The Resurrection Fireplace

by Hiroko Minagawa

  “Some grave-robbers brought him in,” Clarence interrupted, not leaving time for Barton to answer.

  “Gobbin and Dick?”

  “No, other fellows unknown to us. Our research calls for as many cadavers as we can obtain. Mr. Barton was not aware of the transaction. His time is devoted entirely to research. It is we, his pupils, who supply him with the raw materials he requires.”

  “You bought the cadaver knowing that it was in this condition, then.”

  “No. We did not open the bundle.”

  “When was it delivered?”

  “This morning, soon after dawn.”

  “Why did you not begin dissection immediately? It is summer, when things quickly decay.”

  Clarence pointed at the young draughtsman just now emerging from the lavatory. “He was feeling unwell.” Nigel’s face was, indeed, the very image of malaise. Edward returned with him.

  “During dissections,” Clarence continued, “he sketches the procedure, to record organic structures.”

  “I see,” said Moore, looking at Nigel. “And your name is?”

  “Nigel Hart, madam.”

  “I shall remember it.” She turned back to Clarence. “You were saying?”

  “When he had recovered enough to work and we were about to begin, the two Bow Street Runners arrived, so in haste we hid the body.”

  “Where?”

  Al and Abbott now reappeared, the latter shaking his head when he met Moore’s gaze, before following Al upstairs.

  “In that cupboard,” said Clarence. “The constables turned even the specimen room upside down, but it did not seem to occur to them to open the cupboard. Foolish of them, surely?… Well, I suppose there was the distraction of Ben almost dying, too.” Noting her interest, he continued: “Ben was leaning against the cupboard, and they pushed him violently out of the way. He collapsed, with palpitations, whereupon the two of them withdrew, recognizing the gravity of what they had done. We attended to Ben, and, once the episode had passed, retrieved the package. Just as we were about to open it, however, we were interrupted by your arrival with Mr. Abbott… . Perhaps you saw your two men as you made your way here?”

  “We did not.”

  “Of course, we had no idea that the cadaver was in this condition. We are all, I assure you, dumbfounded.”

  Moore looked at Nigel. “Your drawing-book, please,” she said.

  A wave of anxiety swept through the room. As Barton’s pupils very well knew, the drawing-book would contain meticulous renderings of a womb revealed by an X-shaped incision in a female abdomen.

  “It is on the second floor,” said Nigel. “I shall retrieve it at once.” His voice quivered slightly under Moore’s unyielding stare, as did his legs.

  “The second floor?” she asked. “Were you not just about to begin drawing when we interrupted you?”

  “I begin a new drawing-book with each new dissection. The one for today is still unused. I shall show you a previous one.”

  Nigel crossed to the foot of the stairs.

  “Al!” he called. “Bring my last drawing-book with you when you come down.”

  “All right,” came Al’s voice from above.

  “Given your acknowledgement, earlier, that anatomical knowledge is useful to criminal investigations,” said Clarence, not missing an opportunity when he saw one, “I assume that you will not consider our purchase worth further scrutiny.”

  “The purchase itself I shall overlook,” she said. “However, I shall require Mr. Barton’s assistance with the criminal investigation.”

  “With pleasure,” Barton replied, finally permitted by his pupils to speak. “Everything we learn from this dissection shall be conveyed to the magistrate’s office. To that end, you will kindly allow us to begin as soon as possible. Not a minute can be wasted. The process of putrefaction is under way.”

  “We wish the Bow Street Runners every success in their endeavours,” said Clarence grandly. “But the work of identifying corpses and pursuing criminals is scarcely appropriate for students of anatomy like ourselves.”

  Al and Abbott tramped back down the stairs, the former with an armful of drawing-books.

  As soon as the first was opened, Anne’s eyes widened. “Nigel Hart,” she said, “you are a prodigy.”

  The other pupils concurred.

  “I do my best to be accurate,” came Nigel’s quiet voice among the chorus.

