The Lazarus Curse (Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery)

by Harris, Tessa

  Carruthers sucked hard on the stem. “So what have we?” he said finally, pointing toward the reeking body with his pipe.

  Thomas took a moment to examine the cadaver by eye. Even to one as experienced as he, it was a most unsavory sight, discolored and bloated.

  “A man,” he began, “without a head.”

  “Yes, yes. I know that,” came the impatient response. “Young, old? Middle-aged?”

  “In his early twenties, I’d say,” replied Thomas, assessing the muscle development. “But malnourished,” he added.

  “After a long voyage?” asked Carruthers.

  “It could be,” replied Thomas, knowing that men had been known to lose several stone in weight during a lengthy sea trip.

  Noting the overall condition of the body, one of the first things that struck him was the fact that the blood had pooled in certain areas. The skin was blackened where this had occurred and it seemed from the dark areas on the buttocks and calves that he had died lying down.

  “I am beginning to think that our victim was killed quite a few hours prior to his body being tied to the pier.”

  “Livor mortis?” asked Carruthers.

  “Yes.”

  “And how long had our friend been in the water?”

  Thomas looked at the headless torso—blanched, swollen, and wrinkled—but he knew the answer to his mentor’s question probably lay in the skin of the finger pads. He examined them first, then the palms, before inspecting the soles of the feet.

  “The water in the Thames is near freezing at the moment,” he said, prodding the victim’s hands once more. “Putrefaction has begun, but is not very advanced.” Again he peered at the fingertips. “The epidermis is still intact, and so are the nails.”

  Thomas knew that if the body had been in the water some considerable time, the outer layer of skin would have peeled off like a glove.

  “So we are talking hours, not days,” surmised the old doctor.

  “Correct.”

  The torso, Thomas knew, was bloated, but not to any great extent, which added weight to his theory that it had not been long in the water. Nor were there many abrasions on the skin, apart from the odd bruise, which could easily have been caused by the body being buffeted, postmortem, against the pier.

  “Now I shall begin the examination proper,” he announced, his tone becoming more formal. “The head has been severed cleanly. I would say a saw or a cleaver has been used to cut through the second and third cervical vertebrae and . . .” He broke off suddenly.

  “What is it?” Carruthers jerked forward.

  “It would seem, from the angle of the severance, that the victim was lying on his back when he was decapitated. But . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “But I would surmise that he was already dead at the time,” said Thomas, inspecting the severed spinal column.

  “The lungs will reveal more,” remarked Carruthers, excitedly.

  As he worked Thomas gave a running commentary to the old doctor who sat, head to one side, listening to every incision, every squelch, every slurp of the man’s innards, even recognizing some of the sounds as if they were musical notes. Within the next ten minutes, Thomas had cut through the sternum and was studying the victim’s lungs. They were empty of the soapy fluid normally associated with a drowning.

  “It is clear to me, sir,” he said, peering at the dark brown pillows of tissue, “that this man was well and truly dead when he was tied to the pier.”

  Carruthers nodded. “Thank the Lord for that!” he muttered.

  “And, judging by the bloating of the stomach, dead for a good while.” Thomas was peering over the corpse’s internal organs, reading them as if they were runes to be used in divinations.

  “But wait,” he said, suddenly.

  “What is it?”

  “This is interesting,” he said, reaching for his magnifying glass.

  “What?” Carruthers could not bear such suspense.

  “There are some adhesions to the pleural walls, especially in the upper lobe,” Thomas told him.

  “Cut them open,” came the excited command.

  Thomas did so to expose a brownish parenchyma. On the surface and in the interior of the pulmonary tissue were small white hard masses, most the size of a peppercorn.

  “Interesting,” he mused, inspecting the granules. “There seem to be a good deal of calcified tubercles.”

  “So he was afflicted with phthisis?”

  “It seems so, and in quite an advanced state,” replied Thomas. “But there’s more.” Thomas was slicing through the bronchioles that led from the lungs to the trachea. Examining them closely, he could see the inside walls of the airways were swollen and inflamed. “I’d say this poor chap had a hard time breathing, sir,” he said at last.

