A Matter of Grave Concern

by Novak, Brenda

  “They might wonder, but I doubt they will seek the answer with any diligence. They never said a word about the three I put in the cellar last year, did they?”

  “I wouldn’t know, miss.”

  “I’m telling you they didn’t. There are four anatomists at this school, every one of them in desperate need of a specimen. They will each assume it was one of the others and be grateful. In any case, being a woman and my father’s daughter, I am the last person anyone would suspect.”

  “Evidently they don’t know you the way I do.”

  Hearing his sarcasm, Abigail nudged him. “Few people know me as well as you do,” she said. “So come on. This should only take a minute, but it will be heavy.”

  Reluctantly, Bransby situated himself beside her and they each took hold of the sack.

  “On the count of three,” Abigail said, ignoring his pained expression. “One, two, three.” By some miracle, they managed to heave the corpse into the hamper, but just as they lifted that, her father’s voice sounded outside in the corridor.

  “How nice of you to wait up for me, Mrs. Fitzgerald.”

  With a worried mewl, Bransby nearly let go. Only a fierce scowl from Abigail kept him on task. “Steady,” she advised as they staggered toward their goal.

  “I wait up for you every time you go out, Mr. Hale.” Mrs. Fitzgerald seemed to be following him down the hall. “You should be used to it by now. I can’t sleep till you’re safe in bed; that’s a fact. Shall I make some tea?”

  “Take the tea,” Abigail muttered. Exhausted, she and Bransby were forced to lower the hamper. They could no longer carry it, but they couldn’t leave it where it was, either. So they started bumping it and scooting it across the floor.

  “No, no, it’s much too late for that,” her father said. “I’ll just retrieve the journal I was reading and take it with me to my chambers.”

  “I noticed the latest issue of The Lancet has arrived.”

  “I will have a look tomorrow. Is Abby asleep?”

  “Aye. She went up over two hours ago.”

  Bransby stiffened as her father’s footsteps drew near. Abigail nearly had to drag the corpse herself. “Don’t give up on me,” she whispered harshly. “When I open the door, you swing your end around and pull while I push. Got it? We’re almost there—”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Fitzgerald.” Her father’s voice filtered into the room again. “I don’t know what Abby and I would do without you. Please, get some rest.”

  Bransby jerked the hamper around as her father, presumably, turned the knob. Strengthened by her alarm, Abigail gave her new acquisition a final shove, unwittingly causing the porter to fall and the hamper to go down with him. The sack containing the corpse must have caught on the wicker sides when the body tumbled out because Abigail caught sight of a man’s hairy arse as the corpse landed on top of the poor servant. She knew Bran had to be horrified, but there was no time to help him.

  She closed the theatre door as her father walked into the office.

  “Abby, my love.” He blinked at her in surprise. “What are you doing here? Mrs. Fitzgerald said you went to bed hours ago.”

  Abigail leaned against the door that hid Bransby and the cadaver and tried to speak above the pounding of her heart. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to . . . to get a book.”

  Her voice sounded too high-pitched, even to her own ears. But, by some miracle, Edwin Hale didn’t seem to notice.

  “What am I going to do with you, my girl?” He crossed to his desk and began thumbing through papers. Although he was nearing sixty, he had aged well. Thanks to a full head of white hair, a tall physique and a rather austere presence, he looked every bit the distinguished surgeon. He could easily have remarried had he wished to do so, but ever since they lost her mother, medicine had become the sole love of his life. He didn’t even socialize much. The opera, where he had spent the evening, remained one of his few indulgences.

  “Why do you need to do anything with me?” Abigail asked.

  His attention fixed on some medical document, he said, “You have studied almost every anatomy book I possess. You pore over the latest Lancet before I can even get to it. And you beg me constantly to admit you to the college. Your Aunt Emily says it’s not natural.”

  “What’s so unnatural about an interest in medicine?” Abigail took up their old argument with enough passion to justify raising her voice. Thanks to some shuffling and a few groans emanating from the operating theatre, she feared Bransby would get them caught.

