Skin and Bone--A Mystery

by Robin Blake

  ‘Playing at, Mr Kite? Do not think I am playing.’

  Kite took a deep breath and lowered his voice.

  ‘Just let me explain, Mr Scroop, as I have explained before, that these here are not meant to be things of high quality. That’s the whole purpose of this stall. It’s for people who do want bags and purses, but at a price they can afford.’

  At this point Mallender intervened.

  ‘Now see here, Kite. You are nothing but a tanner. Stay within your appointed task. Do not sell to the public but only to your proper craftsmen and let them make something superior – something worthwhile – out of your crude product. Know your place, Kite, and you may do well. Exceed your place and expect the Corporation to strike you with an heavy hand. An heavy hand, Kite.’

  He looked at Scroop, who nodded. Mallender reached into his pocket and produced a paper, thrusting it upon Kite.

  ‘I therefore and by the authority granted me by His Worship the Mayor and the honourable bailiffs do serve you with this notice, that you must present yourself at the next Court Leet in front of His Worship to answer the charge of knowingly selling tawdry goods at market, without licence and contrary to the reputation at large of this ancient borough.’

  Beside himself with frustration, Jonathan Kite kicked the trestle of his table so hard that it wobbled and then collapsed, tumbling the display of leather artefacts in a heap on the flagstones.

  Mallender tut-tutted, then said, ‘Now, now, violence shall not avail, you know. Please be sure to present yourself at Court on Friday week.’

  He and Scroop retreated and the Kites knelt to retrieve their sale goods. Suez darted forward and seized a purse in his mouth, running away to the other end of the market, where with a jerk of his head he threw it in the air, seized it again as it landed and began biting it vigorously. By the time I caught up with him the purse resembled chewed meat. I brought it back to the Kites.

  ‘I am sorry – sixpence, is it?’

  I produced a coin and handed it over.

  ‘Eh, Mr Cragg,’ said Ellen, dropping the sixpence into her apron pocket. ‘You’re a lawyer. This is the third time in three months we’ve been dragged before the Mayor’s Court. It’s just for the fine, I’m thinking. They want the money. Amercement they call it, right? An injustice and a damned outrage, we call it.’

  Chapter 3

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, after giving Suez a scolding at home and consigning him to the care of our servant-girl Matty in the kitchen, I set off with a purposeful stride for the bath house. Although I still hadn’t heard of Fidelis’s return, there was no postponing my examination of the baby. It had to be done today, with or without my friend’s help.

  Going through Friar Gate Bar I hesitated at the turning into Spaw Brow Lane, then decided against the narrow and now boggy route that I had taken with Ellen Kite on the previous afternoon. Instead I walked on and took the longer but firmer thoroughfare of Water Lane. Because it led down to the western border of the Marsh, and so on by a causeway to the wharf, as well as to the township of Ashton and the agricultural country to the north of the Ribble estuary, Water Lane was a fairly busy road. A number of cottages stood by the wayside, as well as fly-by-night stalls selling bacon, cheese, butter or eggs. But interspersed with these were the gates of more prosperous dwellings and in one of the most prosperous lived the fruitful Scroop family, with its latest new-born addition. Coming to it, I was seized by an impulse to ask how the new baby thrived and turned in at the gate.

  A young serving man came to the door. He had a broad chest, quite startling red hair and a livery coat of dark red. The fellow did not want to let me in, which he emphasized by himself coming out into the rain and closing the door behind him.

  ‘Mrs Scroop has just given birth, Sir,’ he told me in a pronounced Irish accent. ‘The house is very quiet with all the children save the oldest sent away. Mr Scroop orders expressly that there are no visitors allowed in except the doctor.’

  ‘Is Mr Scroop himself at home?’

  ‘No, Sir, he is from home this morning. He is arranging a dinner to be held tomorrow evening in town. Now, if I may—’

  ‘I merely called to give Mr and Mrs Scroop my congratulations. The little one thrives, I hope?’

  ‘I believe so, Sir.’