  “So, cause of death?”

  Thomas cocked his head to one side. “This was not enough to kill him.” He clicked his tongue in frustration. “I cannot be conclusive, sir.”

  “A blow to the head, perhaps!” suggested Carruthers. “That would do for the poor blighter!”

  The truth of the matter was that any postmortem conducted on a headless corpse would, by its very nature, be incomplete.

  “So, we do not have a cause of death,” said Thomas dejectedly, stitching up a flap of skin to the torso once more.

  “But the real mystery remains,” pointed out Carruthers. Thomas looked at him bemused. “The chap’s identity,” he added after a moment. “What of his clothes?”

  Thomas had laid them in a pile on the nearby work surface. Rinsing his hands in a bowl of water, he walked over to them and first inspected the breeches. They were made of worsted and the stockings were silk. He wore no shoes.

  “And a jacket?” asked the old anatomist.

  Thomas shook his head. “No jacket. Just a shirt of good Egyptian cotton,” he said, feeling its texture between his forefinger and thumb. “I’d say he was a gentleman,” he mused, still casting a keen eye over the stained shirt. Reaching for his magnifying glass, he peered at the material.

  After a short pause, Carruthers could wait no more. “You have found something?” he snapped like an excited terrier.

  Thomas leaned away from the workbench and straightened his aching back. “I am afraid I have,” replied Thomas. “Our victim’s shirt was monogrammed. The shirt bears the initials M. B.”

  Carruthers’s forehead dipped into a frown. “Ah!” was all he managed to say at first.

  “It is as I feared,” murmured Thomas. “Matthew Bartlett; but as to what killed him, how he died . . . I am at a loss.”

  Hearing the frustration in his protégé’s voice, the old anatomist shrugged. “ ’Tis not your place to conjecture, young fellow,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “Ours is not to uncover how or why or by whose hand poor wretches die, just what killed them.”

  “And that I have failed to do!” Thomas protested. He sucked on his pipe as he stared at the headless body. “I can only conclude that he must have died from an injury to the head or a disease of the brain.”

  Slowly he unfolded a length of winding sheet and began swathing the victim’s body, ready for identification. A proper burial would follow. The corpse had given up many of its secrets, but how Matthew Bartlett, if indeed it was the young artist, had died, remained a mystery.

  Chapiter 24

  Thomas had been asked to wait in the small anteroom outside the new Westminster coroner’s office. He had decided to deliver his postmortem report to Sir Stephen Gandy in person in the hope that he might introduce himself. The fact that the clerk had asked him to wait was, he considered, a hopeful sign.

  The hearth was empty and Thomas shivered as he sat, watching his own breath waft gently about him. He told himself that his shaking was purely due to the cold, but in reality, he knew that his nerves were getting the better of him.

  After what seemed to him an age, he was summoned into the office. This time there was a fire in the grate and the room, although o
nly slightly warmer than the antechamber, was of a bearable temperature. Sir Stephen sat at his desk and rose to shake the young anatomist’s hand. He was a man in his later years, gray-wigged and with the sort of gravitas one might expect of one in such an important role. Looking into his eyes, Thomas saw the whites were yellow. It was obvious to him that he might have a liver condition. He wondered if he was aware of it.

  Seating himself once more, the coroner elbowed his desk and glanced down at the bound sheets of Thomas’s autopsy report.

  “I thank you for undertaking this task,” he said, fingering the papers. His voice was deep and his delivery studied, but his manner was easygoing.

  “I am glad to be of service, sir,” replied Thomas. His shivers, or nerves, he could not decide which they were, had all but subsided until Sir Stephen’s smile dissolved to be replaced by a frown. The coroner suddenly became very grave.

  Turning the pages of the report, he ventured: “I do not doubt your professional ability, or your accuracy and observation, Dr. Silkstone.”

