The Way of All Flesh

by Ambrose Parry

  He looked unlikely to be in a forgiving mood, as rather improbably, his nose was bleeding, the blood still dripping onto an already damp shirt. Some altercation had recently taken place. Raven could hear screaming from somewhere within, no doubt retribution being meted out to whomever had dealt the blow.

  ‘What in the name of God is this wee streak of piss doing here?’ he demanded. ‘Where is Simpson?’

  The Weasel wore a look of satisfaction, enjoying the moment his colleagues had their mistake confirmed. It was like an overture for the symphony of vengeance with which he was about to indulge himself.

  Flint wiped the blood from his nose with his sleeve. He had an overwrought look about him, a man at the end of his tether. A man in need of an outlet for his frustrations.

  ‘They lifted this skitter by mistake,’ Weasel said. ‘He owes you two guineas and me a debt of another kind.’

  Flint looked at Raven with sparing regard, as though his true thoughts were somewhere else.

  ‘Do you have the two guineas?’ he asked.

  Raven could not speak to answer, such was his fear.

  He heard another scream, thinking for a moment it was a foretaste of his own. Then he realised it was a woman’s scream, and deduced what was going on.

  ‘Mr Flint, you sent for Dr Simpson. Is your wife in labour?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the young girl with the black eye, hurried and imploring. ‘She is, these fourteen hours. Blind and insane in her agonies. Lashing out at those who would try to assist her.’

  ‘I can help.’

  ‘What know you of such things?’ Flint demanded.

  ‘I am Dr Simpson’s assistant. A man midwife.’

  ‘I want the professor, not his student.’

  ‘But I am here now, and Dr Simpson yet at Queen Street.’

  At that moment, there came another scream from inside the building.

  ‘Bring him forth,’ Flint decided.

  ‘I need the bag that sits inside the carriage,’ Raven said.

  ‘Fetch it,’ Flint commanded Scar. ‘And see to it that this time you don’t bring a hat or a horse-turd by mistake.’

  Raven was escorted into the building and led to a room on the first floor, where he was confronted by a scene that immediately brought to mind the Simpsons’ dining room on the night of the chloroform discovery. Several pieces of furniture were upturned and a ewer and basin were in pieces upon the floor. The smell was reminiscent of a tavern at the end of a busy night, a noxious mix of stale alcohol fumes combined with various bodily odours and the very distinct tang of blood.

  Flint’s wife was being forcibly held in the bed by a number of persons including Peg and Gargantua. They were all in a state of dishevelment and perspiring almost as much as the patient herself. Gargantua looked at Raven with confusion and growing rage, but did not abandon his post.

  Among those around the bed was a midwife, sporting a bruise to her cheek. She looked upon Raven with almost as much disdain as the giant. Midwives had little love for their male competitors, and that she was being asked to defer to one as young as him would be all the more galling. That said, like everyone else present herein, she looked desperate. This was one occasion where Raven felt sure he couldn’t make the situation any worse. However, his only chance to avoid being murdered was if he could make it better.

  ‘Tell me what has gone on and make it quick,’ he said, his commanding tone a means of disguising his fear.

  ‘The membranes ruptured in the early hours of this morning and I have been dosing Mrs Flint regularly with brandy and water,’ the midwife said.

  The woman was writhing and thrashing, trying to free the arm the midwife clutched.

  ‘However, she became delirious and increasingly restless. I administered several doses of laudanum but to no avail; her delirium only worsened, and as you can see, she became most violent in her agonies. If you believe you can restrain her where all of us have failed, then I would welcome the chance to watch you attempt it.’

  With that she let go of the arm she was holding, all the better for Mrs Flint to lash out at Raven with it, and stepped clear of the bed.

  Raven delved into Dr Simpson’s bag, struggling initially to see into it in the dim gaslight. For a heart-stopping moment he could not find the bottle he sought, but then there it was.