  ‘And Mrs Scroop?’

  At that moment the door behind him opened and I saw the substantial figure of Dr Basilius Harrod with his medical wig, black silk stockings and bag grasped firmly in his meaty, stub-fingered hand. The doctor stepped out, his face split in a broad smile and his eyes, looking as kindly and wise as ever, seeming to sparkle with delight in the rightness of everything.

  ‘Well, well! It’s Titus Cragg! What brings you here young Titus?’

  I had known Harrod since my earliest childhood. He and his wife had been among my parents’ friends, and he had naturally been our family physician. Long a widower, Harrod now lived with his seventeen-year-old son Abel and operated a substantial practice, though the younger doctors like Luke Fidelis saw him as fatally attached to outdated methods. I liked him. As a friend he laughed a great deal but, as a doctor, he never made light of sickness or discomfort, always speaking of them in a quiet but authoritative tone.

  ‘I was passing the house and thought I would pay my respects at this happy time for Mrs Scroop,’ I told him.

  Harrod’s smile broadened further as he glanced between myself and the footman, who took this as his dismissal. With a bow, he withdrew to the house and closed the door. The doctor took my arm and guided me to walk with him along the short gravelled drive towards the gate.

  ‘It is not a happy time for Mrs Scroop, I fear. Or not in the eyes of the stars. A thirteenth child born under Virgo. She is full of dread, though I impress on her that Virgo is as often positive as it is negative. In the stars, as in the bodily fluids, balance is all, is it not?’

  ‘You have told me so in my youth many times, Doctor Harrod. Did you attend the birth?’

  Harrod laughed heartily and slapped my back.

  ‘Well, I did, Sir, but it was a damned near-run thing. Mrs Scroop was out of Preston until yesterday, visiting with relatives in Yorkshire. Her labour pains first came on at Burnley as she made her way back and she barely arrived home before the beginning of the birth itself. I have just been in to see mother and son, the last call on my round this morning before dinner.’

  Harrod’s house stood in its own grounds on Water Lane immediately beside that of the rather larger and more modern residence of the Scroop family.

  ‘And the child thrives, I hope,’ I said as we walked along, leaving both houses behind us.

  ‘He was born in such excitement, Cragg, but do you know? He is the quietest baby I ever delivered.’

  ‘That is good, is it not?’

  ‘Lusty complaint at being born is the characteristic of babies. That this one complains little, or not at all, merely increases Mrs Scroop’s anxiety, and to an extent that of myself also.’

  ‘Still, it must make life easier for the wet nurse, having no squalling in her ears.’

  ‘Mrs Scroop is a remarkable woman. She will have no wet nurse near, but gives suck herself. Now, my boy, what of you? May I hazard a guess at the business that takes you down Water Lane? Coroner’s business, is it?’

  So I told him of the other newborn baby, the one now lying cold in the bath house, and of how it had been discovered. Of course he had heard about it, as the news had already flashed up and down Water Lane by the end of the previous afternoon. He asked me two or three pertinent questions as to its appearance, which I answered as best I could.

  ‘But I am on my way now to make an inspection of the body, Doctor. You would not care to take a look yourself, I suppose? A professional medical opinion might be convenient.’

  The idea of asking him came to me quite unexpectedly but, in the absence of Fidelis, it seemed a good one. Harrod was a man of long experience. Curiosity in such matters is extremely strong in all of us and I did not e
xpect Harrod to decline my invitation – which he did not.

  ‘I don’t suppose I shall be of much use to you. I am nothing but a booby where legal matters are concerned. But with that proviso I shall be glad to accompany you, of course.’

  We set off together as renewed gusts of rain hammered our faces.

  * * *

  ‘I would say this girl-child was definitely stillborn,’ said Dr Harrod. ‘Quite definitely.’

  We had collected the bath-house key from the Parsons and were now standing in the sluicing room, on either side of a small table that I had found and carried in from the bathkeeper’s kennel and placed the body on. I had asked Hannah Parsons to wash the mud and filth from the dead baby, and this she had attempted to do, but with only partial success. Opening the wrapping linen, I saw that the worst of the caked mud was gone, but there were still streaks of grey dirt all over the skin.

