” he asked, pointing a muddy finger at Thomas in the distance.
“I know not, Will,” replied Hannah. She knew full well, but did not want her childr
en to find out that this was the man responsible for disturbing their erstwhile master’s rotting body. They would only worry that the same awful treatment might be meted out to their own dear sister.
Chapter 14
James Lavington watched Michael Farrell’s elegant fingers as they held a fan of playing cards. He could still see the thin white line left by the band he used to wear on the third finger of his right hand. Out in India they had called him “Diamond” Farrell because of the magnificent gemstone he used to wear mounted on a gold ring. The story was that he had stolen it from a dead merchant, but Lavington had never pressed him on the subject.
Lydia had apparently protested about the band shortly after they met, calling it “vulgar.” Farrell had obliged her by removing it, but his time in India had left his skin permanently colored by the sun, hence the white line that served as a reminder of his cavalier days in the Irish Dragoon Guards.
Howard poured them both a glass of sack, as was customary, and set a loaf of bread and a small truckle of cheddar on the sideboard. For the last two years this had been the Thursday night ritual. Last Thursday—just three days after Edward’s death—had been the only game of cards they had missed in all that time. It had been their pleasure, their distraction, and now, Lavington feared, their undoing.
“Relax, will you, man,” ordered Farrell shortly after Howard shut the study door behind him. “The servant will suspect.”
Lavington gulped back the sack. “Did the anatomist find anything ?”
Farrell let out a staccato laugh. “Plenty of flies, but I’m not sure what else,” he said, laying out his cards on the green baize in front of him.
“When will the inquest open?” Lavington was in no mood for cards. He placed his hand faceup on the table.
“The old duffer said in a couple of weeks,” replied Farrell. He found Sir Theodisius irksome in the extreme.
The captain possessed the ability to brush even the most serious of matters aside with a quip or a derogatory remark. It galled Lavington to see him behave thus, as if without a care in the world, but he needed him, so he let his arrogance pass. He took another gulp of sack.
“Farrell, what if this New Englander finds out that Edward was murdered?”
The Irishman’s gaze darted up. His friend was looking tense and pale. There was a grayish hue to his complexion and his brown eyes looked dull and listless. His demeanor reminded him of the time when General Lavington had got wind that his only son and heir planned to marry an Indian woman and disinherited him. Despite the fact that James quickly fell out of love with the exotic beauty, the damage was done and his father pledged the two-thousand-acre estate in Dorset to his younger son.
Shortly afterward came the accident, so, when Farrell landed on his feet and married Lydia, he had persuaded Edward to let his friend become a tenant on the Boughton estate. Two years ago, Lavington had moved into a humble cottage about a mile away from the hall.
Farrell smiled and nodded slowly, as if the possibility of such a conclusion to the postmortem had also occurred to him. He fixed a penetrating stare on Lavington. “Then, my friend, we better start covering our tracks.”
Great Tom was tolling when Thomas arrived at Christ Church. The carriage had dropped Sir Theodisius off at his house on the outskirts of the city and Thomas had carried on, clutching his precious cargo in his black bag. Under the college’s great pepper pot dome he went, around the eastern flank of the large quadrangle. There he alighted and made his way through the arch to the Anatomy School. It was almost dusk, and he feared Professor Hascher might have retired, but when he saw a chink of light piercing the bottom of the door, he knew he was in luck and knocked.
“Well, well, Dr. Silkstone. And to what do I owe zis unexpected pleasure?” The elderly professor was seated at his desk, but rose as soon as he saw Thomas. As the young doctor approached with an outstretched hand, however, he could see the doctor flex his nostrils. It was then he remembered he must still stink from the postmortem. He had not had a chance to wash properly since his visit to Boughton Hall. Sir Theodisius had been unusually quiet in the carriage, holding his handkerchief to his nose and complaining of a “slight cold.” Now Thomas realized why.
“You have been busy zis afternoon, yes?” asked the professor with a knowing smile.
“I am so sorry, sir, perhaps I should go and change my clothes.”
Hascher shook his head. “A rotting corpse vaits for no man. We should get to work.”
Thomas smiled. He knew he could count on the old anatomist’s help. He walked over to the dissecting table as Professor Hascher brought more candles and placed them nearby. Delving into his black bag, Thomas pulled out three jars: one containing tissue he had taken from the earl’s stomach lining, another a cross section of the liver, and another holding the lacteals. He held the first up to the light and both men looked at it in silent reverence. The velvety mucosa lay folded like a bolt of rich, red fabric.