  Raven put about twenty drops of the chloroform onto a pocket handkerchief, which he rolled into a cone shape as he had been taught. Mrs Flint bucked and screamed, swiping an arm at him as he approached. Raven blocked the blow with his forearm and held the moistened handkerchief about an inch from her face before bringing it closer until it covered her nose and mouth. Within about a minute, her writhing ceased and her attendants were able to release their hold of her, though they appeared wary that she might resume.

  ‘He has poisoned her!’ the midwife cried. ‘Mr Flint, this man has murdered your wife!’

  ‘This is chloroform, a new drug,’ Raven retorted, looking Flint in the eye. ‘She will sleep and feel no pain until I revive her.’

  With the patient now at rest, Raven was able to perform an examination, upon which he ascertained the position of the infant and the reason for the lack of progress. He felt a knot tighten inside him. He had been wrong in his impression when he first entered the room: there was a way he could make the situation worse, if only for himself.

  His examination had identified not the head of the infant in the birth canal but its arm. The mother and baby could both die here. He had administered chloroform, and though it would not be what killed her, if Mrs Flint never regained consciousness, he would be blamed. The midwife would make sure if it.

  Raven could not afford to think what would happen after that.

  He would have to turn the child in the womb before he could attempt to deliver it, a manoeuvre he had never performed. If he failed, he would certainly be killed. Even if he succeeded, his fate was far from certain.

  Raven closed his eyes a moment and took himself from this place. Not far, perhaps a little more than a mile, to a room above the Canongate: the first case he had visited in the company of Dr Simpson. He pictured the diagram the professor had sketched on a sheet of paper upon a wax-spattered table in that hot and foetid room. The whole child can be considered to be cone-shaped, the apex or narrowest part being the feet. The skull can also be thought of as a cone, the narrowest part of which is the base.

  Raven took a breath and began. His hand passed easily into the uterus and found the infant’s knee without difficulty. From there he found both feet and pulled them down, firmly but gently. The chloroform had relaxed the maternal muscles and the delivery was completed some five minutes later; a male child, born alive, although the arm which had been residing in the birth canal for some considerable time was almost black in colour.

  The placenta followed shortly after the child, and there was little bleeding. The child was swaddled by the girl with the black eye, whose name turned out to be Morag.

  Flint took the baby from her, holding his son in his arms quite jealously.

  His wife awoke shortly after, her face a study in disorientation and confusion, as though rousing from a dream. Flint offered her the child, which she regarded with disbelief for a moment before hugging it to her breast.

  ‘I thought myself in the throes of death,’ she said. ‘Yet here is the bonniest wee thing. How can this be so?’

  ‘It was the young doctor, ma’am,’ said Morag.

  Flint walked Raven out to the back court, Peg and Gargantua at their backs. The Weasel, the Toad and Scar awaited, accompanied by the man who had so terrifyingly driven the horses. He was a gaunt and ancient thing, looking like his bones ought to have crumbled from the shaking. Evidently he was made of sterner stuff than he appeared, inside and out.

  The Weasel was sharpening his knife by dragging it across the stone of the building, eyeing Raven with a purposeful stare. They were all five at their boss’s command, which Raven was also waiting for, upon tenterhooks. />
  ‘I remember you now,’ Flint said. ‘When you came to me for money, you said you might not be able to pay it back swiftly, but that you were a man of some prospects. I can see that to be true. That stuff you used was quite miraculous. What was it called again?’

  ‘Chloroform,’ Raven replied.

  ‘Where might a man procure this wondrous liquid?’

  ‘From Duncan and Flockhart, on Princes Street.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Flint mused. ‘A business such as that is liable to take note of who is purchasing their wares. Might one acquire it otherwise? Through an intermediary, perhaps?’

  Raven could see where this might lead, but was in no position to refuse.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The Weasel continued to scrape his blade, impatience writ upon his face as he became concerned that the evening might not reach the conclusion for which he hoped.

  ‘Put that damned knife away,’ Flint commanded, as though irritated by the sound.

  The Weasel complied with a sigh.