  ‘My first question, in such cases,’ I said, ‘is whether this is a premature birth. A stillbirth.’

  I had seen many stillbirths and they almost always appeared more like skinned rabbits than human beings. This, on the other hand, seemed a fully formed baby girl.

  ‘To my eye, this does not look a premature birth,’ I said. ‘Yet you say she never breathed?’

  ‘Oh, no. She was ripe and ready to be born but when it happened she breathed not a sip of breath. Died in the womb before she had the chance.’

  ‘What leads you to that conclusion, Doctor?’

  ‘Forty years of experience leads me to it. There is a certain colour, a certain quality or texture, shall I say, about the skin. Then there’s the way the mouth is … I cannot put it into words, but I assure you I am right. I would stake my reputation on it. My entire reputation.’

  Dr Harrod was speaking with conviction, in the way that he always had when talking of matters within his professional scope. Yet he had not approached the body with anything resembling the attention that Luke Fidelis would have given it. Harrod had bent his head to it just once, breathing in through the nose as he did so, as if sniffing. Then he had straightened his back and whistled a faint tune a little uneasily through his teeth. When I suggested he might like to turn the baby over and see the other side, he recoiled.

  ‘Touch it? Certainly not, Titus. And I would recommend that you do not do so. Not its bare skin. That might be dangerous. Troubled spirits can be transferred in that way – from it to you. You should avoid acquiring a troubled spirit at all costs, believe me. I have seen men go stark mad by it – mad far beyond the power of medicine to control.’

  ‘Hannah Parsons has already washed it,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Oh, she merely held it under the falling stream outside, I expect. I doubt she handled it directly.’

  He turned away from the table and began to circulate around the room while fluttering his fingers and resuming his whistling. Finally he paused beneath the high window and gazed up at the sky.

  ‘I must make my way home now, young Cragg,’ he said, turning back to me after a few moments. ‘My boy is a hungry animal and must be fed to time. I hope my attendance here has been helpful. And please—’

  He held up his hand.

  ‘Don’t think of a fee. Pro bono publico, my friend. I take much satisfaction in assisting public officers in their duties when I can. Good day to you.’

  With these amiable words Dr Harrod hurried away from the bath house leaving me staring at the baby on the table, wondering what to do next. Fidelis would of course have scorned the reservation about troubled spirits. Yet I was disturbed by Harrod’s urgency and the compelling manner of his warning, and held back from touching it directly. I did, however, see that I could use the linen cloth to turn it so that the other side would be exposed. Gingerly I got my hands under the cloth and, through it, grasped the body, rolling it inside its wrapping until it lay on its front. I raised the cloth once again, straightened my back and, in that instant, I realized I might have to change my whole view of the case. The back of the skull was horribly wounded, as if from a heavy blow.

  But I had no time to consider the matter, for now there was a hammering on the bath-house door and a voice calling my name. I went out through the plunge room and the changing room to the entrance hall where I pulled the heavy door open. Luke Fidelis stood beaming at me on the step.

  ‘Greetings, my friend. As you see, I am returned.’

  ‘And in high spirits, evidently.’

  ‘Why not? In two days I have removed a bladder stone the size of a plum, lanced a plague of boils, pulled a mouthful of teeth, rebroken a crookedly set fracture, played at cricket with farm boys and been kissed by a blacksmith’s daughter. Who’d be a doctor of law when they might be one of medicine?’

  ‘Who indeed?’

  ‘Well, this is a delightful place.’

  He tethered his horse and came in stretching his arms wide to indicate that he referred to the building.

  ‘The Lorrises told me that you had been enquiring after me, and then Furzey told me you were here. I have to go on to Penwortham by the low-water ford, and since this is on my way and low tide is not for another hour, I saw no reason not to come and find you. What a perfect little temple of health and yet I have never been inside it before. Shall we make sacrifice to the goddess Hygenia while we are here?’