  Fortunately, Edwin Hale remained preoccupied with whatever he was reading. “What? Oh yes, well, you know how I feel about that. There is nothing more intriguing than medicine. But you are a woman, after all, and Aunt Emily insists I have ruined you. I received a letter from her just today, scolding me for not sending you to her last summer as I promised. She says you will never marry unless you learn your rightful place in the world.”

  Abigail made a face. “And where is that, pray tell? Darning socks in some parlor? Too bad Aunt Emily has nothing better to do than spend her time worrying about me and heckling you.”

  “Ah, but I fear she may have a point.”

  “What do I care about catching a husband?” She tapped her foot, allowing her pout to linger in case he looked up to see it, which he didn’t. “A man would only try to force me into a similarly dull life. I could never bear it. I don’t wish to leave you—or the college.”

  “As much as I would miss you, my dear—”

  A loud crash caused Abigail to jump and her father to look up.

  “What was that?” he asked with a perplexed frown.

  Abigail leaned against the door and thumped the wooden panel with her elbow to warn Bransby to silence. The terror of his situation seemed to be sending the man mad, but Abigail needed a few moments more. “What? Oh, that was me, bumping into the door.”

  A gasp, a rattle and another thud called her a liar.

  “By Jove, I believe someone’s in the theatre!” After retrieving the pistol she had returned only moments before, he took the lamp from the desk and headed toward her.

  Abigail’s hopes of escaping this night without further incidence disappeared. Her prospects would be ruined—and all because of Wilder.

  “Perhaps I should go stay with Aunt Emily for a brief time, just to appease her,” she said, blocking her father’s path. He wouldn’t hesitate to cart her off to her aunt’s small estate in Herefordshire if he discovered she had involved herself in the purchase of a cadaver. No matter how lofty her intentions, such evidence of unladylike conduct would, no doubt, convince him that his sister had been right all along.

  Her capitulation didn’t seem to faze him. The same razor-sharp focus he used in his work was now trained on solving the mystery of what he had heard.

  “See that you stay behind me. I will not have you harmed.”

  Abigail tried to think of an excuse for what her father was about to see, but her mind went blank. She had gotten herself into scrapes before, many that required quick thinking and a glib tongue, but never had she been caught so red-handed.

  Holding his candle aloft, he motioned for her to step aside. The dissection room was quiet, but the silence came far too late to stop him from venturing within.

  Resigned to her fate, Abigail finally did as she was told.

  Her father cracked open the door and held the lamp high. “Who’s there?”

  Her heart heavy in her chest, Abigail followed him inside. He rarely grew angry enough to berate her with any real conviction, but the few times he had lost his temper had left an indelible impression on her mind. She feared this would be one of those occasions.

  “I’m sorry, Father. I know I was wrong to—” Her words fell off as she saw that the room was empty. The hamper and Bransby were both gone. So were the cadaver and its sack. Only some dirt remained.<
br />
  Her father didn’t seem to have heard her. Intent on his purpose, he crossed to a door that stood open on the opposite side and called back. “Look at this! It appears someone tried to break in, although what they would want to steal from in here is a mystery to me.”

  Abigail rushed over to see what he had found. The window in the office opposite her father’s was open, letting in a cold breeze—and, sure enough, several marks on the sill indicated a tool had been used to force it open.

  “Whoever it was is gone now,” he added.

  Abigail didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to think. Where was Bransby? What the devil had happened?

  She was contemplating telling her father the truth, in case Bransby needed help, when her father gave a short cry of alarm and stuck his head out the window. “What are you doing in the alley, poor man? Come back inside. Here, I will let you in.”

  Abigail’s chest constricted. That had to be Bran. Was the body out there with him?

  Hurrying to beat her father to the door, she opened it for their porter. Bran was rumpled and slightly battered, but he didn’t appear seriously injured. Neither did he have her cadaver with him. At least, she saw no hint of it. No hamper. No sack. Nothing. “Are you hurt?”