  Thomas sensed there would soon be a caveat. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

  The coroner continued: “You make some interesting points. The head, for example, possibly removed when the victim was on his back, you say. And the lungs . . .” He looked up at Thomas. “Phthisis.”

  “An advanced state,” said Thomas, nodding.

  “So are we dealing with a murder or no, Silkstone?” he asked, a strand of frustration creeping into his voice.

  Thomas shook his head. “Obviously someone tied the corpse to the pier, sir.”

  As soon as he had said this, he could tell the coroner thought him impertinent. He shot back: “And why would a murderer do that, Dr. Silkstone?” His voice took on an imperious tone.

  It was a question that had kept Thomas awake the previous night. Why did this man’s murderer not simply throw the corpse into the Thames and let the tide carry it downriver to be washed up at Wapping or Deptford, miles away from where the heinous act was committed?

  “I cannot say, sir,” he replied meekly. He wanted to add that he was an anatomist, not a mind reader. Henry Fielding and his cronies were the men who set out to solve crimes of this nature, and although he found himself increasingly drawn into this murky arena of criminal deduction, he did not feel comfortable in its glare.

  Sir Stephen picked up a pencil and leaned back in his chair. “And would I also be going too far if I were to ask you if you had any idea as to this poor man’s identity?”

  This time Thomas was able to give an affirmative reply. “I have an idea, sir, although it is subject to confirmation.”

  “Oh?”

  “I believe the victim was a Matthew Bartlett, a botanical artist, recently returned from the expedition to Jamaica, sponsored by the Royal Society.”

  Sir Stephen arched a brow. “Do you indeed?” he said, leaning forward, as if his interest had suddenly been piqued even more. “And what makes you think that?”

  “His shirt, sir. It was monogrammed with the initials M. B.”

  “Yes,” the coroner drawled. “I noted that in your report, but is there anyone from the Royal Society who might be able to help you with the identification,” he asked, adding, “despite the fact that there is no head?”

  Thomas nodded. “Mr. Bartlett was known to Sir Joseph Banks.”

  Sir Stephen slammed the pencil down on his desk. “Well, there you have it!” he exclaimed. “A well-connected headless corpse!” He smirked at his own tasteless joke, then continued: “I shall write to Sir Joseph myself and ask him if he is willing to identify the body. I would not wish to release it for burial until we have some idea of who it is we are burying.” He gave a neat smile. “You agree, Dr. Silkstone?”

  Nodding slowly, Thomas eyed the coroner. The truth was that the postmortem had thrown up more questions about Matthew Bartlett and the Jamaican expedition than answers. If he was murdered, then the motive might have been the theft of Dr. Welton’s journal. What could have been in it that was worth a man’s life? The conundrums kept surfacing in his mind, whirling around on currents of doubt before being dragged down again into a quagmire of perplexity and confusion. It was high time, he told himself, that Sir Joseph Banks revealed to him the full picture. He would have it out with him as soon as he could.

  “Of course, sir,” he replied.

  Word came the next day. Thomas was working in the laboratory. He had returned the corpse to its wooden box and dragged it outside in the courtyard where the freezing air ensured the process of putrefaction would be retarded. Before him, on his workbench, sat a mature aloe vera plant in a pot, its tubular flowers in full bloom. He had identified it both from Dr. Carruthers’s knowledge and Mr. Bartlett’s excellent sketches, which depicted the detail of the spiky plant with such consummate skill and accuracy.

  The artist had even made a note underneath the drawing. It read: Spent time in the hothouse where the resident physician employs native medicine to ease certain agues. He tells me aloe vera has many medicinal uses when applied as an unguent to rashes or wounds or when drunk to relieve a fever. In this respect it is particularly efficacious.

  Thomas sighed deeply. For such tidbits of information he was most grateful. They gave a tantalizing glimpse into what wonders Dr. Welton and his expedition must have uncovered, but in the absence of an authoritative medical contribution, his task was proving well-nigh impossible.