  “When I publish my book on anatomy, I intend to have his work made into engravings for it,” said Barton proudly. “No man pursuing a career in medicine will want to be without the result.”

  Even the impassive Abbott was staring at Nigel with undisguised admiration.

  “This is the cranium and the brain stem,” said Barton, pointing. He turned the page. “This is a sketch of the liver’s blood vessels. Nigel has the makings of a Leonardo. This is the dorsal musculature. A truly remarkable rendering, you must admit—Michelangelo would not have been ashamed of it. Exposing the fascia is much more tiresome a task than the uninitiated might imagine.”

  On this theme, Barton’s verbosity put even Clarence’s to shame.

  “One peels back the skin, then picks out the fat until the fascia come into view,” he continued. “Painstaking, yes. Muscles are not the spindle-shaped things you might imagine from the sight of a strong man’s arms, but thin, flat cords. The unwanted fat is discarded in that bucket. Charlie, my dog, disposes of it.”

  Charlie raised his sad eyes and wagged his tail at the sound of his name.

  “But that’s monstrous!” said Moore.

  “The human form is truly a work of art,” Barton went on, failing to even notice the disgust in her voice. “Its beauty never fails to move me.”

  Recovering her businesslike manner, Moore opened another drawing-book. “This, I believe, is a foetus in the final month of gestation,” she said pointedly.

  “The mother died immediately before birth,” Barton informed her. “We were notified at once by her family, from whom we acquired the body.”

  “A woman of the poorer classes, then. Might not the family member who notified you have murdered her for the money?”

  “Our dissection revealed no evidence of that. The cause of death was dysentery arising from her insanitary surroundings.”

  “Are there no ways of killing someone without its being discovered by dissection?”

  “No doubt there are. To learn more, the science of anatomy must be further refined.”

  “But not at the expense of a life.”

  “Most certainly not. Now, let us get on with this dissection.”

  “Anatomical diagrams of pregnant women would be of great value to midwives and the like, I suppose.”

  “Of course. These drawings must be made into engravings and widely distributed. Indeed, one of my dearest wishes is to publish a medical text illustrating pregnancy at every stage, from the earliest days to the moments before birth, based on a thorough analysis of the topic.”

  “I imagine the body of a woman six months pregnant would be most instructive for that purpose.”

  Barton’s quick-witted pupils intervened before he could spring the trap she had laid. First, Clarence pretended to stumble in order to kick the bucket under the table. Charlie, who viewed the bucket as his own possession, bolted after it, attracting Moore’s eye as Clarence had hoped. The bucket rolled towards Al, who casually changed its course with a nudge from the toe of his shoe. Tumbling together, Charlie and the bucket collided with Abbott’s long shins.

  Although Barton did not realize that this brief ruckus was for his benefit, it did give him time to prepare more of his discourse.

  “Once expired, the human body differs in no wise from a lower animal’s,” he said. “Interred in earth, it rots pointlessly away. God receives the soul, which is enough to satisfy Him. B
ut the body can be used to advance medical science. The Church and the government must take the lead in educating the public so that all recognize the good in this. You are interfering with important work. Pray be so kind as to leave. I will make a full report of what we learn by examining this amputee.”

  Abbott sat down on the stairs, coolly rubbing his shins as Charlie gazed with mournful eyes at the mark he and the bucket had left on them. No doubt he realized that there would be no titbits for him from these particular limbs.

  “This ointment is effective for bruises,” said Nigel, offering Abbott a jar. Abbott took it respectfully, much as a servant would from his master.

  “Use about this much,” Nigel instructed, reaching to scoop out some of the contents with his fingers, but Abbott stopped him.

  “Those deft hands of yours should be saved for drawing, not something as unimportant as this.”

  “Nigel Hart,” said Moore. “I should like to confirm one thing. When we arrived, a dissection was about to begin. Naturally, I assume that you had a drawing-book ready. Where is that drawing-book?”