  “What happened?” Her father skirted past her.

  The servant sent an accusing glare at Abigail. “I tried to stop them, sir.”

  “Who?”

  “The thieves, of course.” Abigail ushered the porter inside, giving his arm a meaningful pinch in the process. “Bran was probably banking all the fires when he heard the same noise we did and came to investigate. Isn’t that right, Bran?”

  Judging by the porter’s sullen expression, he was tempted to reveal her duplicity. But she implored him not to with her eyes. Surely, she could count on Bran’s loyalty. He had worked at the college for as long as she could remember. For all his reluctance to participate in her most recent scheme, he knew she had her father’s best interest at heart.

  Thankfully, he didn’t disappoint her. “Yes, Miss. I-I believe I scared them away.”

  “Whom?” her father demanded again.

  “Several men of the lowest character, that is for certain, sir.”

  “You have no idea who they were or what they wanted?”

  “Until tonight, I had never seen them before in my life.” Bransby gave Abigail another purposeful glance. “But I did hear one of them called Max.”

  Max? That didn’t make sense. She had assumed Bran had tried to hide the body. But this . . . Why would the sack ’em up men return when they had already gotten away with so much?

  Her gaze shifted to the window, which was exactly like the window in her father’s office. They had been watching her, she realized, assuming she might take the cadaver to the cellar. That was where it would likely be stored, and they could break in with ease. When she didn’t . . . they broke in, anyway.

  Only a man like Wilder would be so bold . . .

  Leaving her father to fuss over Bransby, she went to stand in the doorway that separated her father’s office from the dissection theatre. “Damn him,” she cursed under her breath. He had stolen her specimen—after taking her entire purse as payment! The miserable wretch probably carried it straight to St. Thomas’s or another college, where he had gleaned an additional nine or ten guineas. We haven’t got all night, he’d said when she suggested they sell the body elsewhere.

  She was willing to bet they had found the time.

  “Did you say something, dear?” her father called. He had just seated Bransby on Mr. Holthouse’s sofa but, hearing her say something, had come to see what she was doing.

  “No, nothing.” Abigail pasted a smile on her face to hide the panic rising inside her, and he returned to their porter. But that was when she saw it. The elephant her mother had given her. It was gone from her desk. They had stolen it, too, right out from under her nose, and she had been too caught up to notice.

  The anger she felt in that moment instantly built into a fury the likes of which she had never experienced before. And that was when she made herself a promise. Come what may, Maximillian Wilder hadn’t seen the end of her yet.

  Chapter 3

  “Thirsty work, that.” Jack Hurtsill tossed the elephant he had taken from Miss Hale’s desk into the air and caught it as they hurried through the dark, barren streets. “What do you say, lads? Shall we stop for a pint or two?”

  Max resisted the familiar impulse to land a fist in Jack’s face. The man was greedy enough to sell his own mother for a farthing. But now, more than ever, Max needed to exercise patience. He had spent too much time gaining the trust of the sack ’em up men to give himself away too soon.

  Hunched against raindrops that rang like coins against the pavement, he continued to stride a pace or two behind the gang’s leader.

  “What about you?”

  When Jack twisted around to face him, Max managed a pleasant nod. “A pint would suit me fine,” he said, echoing the sentiment of the others.

  “Then we are in luck.” Jack turned in at the Lion’s Paw, a redbrick building with long dripping eaves. Inside, a lone barmaid sat at a table, studying her nails. She glanced up when they entered but made no welcoming sign. Instead, she yawned, adjusted her stained frock and shook a man snoring next to her into wakefulness.

  “I’ve had just about enough o’ that racket,” she told him.

  The stench of sweat and gin pervaded the small, dingy tavern, competing with the tobacco smoke coming from a group of men lingering over cards in the corner. Low, slurred voices hummed on air warmed to a stifling degree by a fire that looked far livelier than any of the Paw’s patrons.

