by A. Wendeberg
The jury turned their attention to the inspector. ‘Could you identify the man?’
‘We are the police, not an oracle,’ Walken answered dryly.
Someone chuckled.
The inspector cleared his throat. ‘Two constables are searching for the vendor.’
Next, Stripling read the statements of Mr Bunting, Inspector Walken, Dr Baxter and Dr Johnston, and finally that of the coroner himself. All the while, Sévère was the calm centre of the room.
When his officer shut the folder and nodded at him, Sévère raised his voice. ‘We will view the bodies shortly. Dr Johnston will be available to answer questions relating to the cause of death and the means by which the bodies were concealed.’
There was a mighty scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet as the whole procession poured out of Vestry Hall and moved to the mortuary.
They were greeted by a discombobulated beadle, who stammered something about having to locate the key to the mortuary because the mortician had failed to arrive this morning. And then, with much huffing and puffing, he produced the key in question.
Sévère dismissed the beadle with an irritated flick of his hand. He asked the jury to enter the small building one by one, and arrange themselves around the table at the centre of the viewing room.
The nineteen men in black coats and top hats squeezed into the building and shuffled around the table. As they stood lined up so, with shoulder pressing against shoulder, they looked much like misshapen toad spawn on a string.
The men bent over the nine skeletons, eyebrows drawn low, lips clamped around their pipes and cigars. A cloud of smoke and breath clung to the ceiling. Sévère observed the jury: the twitching of moustaches, the distasteful curling of lips. Johnston’s calm gaze.
‘Why are these all…disassembled?’ one man asked Johnston.
‘The disarticulation of the neonates’ skeletons is a result of natural decomposition followed by ex- and rehumation,’ the doctor answered, his sharp gaze trapped between his half-moon spectacles and bushy white eyebrows.
The jury collectively frowned.
Johnston sighed. ‘The skeletons were dug up and subsequently reburied. As most of the bones are not connected by tissue — it decomposed completely — they were a little scattered, naturally.’
‘Are you saying that they were not decapitated?’ said one man, gingerly picking up one of the skulls.
‘Their heads are coming apart,’ said another.
‘All newborns have flexibly connected skull bones.’ Johnston spoke slowly in an attempt to use simple words for the jurymen. ‘When all soft tissue has decomposed, the skull bones will come apart. There is no evidence for perimortem injuries to the skulls.’
‘Perimortem is what precisely?’
‘Pardon my jargon. Perimortem injuries are those that occur at or around the time of death, when bone is fresh and flexible. Those can be distinguished from injuries that occurred days or weeks before death — which will show healing — and those inflicted days, weeks, or months after death.’
Johnston, finding the translation of his thoughts into layman’s terms tedious, picked up several vertebrae which were still somewhat connected to one another, and ran his finger along their frontal line. ‘The marks I found on the vertebral columns of the two freshest neonates reflect a cutting of the throat rather than decapitation. As you can see, these neonates’ vertebral columns are fully articulated — they did not come apart, owing to remnants of tissue adhering to the spine — and cut marks are found only on the anterior and lateral surfaces of the vertebrae. Here and here.’
The men bent their necks to glimpse the faint marks carved into the bones.
‘The cut marks did not continue in the vertebral joints or the spinous process, here, as can be expected in decapitation.’
‘Who cuts a baby’s throat that deep?’ a man muttered.
‘Someone who was overly excited,’ Johnston supplied.
A few men nodded, a few shook their heads in disbelief. All lips were compressed to hard lines, smokes forgotten.
Johnston threw a glance at Sévère. The coroner clapped his hands once and announced, ‘If the jury have no more questions, we shall move back to Vestry Hall.’
After a long series of questions to the inspector and the coroner, the inquest came to an end at half past four in the afternoon. The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, the inquest was adjourned, and Vestry Hall spilt its exhausted but cheerful human contents into the next public house.
❧
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REYNOLDS’S NEWSPAPER, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1880.
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THE MISSING MORTICIAN
Mr G. Sévère, Coroner of Eastern Middlesex and Mr T. Height, Chief Inspector of Division H of the Metropolitan Police, have sent to the Home Secretary a statement made by Sarah Dobbins, landlady of Mr Alexander Easy, mortician at St George-in-the-East, who has so mysteriously disappeared, of Mr Easy having last been seen by her as he exited the house on Friday, December 10, at ten o’clock in the evening, and behaving most curiously. The case being so unusual, Messrs Sévère and Height are hoping it may possibly be deemed worthy of investigation by the Home Office.
—First Act—
in which the master of lies meets his match
—The Anatomy of the Heart—
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The TIMES of London, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1880.
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MURDER OR SUICIDE?
Yesterday the body of a man was found floating in the Thames. About noon attention was drawn to a dark object floating on the ebb tide near the Horseferry Stairs at Lavender Pond. A Thames Police galley rowed to the spot, and the object proved to be the body of a man, apparently about 40 years of age and fitting the description of the missing mortician Mr Alexander Easy. He was floating face upwards, and his clothes were found disheveled by the action of the tide. The body was secured by a tow rope and taken to Regent’s Canal. It was subsequently moved to the St George-in-the-East mortuary to await identification and an inquest.