  ‘Mr Raven here is to go about his business unmolested from here on,’ Flint announced to the ragged assembly. ‘I am the one in his debt tonight.’

  ‘He’s still in mine,’ the Weasel protested. ‘He near took my sight.’

  ‘You seem able to see well enough,’ Raven retorted.

  ‘Aye,’ Flint mused. ‘I gather you bested this pair single-handed a wee while back.’

  ‘He blinded me with a powder,’ Gargantua grumbled.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Flint. ‘You strike me as a man of some resource and gumption. I wonder if in lieu of your debt, you and I might reach an understanding.’

  Flint looked him in the eye. Raven knew he was doing a deal with the devil, but it was better than having the devil on his back.

  ‘We might.’

  ‘And is there something I can offer you, by way of thanks?’

  Raven was about to politely refuse, not wishing to delay his departure, when it occurred to him that this was a man with an ear to the underbelly of the city, and many eyes reporting back to him.

  ‘Only information. There is someone I seek. Perhaps you might get word to me if you or your men should encounter her.’

  ‘A woman? Who?’

  ‘She is a French midwife who goes by the name of—’

  ‘Madame Anchou,’ said the Toad. ‘Sells pills and potions, at quite a cost.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Scar with a chuckle. ‘He bought one from her that was supposed to help him stand proud, if you take my meaning. Suffers from brewer’s droop.’

  ‘Didn’t bloody work, did it?’ the Toad moaned bitterly.

  ‘What did you expect?’ asked Scar. ‘There isn’t a potion known to Merlin could make a man’s cock stand tall at the prospect of any woman who would have you.’

  ‘Where did you see her?’ Raven demanded, his urgency cutting through the growing levity.

  ‘In a tavern off the Canongate. I was given her name by a Mrs Peake, runs a whorehouse nearby.’

  ‘What do you remember of her?’

  ‘Not much. It was dark and she had on a cape and a hood. I recall that she had a smell about her, an exotic scent. So strong it would have choked you.’

  Raven felt his skin prickle, cold even beneath Dr Simpson’s troublesome coat.

  ‘What was it like, this scent?’

  ‘Oranges.’

  Fifty-Seven

  Beattie now had a thunderous look on his face. This was when Sarah expected to be shown the door, amidst a pompous tirade about impropriety and further insistence that he would see her sacked.

  Instead, a sudden calmness seemed to come upon him. A transformation. He sat back in his chair, holding open his hands in a placatory gesture.

  ‘Miss Fisher, I owe you an apology. You are correct. All is indeed not as it would appear.’ He got to his feet, his expression sincere. ‘I would ask of you the courtesy of allowing me to explain. And by way of contrition, let me offer you some tea, that we might take it together while you hear me out.’

  Sarah stood up too, almost by reflex. ‘Allow me to assist you then, sir.’

  ‘No, please. The kettle is not long boiled in the grate, and you have served me often enough. It is right and fitting that I should reciprocate for once.’

  Sarah knew not to push the issue. She watched him leave the room, then made use of the brief time he was absent to step quietly across the hall and take a closer look at his study.

  She saw anatomy specimens arrayed in jars upon shelves against the wall, reflected gaslight glinting in the glass. There were examples of every organ preserved in clear fluid: hearts, lungs, kidneys, even a brain. Sarah could well imagine how this sight might unnerve many an unwary visitor, but as someone used to the ways of medical men, she did not regard it as out of the ordinary. That said, something struck her as unusual about the specimens, though she could not from such a brief glimpse discern what it was. It gave her a vague sense of unease, but that was as nothing compared to the shock of seeing the pair of kid gloves that were lying upon his desk.

  Sarah returned to the drawing room in time for Beattie’s reappearance bearing the promised tea on a tray. He placed it down on the low table, whereupon it was made clear that he was unused to serving anyone. She noticed that the cups were not matching and that the tea was already poured.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It is such an unaccustomed honour to be waited upon by a gentleman. Might I then be so bold as to trouble you for a fancy or even a biscuit?’