  Jack pulled in his stomach, swelled his chest and slapped the bar to gain the serving girl’s attention. “Bring us each a glass of gin, lassie, will you?”

  With a sigh, she moved to do his bidding, and they found a table next to the far wall.

  “Tonight was bloody beautiful!” Emmett exclaimed as they took their seats. The youngest member of the gang at barely sixteen, he had narrow shoulders, no facial hair and fine-boned hands. His childlike face looked as innocent as an angel’s, but he had grown up on the streets of London and could pick any pocket or lock he came across. “What luck! What timing!” he marveled. “I still can’t believe we snatched that stiff right out of the dissection room. That poor porter didn’t know what to do when we came through that window.”

  “He wasn’t hard to hold down, but the poor bugger did what he could. I was surprised by that. He even tried to come after us.” Jack’s brother Bill, who was as wide as Jack only shorter, shook his head for the porter’s pluck, then clapped Jack on the back. “But we did well for ourselves, all right. One body, two sales and no one but Hale’s lass the wiser. Like you said, she can’t even tell her father without givin’ herself away.”

  Max wasn’t excited, just relieved. As attractive as the doctor’s daughter was—with her large brown eyes and raven-colored hair—she was too willful and impulsive for her own good. And he had no kinder thoughts for her father. Why wasn’t Edwin Hale more aware of Abigail’s actions? She had no business instigating any kind of trade with Jack Hurtsill. He was as unpredictable as a man could be. Had Max been forced to protect her when Jack demanded they go back to take the body, it would have destroyed everything he had worked so hard to establish over the past several weeks.

  Jack was beginning to suspect his story as it was.

  “I’m in favor of anythin’ that saves our backs from diggin’ another hole.” This came from Tom Westbrook, a weasel of a man born with a cleft in his palate that made his speech difficult to understand. He hadn’t had an easy childhood, and it showed in his behavior as an adult. “I would have liked to see her pretty face when she found it gone,” he added, pulling his chair closer.

  “Oh yeah? Well, I doubt she’d like to see your blood
y face again. What woman would?” Jack placed the elephant he had taken on the table in front of him and slapped the serving wench on the behind as she delivered their drinks.

  “Keep your hands to yourself or leave,” she told him, but she spoke in a bored monotone. She was too used to such behavior to get angry about it.

  “Come on, Missy.” Jack pointed at Tom. “Least I don’t look like him, eh?”

  Unwilling to be drawn into the conversation, she scowled and moved away. The others chortled, and Tom fell into the same morose silence he usually hugged about him like a cloak.

  When Tom didn’t provide Jack with the fight he had been angling for, Jack forgot about baiting him and changed the subject. “Maybe we should go back and visit Miss Hale again next time her father’s out. I have half a mind to know her better.” He chuckled as he slid his thick, filthy finger over the smooth finish of her elephant.

  Barely able to stop himself from snatching the figurine away, Max hooded his eyes. “Selling cadavers makes us money. Wasting time with the surgeon’s daughter does not.” Neither did stealing essentially worthless objects, but Max let his opinion on the elephant go unstated.

  Jack’s smile slid from his face. “You won us a mighty fat purse with that play at Aldersgate College. And the lass was ripe for the pickin’; I’ll not argue with you there. But you weren’t really thinkin’, Max, not of the future.” He forgot the elephant and took a swill of his drink, cradling it fondly in one hand while the others watched. “The bitch offered us a contract and you turned your nose up at it. Now she’ll never do business with us again. She even said as much.”

  That was precisely the point. Max had done his damnedest to guarantee it. “There are plenty of other colleges. St. Joseph’s was eager enough to see us tonight. When they heard Hale was dealing with us again, they agreed to a contract. So we got a sizeable purse from Abigail and her competitor’s business. You also got your elephant.” He shrugged out of his coat. Fresh gusts of rain-laden air flooded the room with each opening of the pub door, but as the clock approached midnight, the portal remained closed for longer and longer periods of time.