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❧
‘After the external examination I can exclude physical violence as the cause of death. For now.’ Dr Johnston stretched his aching shoulders. He felt the familiar knots of pain beneath his scapula and wished he could insert one of his tools there and pound the hard flesh to a soft dough.
Coroner Sévère looked up from his notes and Chief Inspector Height bent his neck to see what Sévère had written.
‘No signs of injuries caused by a corrosive on the lips, in the mouth or rectum, and no peculiar odour emanating from the body — all of which would indicate the use of poison. The deceased has no stab wounds, bite marks, or any signs of blunt force trauma. He shows no defensive wounds, has no blood, skin or hair under his fingernails or in his mouth. All clothes were in order, no tears or cuts. Even the cravat was neatly tied. Are you able to tell me if Alexander Easy was suicidal, Sévère?’
Sévère lowered his head and narrowed his eyes, recalling his meetings with Mr Easy, which had always occurred in the mortuary and always when matters other than the mortician’s emotional state were demanding his attention.
He looked up. ‘Can we ever say with conviction that a man is not suicidal? I doubt it. To me, Mr Easy did not seem overly melancholic. He was quiet, but that means little. His landlady, Mrs Dobbins, said that he was a widower of six years and was still mourning his wife, but why would he jump into the river now, and not a year ago? Or six years ago?’
‘That is the question.’ The doctor frowned, and ran his sleeve across his chin. ‘I can make one more conclusion which I will corroborate presently. Write this down, Sévère: No visible signs of putrefaction. The subject seems to have entered the freezing cold water around the time of death. It would be advisable to measure the temperature of the Thames. For now, I will assume it to be approxima
tely three to five degrees centigrade. I will now commence the internal inspection.’
Johnston bent forward, pressed his index finger against the hollow of Alexander Easy’s throat, aimed his scalpel, and began to cut. The frozen skin crackled. He stopped at the pubic bone.
Height turned his head away when Johnston sawed open Easy’s ribcage and enlarged the resulting gap with a pull and a grunt.
‘After the primary incision of the abdominal parietes, no peculiar odours can be detected,’ Johnston said and threw a glance at Sévère to make sure the man was writing it all down.
Then he stuck his hands deep into the corpse, rummaged around and muttered, ‘No signs of inflammation of the peritoneum…hum…the peritoneal aspect of the stomach…or the viscera. As visible thus far.’
Johnston picked up several short pieces of thread from the table. ‘Placing a ligature around the lower end of the oesophagus and a double ligature at the commencement of the duodenum. If you don’t know how to spell this, Sévère, write it down anyway. I’ll know what it means.’
‘Hm,’ grumbled Sévère. Pencil rushed over paper.
Johnston nodded once and grabbed his knife. ‘Dividing the oesophagus and the duodenum now.’
Huffing, he lifted out the stomach and placed it into a rectangular porcelain dish. ‘Opening the stomach at the lesser curvature.’
In went the knife, and out came a mixture of red wine and acid. Johnston bent over the mess and sucked air through his nostrils. He smacked his lips. ‘Tut-tut. Red wine on an empty stomach. And still no signs of putrefaction. And look at this, Sévère!’
He nodded encouragingly at the coroner, who stepped closer and gazed at the tip of the doctor’s knife.
‘Do you see the blood?’ Johnston asked, running the blade along the cuts he’d made.
‘It didn’t coagulate? How is this possible? He must have been dead for days.’
‘More evidence that Mr Easy’s body entered the cold water around the time of his death. Except if… Was the man a bleeder?’
‘I don’t know. But his general practitioner should know,’ Sévère answered.
‘Inspector, please find Mr Easy’s general practitioner and ask him if the man was a bleeder,’ Johnston said without looking up.
‘Now?’
‘Tomorrow will suffice.’
Johnston picked up a magnifying glass and examined the contents of the stomach. After a few moments, he said, ‘No plant material. No pigment particles or crystals, no notable amounts of river water.’
Johnston worked his way down along the intestines, examined Easy’s genitalia, then moved back up to extract the lungs and cut them open. Water gushed out of them.
‘No signs of haemorrhaging. The smell indicates that it is Thames water that has entered the lungs.’
‘So he drowned?’ Height enquired.
‘Not necessarily. In fact, it is difficult if not outright impossible to ascertain if a floater was dead or alive when entering the water. The lungs of a submerged body will fill with water simply due to the external pressure. Easy’s larynx did not spasm, so his lungs were bound to fill up.’
Again, Johnston picked up his magnifying glass and examined the contents of the lung. After some humming and mumbling, he said, ‘Small dirt and plant particles, as well as the smell, confirm that this is Thames water. Excellent. I will examine the heart now.’ He wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Alexander Easy’s heart, and with the knife in his right hand he sliced through blood vessels and connective tissue.
Squinting, he held up the organ, turned it in the light, and placed it into a dish.