  “As I said earlier, I had not yet drawn anything in it.”

  “A blank book will do—show it to me.”

  “I must warn you that it is soiled.”

  “Soiled before even being used?”

  “Please wait here.”

  Nigel disappeared into the lavatory. He emerged holding, between two fingers, a wet drawing-book with apparent distaste.

  “I was carrying it with me when I excused myself earlier. Some of what I brought up spilled upon it. I washed that off, but the book is far from clean.”

  “Never mind.” She leafed through it carefully before returning it. Nigel looked relieved.

  “The first few pages are torn out, I observe,” she noted sternly.

  “I made use of them to keep the floor and walls clean, then discarded them.”

  “I can vouch for it,” put in Edward in his well-bred way. “I, too, felt ill and used the same privy. I did not wish to mention it in a lady’s presence, but I made use of Nigel’s book as well.”

  There was a groan from Barton. Nigel’s illustrations had been ruined.

  “What made the two of you so queasy?” asked Moore, pressing on. “Surely you are accustomed to unpleasant sights.”

  “Well, I had just—” began Edward, then swallowed his words. If he spoke of having fainted, the secret door and the winch might be discovered.

  “Perhaps it was something you ate,” offered Al. “What did you and Nigel have yesterday evening?”

  “I made a posset of sack and milk,” said Nigel. “We also bought some cold meat at the market.”

  “There you are!” Clarence snapped his fingers. “Either the milk or meat had spoilt. That explains why both of you felt unwell all morning.”

  “But this is serious,” said a shocked Barton. “I shall prescribe a digestive for you at once.”

  “No, there is no need,” said Nigel. “I feel much better after discharging whatever it was.”

  “Bad meat is not to be trifled with.”

  “Show me the paper you used to catch the egestion,” ordered Moore.

  “I threw it on the dust-heap outside.”

  “Then go and retrieve it.”

  “I am afraid the dust-man has already removed it.”

  “Abbott, check the privy and dust-heap. Mr. Barton, I shall report the discovery of this corpse to the magistrate. Please examine it closely and confirm the cause of death. Was it the amputation of his limbs that killed him, or were they severed after he died? And what occasioned such cruel abuse?”

  Nigel’s lips went pale. Edward propped him up as he began to sway.

  Once Moore and Abbott had departed, taking as evidence the clothing that covered the youth, Barton and the rest of his pupils followed Nigel’s lead and slumped onto whatever resting place was to hand.

  “I wonder who tipped off the magistrate about us buying the six-monther,” Clarence said from the floor.

  “Toby?” suggested Ben.

  “What do you think, Edward?”

  Edward shook his head. “If Toby was going to turn us in, he would have done so long ago.”

  “But the reward for a baronet’s daughter would be high.”

  “If it was for the bounty, why make the tip anonymously?”

  “The grave-robbers may have let something slip,” said Al.

  The Professor was the first to rise to his feet. “Edward, Nigel,” he said. “Where did you hide the girl? You were the ones who carried the bundle to the fireplace.”

  They exchanged a glance. Then Edward picked up a coil of flat rope and handed it to Al.

  “When I give the signal, pull on it,” he said.

  “Pull on it?” repeated Clarence. “Oh—that’s where you hid it?”

  Edward and Nigel nodded.

  “So it was also you two who attached this one”—Clarence indicated the limbless youth on the dissecting table—“to the hook.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you dispatch the boy and use the winch to hide him behind the fire door?”

  “The answer to the first part of your question is no,” said Edward. “The answer to the second part is yes.”

  “You hid the woman in the other place because the hook was in use?”

  “Correct.”

  “The other place?” echoed Barton. Edward and Nigel leaned forward into the fireplace. Noticing the confusion on Barton’s face, Clarence explained how the fireplace was constructed, tracing the outline of the baffle and fire door on the floor.

  “So it is deeper than I thought,” said Barton.