  He did have access to Dr. Perrick’s notes and observations, but they seemed to lack the detailed knowledge he felt necessary to record the specimens for posterity. Judging by the age of Perrick’s wife, he believed he was a young man, perhaps only just received into the medical profession. He would, no doubt, have been content to allow his much respected father-in-law to shoulder the burden of recording the expedition’s findings in his journal.

  Thomas had just made a cut in the aloe plant’s leaf to extract some of its curious sap when Mistress Finesilver brought him a message. It was from Sir Joseph Banks. He had received Sir Stephen’s letter and consented to inspect the body and would welcome an opportunity to talk with him at his earliest convenience. Thomas began to clear away his instruments. The healing properties of the aloe vera plant would have to wait to be examined. Instead he grabbed his hat and coat and left the laboratory to make the necessary arrangements.

  Chapiter 25

  The memorial service for Dr. Frederick Erasmus Welton, Fellow of the Royal Society, member of the Company of Surgeons, and respected physician, together with his assistant and son-in-law, Dr. John Perrick, was held at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly. For a man of such eminence in his profession as Dr. Welton, Thomas was surprised to see so few people paying their respects. There were only around a dozen mourners aside from his close family members. There were no representatives from any of the major hospitals, no one from St. George’s, or St. Bartholomew’s or St. Thomas’s. And from the Royal Society only Sir Joseph Banks was present.

  Was Dr. Welton not liked in his professional circles? Had he done something to offend the medical establishment? Thomas glanced over to where Sir Joseph stood in a pew at the front of the congregation and remembered his words to him. “Play your cards right, Silkstone, and you will go far.” Had Dr. Welton, by his words or by his deeds, offended those who could make or mar careers at a stroke of their pens, or a word from their tongues ?

  The service was a short, simple affair. Of course there were no coffins. Both men had been interred in the graveyard in Kingston. It was doubtful whether either widow would ever get to lay flowers on their respective husbands’ graves, but a memorial stone in St. James’s churchyard was planned.

  There was little pomp and circumstance. Thomas had the impression that this was at the request of the two women. They sat in the front pew, both their faces obscured by black veils, united in their grief. He wondered if they thought it strange or insulting, or both, that Matthew Bartlett, as the only surviving member of the ill-fated expedition and a close colleague of the
two doctors, had not made an appearance at the service. Of course they had no idea that he had gone missing, let alone been brutally murdered. He hoped it would remain that way for as long as possible to spare them the undoubted torment such news would bring. He had made plans for later that afternoon, arranging to meet with Sir Joseph at Somerset House. The headless corpse had been transported there and deposited in a well-ventilated stable. As soon as it had been identified it would be buried without delay.

  The service over and the congregation dismissed, Thomas walked slowly down the aisle and out into the cold. Despite the chill, widows Welton and Perrick stood side by side, thanking well-wishers for their condolences. When it was Thomas’s turn to give his sympathies, however, Mistress Perrick stepped aside, seemingly with her mother’s approval.

  “Dr. Silkstone,” she said, the tone of her voice much lower than before. “I have something for you,” she said in a half whisper. She delved into a black reticule she was carrying and brought out a bundle of what appeared to be letters.

  “There is still no sign of my father’s notebook?” she asked.

  Thomas shook his head.

  “Do you really believe it has been mislaid, Dr. Silkstone?”

  It was not a question that Thomas had anticipated. He formed his lips into a smile and shrugged.

  “It is missing, Mistress Perrick. Somewhere between Jamaica and London it has gone astray.”

  A gust of wind caught her veil and lifted it off her face for a moment. She looked serene and completely in command of her emotions. “That is why I thought these may help you, Dr. Silkstone,” she said, holding the papers out to him. “My husband sent them from Jamaica.”

  Thomas shot her a puzzled look as she placed them in his grasp. Quickly he scanned the closely written text. After a moment, he glanced up. “These are personal letters,” he said.

  She nodded. “But they also contain important information, Dr. Silkstone. You will find formulae for native physic in there; all sorts of intelligence that may be of value to you as a man of science.” She remained calm and rational as she spoke.