Once again, Sévère was surprised by how small a human heart was. Romantics should be required to attend autopsies, he concluded. They would stop making such a fuss about matters of the heart.
The doctor began to cut sections. A large amount of blood oozed out of the organ, flooding the dish.
‘Aha!’ he exclaimed and pointed to a yellowish area. ‘Complete occlusion of the left main coronary artery.’
‘Excuse me?’ Height said.
‘The coronary arteries supply oxygenated blood to the heart muscle. Lack of oxygen can lead to tissue death and myocardial infarction. Mr Easy had a heart attack, inspector.’
‘Did he die of it?’
‘Extremely likely, but let me finish the postmortem examination before I come to my final conclusions.’
It took another hour of re-examining the cross-sections of all organs before Johnston finally announced, ‘The cause of death was a heart attack. He had it coming. There is no evidence for violence or poison triggering the attack. How he got into the river is another question. However, you will remember the small card I found during my external examination. It was inside a peculiar little pocket of the subject’s waistcoat. I believe the pocket was made to hide something, perhaps money. A pickpocket would have problems finding it. Did you look at it, or were you so intent on staring at the corpse?’
Height cleared his throat.
‘Well then,’ said Johnston. He wiped his gory hands on a handkerchief and picked up the card. Sévère and Height stared down at it, then at each other as if to wrestle for the right to be the first to interrogate the suspect.
‘We’ll do it together,’ Height suggested, and Sévère mentally prepared himself for yet another botched investigation.
❧
Mary tapped her fingers against the windowsill when she spotted the four-wheeler down on the street. A police vehicle. She pressed her nose against the cold windowpane, trying to catch sight of the brothel’s entrance, but without success. She opened the window, leant out and peeked down. A constable guarded the door, holding on to his rattle as though a crime could be witnessed that needed reporting at any moment.
She shut the window. Sweat itched on her palms. Her being a whore would negatively influence the police’s judgement. But what if one of these men was a client? Would that make matters worse or better for her? Her fingers fidgeted and crumpled her dress. She pulled herself together and exhaled. The windowpane clouded, her breath froze and blocked her view. Just as well, she thought, and turned to face the door.
Several long moments later, a man entered her room without knocking. He was quite unremarkable. His cane supported part of his weight. His left leg was weaker than the right. Not by much, though. Dirty-blonde hair, smoothed back, and most of it hidden by a top hat. No moustache or beard. Blue-grey eyes, a straight nose. Well-groomed and fashionably dressed, but not overly so. It was as if one’s gaze rolled right off him like water from a goose’s plumage.
His gaze connected with Mary’s. Her heart tumbled in her chest. She felt a chill. Sharp, highly intelligent eyes, fluid body, coiled muscle. He was exuding an air of authority and mercilessness. This man wasn’t police. But what, then, was he?
Mary felt the annoying urge to shrink away. She broadened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Just then, a second man walked in — reddened cheeks, dark hair, dark moustache. Taller than the first, but slouching a little. A plainclothes policeman, probably an inspector. She relaxed her pose and retreated to her armchair.
❧
Sévère and Height found themselves in a room with floral wallpaper, dark green velvet curtains, red armchairs, and a large, virgin-white bed. The suspect lowered herself onto one of the two armchairs, her hands demurely folded in her lap, her face unnervingly calm. Sévère felt something creeping up his spine. It was the same feeling he got when he faced murderers in court or gaol: the feeling of one beast recognising another.
‘I am Chief Inspector Height, this is Coroner Sévère. We will take your statement on the death of the mortician Alexander Easy. May I sit?’
She nodded and rose. ‘Coroner Sévère might wish to rest his leg. I will sit on the bed.’
Sévère cursed himself. He’d made an effort to conceal his weakness — obviously to no avail. He nodded his thanks, not because he needed to sit, but because he wished to use the opportunity to bring hi
mself down to the level of the inspector. To pretend camaraderie, cooperation, sameness. Since the moment Johnston had announced Easy’s death to be of natural causes, the coroner had lost jurisdiction of this case.
Sévère sat, and moved the armchair so that he faced the suspect. He extracted a notepad and a pencil stump from his waistcoat pocket.
‘Your full name, please.’ Height asked, also armed with notepad and pencil.
She regarded them both, a smile tugging at her lips, as if to say, “Aren’t you cute,” and then spoke with a soft voice, ‘Miss Mary.’
‘Your real name,’ Sévère said.
Her eyes began to shimmer where the lower lid touched the iris. It made her look vulnerable. ‘I can’t remember my name. I was…soiled when I was very young.’
From the corner of his vision, Sévère observed the loss of colour from the inspector’s face. He probably assumed the suspect had been seduced before the legal age of thirteen. How could a man of his profession be so naïve?
The coroner exhaled, leant back, crossed his arms over his chest, and smiled. ‘Miss Mary, may we enquire your age?’
‘Sixteen.’ Her gaze slid down to the rug, her shoulders heaved. A moment later, she looked up at Sévère, blinking the moisture from her dark eyes.
Unfazed, Sévère said, ‘I assume I don’t need to ask about your date of birth, because you’ve probably forgot that, too?’