  ‘Sacrifice has already been made, Luke, and discovered nearby. There has been unpleasantness.’

  ‘Hah! You are no stranger to that.’

  ‘It is a baby, Luke.’

  He stopped laughing at once and followed me to the sluicing room where I showed him the infant body, lying with its injured head exposed.

  ‘She was found in a tan-pit in the skin-yard below,’ I told him. ‘By this, it looks as if she’s been struck, or maybe had her head dashed against something sharp-edged.’

  ‘Yes, that is possible. But not necessarily when the child was living.’

  Fidelis bent to look more closely at the wound, delicately taking the head between finger and thumb, and twitching it this way and that to catch the light. Then he returned the body to its back and inspected the stump of blackened navel string projecting no more than an inch from its belly.

  ‘That is interesting,’ he remarked as he took from his bag a leather roll containing his instruments.

  ‘How is it interesting?’

  ‘All in good time,’ he said, as he carefully unwrapped the body, opened the roll and laid it out on one of the benches by the wall. Then he took forceps and a scalpel and returned to the newborn while I sat on the bench beside the instruments and watched.

  ‘The question we should address first is whether this little girl was born alive, or dead.’

  ‘Yes, I have already—’

  ‘Because, according to the answer, some poor young woman’s neck will or will not be at hazard – am I right?’

  ‘We do not yet know who the mother is,’ I said, ‘but, according to the law, a murder trial need only show that she was with child and gave birth in secret. She can then be assumed, legally speaking, to be a murderess, whether or not she made that wound in the head, or did other harm to him.’

  Fidelis appeared to make an incision in the baby’s chest and was now opening it. He stopped and looked at me.

  ‘Assumed? That is extraordinary. The two do not necessarily follow.’

  He returned to work as I explained about the law of 1624. His reaction was not unlike Elizabeth’s.

  ‘It is a travesty of reason, never mind justice.’

  ‘I agree, but it is not my business to interpret Acts of Parliament. I only have to do the Coroner’s job: determine whether the death be stillbirth, accident, or murder and, if the latter, by whom. Can you tell if the child died in the womb?’

  ‘Not from just looking.’

  I deliberately did not tell him of Dr Harrod’s method and opinion, for I did not want him to be influenced into producing a different conclusion out of pure contrariness.

  ‘How, then?’

 
‘There is a test, though not always conclusive. Bring me a bucket of clean water, if you please, and we shall try it.’

  I found a bucket which, as the taps inside the building were dry, I took outside to fill from the spring which fed the bath house’s water supply and otherwise flowed through a channel underneath the building and into a conduit beyond. The water I brought back was clean and clear.

  ‘Put it down there, Titus.’

  Fidelis pointed to one of the wooden benches where the light from the window most strongly played and I put the bucket down. Once I had let it go the water jiggled, and the sheen of light across its surface chopped and sparkled. I looked questioningly at Fidelis and he said.

  ‘We must wait until it settles.’

  When he was satisfied that the water in the bucket was as still as he wanted he picked up something from the table where he had been working, which seemed to be a small whitish scrap of tissue.

  ‘One of the baby’s lungs,’ he told me, holding it up with all the solemnity of a fairground magician preparing the audience for his next trick. He brought the tiny lung to the bucket and, with a care that I would like to describe as fond, but perhaps I should say precise, he placed it on the surface of the water, then stood back.

  I looked at the little white fragment as it turned gently on the surface of the water, and then at Fidelis.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Do you not notice? It floats.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I see that. But I don’t see what it means.’

  Fidelis sighed, picking the lung from the water and taking it back to the table.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to say it means we are no further on.’

  Now producing a tinderbox and a candle stub he lit the wick and held the flame close to the tiny head. Bending his head down beside it he seemed to be trying to see inside the mouth, nose and ear holes.

  ‘There’s something interesting there, too,’ he said, straightening his back. ‘It might prove more informative than the floating experiment.’