  Beattie looked annoyed with himself at this oversight.

  ‘Of course. I bought scones this morning, if that would suffice.’

  He returned presently with a solitary scone on a plate. He had forgotten to bring a knife or butter, but she was content with what was offered.

  ‘How did you come to be in Dr Simpson’s service?’ he asked.

  Sarah answered briefly, sipping from her cup. The tea was passable, but far from the finest.

  ‘It is a most unusual household, is it not?’ Beattie went on. ‘What strange sights you must have seen there.’

  For a man who normally talked exclusively about himself and his ambitions, this was a remarkable level of interest to be showing in anyone else, far less a housemaid. It was almost as though he was waiting for something. Perhaps he thought that if he stalled her long enough, she would forget about her own questions. She would put him straight on that.

  ‘Dr Beattie, you promised me an explanation. I wish to know why you lied to Miss Grindlay and to Dr Simpson about having this uncle. Because if you are prepared to lie about that, one must wonder what else you might be lying about.’

  With that, she drained her cup, thus underlining that the niceties were over.

  Beattie watched her place it down upon the saucer, at which point she was sure she detected another transformation. He seemed more himself again, confident and haughty.

  ‘I asked about your service, Miss Fisher, because I hoped you would understand that opportunities are not always easy to come by. Sometimes they must be manufactured. People can be encouraged to believe in something, that they may have confidence in it. I wished them to have confidence in me.’

  He took a drink from his own cup.

  ‘You are correct. I have no uncle and no house to inherit. All that I have, I have made for myself. My background is of no real relevance. It is my prospects and my future that are important, and I will have a great future. Mina is very lucky that she will share it.’

  ‘You are only interested in her for the connection to Dr Simpson such a marriage would afford, are you not?’

  ‘Let us be realistic. Mina’s only hope of a husband was someone seeking association with Dr Simpson. She is fortunate that it should be me. In the field of my profession, my gifts are only matched by my ambitions.’

  He was finally showing the true face she suspected, and he clearly knew that he had nothing to fear from such candour. Not from this housemaid before him.

  ‘On th
e subject of gifts, Dr Beattie, I saw you purchase a pair of kid gloves at Kennington and Jenner’s. I assumed them wrapped as a present intended for Miss Grindlay, and yet I spied them open and worn in your study. Do you have another woman?’

  ‘I have many women. One would imagine Mina ought to be realistic enough to understand the nature of the match. But I will own that those gloves do belong to one who is particularly dear to me.’

  He wore an odd smile, one that Sarah found unsettling.

  ‘You were prying around my study, then,’ he went on, standing up once more. ‘Perhaps you should come and pry a little closer. For I have something there that I would like you to see.’

  Beattie took hold of her arm and pulled her roughly to her feet, leading her from the room with a tight grip. He hauled her into the study, where he stood her next to the table upon which the gloves lay.

  ‘I am not the only one disguising their true intentions. You and young Raven are secretly in league, are you not?’

  Sarah said nothing. She was looking for how she might flee, but Beattie stood in the doorway.

  ‘Have a look in that press, there by the window.’

  Sarah approached it, her heart beating a tattoo. Even before opening the door, she knew what she would find inside.

  Hanging before her in the cupboard was the French midwife’s robe.

  ‘Have you answers enough now?’ Beattie asked, his tone distressingly calm.

  She stared at the garment, contemplating all of its implications.

  ‘The gloves were for you. You are Madame Anchou. You murdered Rose Campbell because she discovered this.’

  ‘Like you, she saw things she should not have. At least in her case, she was not spying. I thought her asleep and she witnessed me take on my disguise.’

  Sarah turned to face him. ‘Why are you telling me such things? Why would you show me this?’

  ‘I’m sure even a housemaid must have the wit to work that out.’

  Sarah swallowed, her mouth dry and her voice failing. ‘Do you intend to kill me, Dr Beattie?’