“What do you propose?” asked the professor.
Thomas sighed. If the truth were told, the young doctor had hoped to have found some simple reason for Lord Crick’s death by merely examining the corpse: a blood clot or a tumor would have been all that was required. But there was nothing. The earl was as unyielding in death as he had been in life.
“I only wish I knew, Professor,” he answered.
Thomas hired a horse from the inn and rode to Boughton Hall early the next morning. It was a dull, autumn day and the air was full of the foreboding of winter. Reaching his destination shortly before ten o’clock, he rode ’round the side of the great house and into the courtyard at the back. He found the place deserted, except for young Will, who was polishing some tack in the corner. The boy immediately stopped what he was doing and rushed to take the doctor’s horse.
“Good morning,” greeted Thomas.
“ ’Morning, sir.”
Thomas dismounted as the boy held the reins. The youth seemed cheerful enough, he thought, and he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a farthing. Will beamed his thanks as he tethered the horse in front of the water trough.
“Now tell me, young man, where might I find your mistress?” He bent down close toward Will so as not to appear too intimidating. The lad had a thin face with large, sad eyes.
“She be in the kitchen garden, sir,” he said, pointing toward the walled potager.
“Thank you,” said Thomas, feeling in his pocket once more. “And here’s another farthing for your pains.” But just as he reached out toward the boy, the still air was pierced by a scream, coming from behind the wall.
“Her ladyship,” cried Will.
Thomas rushed toward the gate in the wall and ran through it to see Lady Lydia, her hands clasped against her breasts, looking intently on the ground. Just what she was looking at with such fear and apprehension, Thomas could not see. His view was obscured by one of the low box hedges that sectioned off the various plots.
“Your ladyship!” he shouted, running toward the stricken young woman. She looked even more vulnerable than usual. Her face was ashen. An upturned pannier had deposited its cargo of onions all over the path.
“There!” she screamed. “There.” She was pointing at a corner of the hedge. Thomas drew level with it, but could see nothing.
“What? What is it?” Thomas was puzzled.
“There. Under the hedge,” she cried. She was trembling with fear.
Thomas looked down and peered into the dense, mottled green foliage. There, in the blackness, he suddenly saw two beady eyes staring out at him. A rat. The cause of Lady Farrell’s great consternation was a humble rodent. He remembered how she had reacted when she encountered Franklin at his laboratory in London. He smiled to himself, but emerged from the hedge looking grave.
“Boy,” he called to Will, who had been watching somewhat bemused a few feet away. “Go to the kitchen and fetch some scraps.”
Will nodded his carrot-colored head and scampered off toward the scullery.
He approached her, walking sideways so he could still keep an eye on the rat’s hiding place.
“Do not fret, my lady,” came a deep voice from behind. It was Amos Kidd, net in hand. Just then Will came running back with a bowl full of victuals from Mistress Claddingbowl. On Thomas’s instructions, he sprinkled them on the path, near where the rat was hiding, then moved behind the hedge. Kidd joined him and lowered the net by the bait.
“Shall we go now?” asked Thomas. “I am sure you do not wish to see any more, my lady.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. Together they walked toward the house. Ahead of them lay opened French doors and Lydia led the way into the garden room. Inside it was warm and restful. A vine wove its way through rafters above them, heavy with purple grapes. The young woman sat on a white bench and motioned to Thomas to sit opposite.
“We shall take refreshments,” she said, looking everywhere but at the doctor. She appeared nervous and agitated, fiddling with the ribbon on the cuff of her dress. She rang a small bell on the table beside her and Hannah appeared almost immediately.
“Tea for Dr. Silkstone and me,” she instructed. Hannah cast a quick glance at the doctor. He noticed more than a passing resemblance to young Will.
“Am I to assume you have come here with news of the postmortem?” Lydia’s voice was quiet and her nervous fingers now moved to her wedding band.
Thomas nodded. “Indeed, your ladyship.” There was no easy way to tell her, so he had promised himself he would get it over with quickly. “I am afraid I have not been able to come to a definite conclusion,” he said softly, ashamed that he had not been decisive. He saw her narrow shoulders drop in disappointment.