  “We did not realize it ourselves until we were installing the winch. If we had known, we could have just used this hiding place instead of knocking through the wall and adding the winch. But we were already more than half-way done, and the spot in the fireplace is rather awkward for moving bodies in and out of—too deep, and because of the baffle too cramped.”

  “So we decided to finish our own project, too,” said Ben.

  “According to our erudite Edward,” added Al, “this kind of fireplace is a more efficient design, invented by Prince Rupert.”

  Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a nephew of Charles I, had been an admiral in the Royal Navy during the Anglo-Dutch wars of a century and more before. A superb commander, he had also been an ingenious inventor, improving the design of firearms and involving himself in the development of the mezzotint printmaking process—not least as an artist. He had also introduced “Prince Rupert’s drops” to England—pieces of tear-shaped glass that aroused scientific curiosity by resisting even the blow of a hammer to their bulbous portion yet shattering at the slightest insult to their tail.

  “He reformed the humble fireplace too?”

  “He certainly did,” said Clarence, as proudly as if the invention had been his own. “Prince Rupert’s innovation was adding a baffle at the back of the firebox, with a hinged upper part that can be moved back and forth. Whilst the fire is being started, the upper part is pushed back, to allow smoke to go directly up the flue. Once the fire has caught, the baffle is pulled to the forward position, forcing the smoke to take the long way around, descending to pass under the baffle before it rises—which helps keep the smoke out of the room. He invented this mechanism at about the time of the Great Fire of London, so I imagine a fair number were installed during the rebuilding afterwards. Of course, more efficient designs have been invented since. Ours is in fact quite old-fashioned—it has not been replaced or modified since it was built a century ago.”

  All this Clarence had learned from Edward, and he cheerfully admitted as much.

  “Whichever position the hinged part is in, those unfamiliar with the design would have no reason to suspect that the baffle ends part-way down, leaving a larg
e space open at the bottom of the flue. What’s more, our fireplace seems to have a particularly deep space there—certainly deeper than in the diagram Edward saw in a book.”

  “To think that this building has over a century of history!” said Barton with feeling. “My brother bought it just ten years ago. Certain facilities have been improved here and there, but not the fireplace, it seems.”

  They heard Edward’s voice from inside the flue say, “Now, pull her out.”

  Al, Ben, and Clarence pulled on the rope together. The bundle began to emerge, but as it showed a tendency to catch in the narrow opening between the baffle and the front wall of the flue, Nigel and Edward had to push it up from below as well. Pushing and pulling as Barton watched anxiously, the five of them finally got it out.

  The winch, they all agreed, was much easier.

  “Let the rope go,” called Edward.

  “They must need it to climb out,” said Clarence. “I told you it was deep.” He untied the rope from around the bundle. While Al and Ben fed the rope into the fireplace again, he and the Professor laid the limbless youth on the floor and replaced him on the dissecting table with the other body.

  When Al and Ben pulled on the rope again, they found that they had pulled out, not their companions, but yet another corpse.

  “What’s this, then?” asked Ben after a startled pause.

  “It was at the bottom of the flue,” came Edward’s voice.

  When Edward and Nigel climbed out, they were as sooty as a pair of chimney-sweeps.

  The new cadaver was deposited on the floor. It was a man, and quite naked.

  The smell in the room had got worse.

  “He has no face!”

  The dead man’s head was still where it belonged. But his face had been damaged beyond all recognition.

  Chapter 2

  After a journey of one hundred and thirty miles in a jolting stage-coach, seventeen-year-old Nathan Cullen had arrived in London ready to collapse.

  It was almost April, but the weather was midwinter cold. Eyes watering in the blustery wind, he saw buildings black with grime; cobblestone streets pockmarked with holes that had been filled in with scrap lumber and packed straw; and an astonishing amount of traffic moving through it all—carriages drawn by six or eight horses, gigs drawn by just one, butchers’ wagons, night soil barrows, water carriers, street merchants, and sedan chair teams shoving pedestrians aside as they hurried through the throng.