by Tessa Harris
When all the clothes were removed, Thomas asked Professor Hascher to arrange for a pail of water and some cloths, allowing him a moment alone to compose himself. This would be an examination like no other. He once had heard Sir Montagu, in one of his tirades, protest to Lydia that he, Thomas, was nothing but an artisan, and now, as Thomas struggled to adjust the lawyer’s limp body on the slab, he had to acknowledge there was some truth in the words—the way he was so often obliged to shoulder a corpse, wash a body, sew up dead flesh. There were indeed times when he felt more artisan than artist. But on this occasion, he voided himself of all emotion. He had a job to do and do it he must, to the best of his ability, without stopping to think whose flesh his knife was cutting.
The Saxon professor returned after a few minutes with the requested items, and together the two men swabbed down the body in silence, performing the routine with a priestly reverence.
Thomas appreciated the quiet. He wanted to be alone with his own thoughts, and Professor Hascher, he knew, could respect that. Before them, on the dissecting table, lay the body of a man who had wished him all the ill in the world. Sir Montagu had wanted him dead, no doubt. He would have been delighted had Lupton’s shot penetrated his heart and put paid to what the lawyer regarded as his incessant meddling. How ironic, then, mused Thomas, that their fortunes had been so reversed. He checked himself. He had no intention of gloating. It was a base emotion, certainly not worthy of his profession.
Because of the paucity of light, the two men agreed to a division of labor. Thomas would take the top half of the body, and the professor would concentrate on the bottom, where Thomas had already carried out a cursory examination.
As Sir Montagu’s head had been partly severed, it rested at an odd angle on the slab. The force from behind had severed the spinal cord, but the anterior of the neck had been left intact. Thomas squeezed out a cloth and began to wipe away the congealed blood from the chin and the front of the throat. It was then that he noticed it: a laceration around the front of the neck, a thin line like a red necklace that stretched two or three inches on either side of the epiglottis. He reached for his magnifying glass to take a closer look. On the left side the skin had been incised, as if a blade had been hooked into the flesh, then drawn across it. On the right, however, the mark was little more than a scratch. The wound had not been intended to kill, of that Thomas was sure—more to frighten or, the thought occurred to him, to torture, to extract information by inducing fear and pain. He put down the glass and paused for a moment, causing Professor Hascher to look up.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Something puzzling,” replied Thomas, inspecting the strange yet superficial wound. He went over to his case and retrieved the paper knife he had found in the study. Returning to the corpse, he laid the blade of the knife across Sir Montagu’s throat. At that point he was most thankful he had already closed the hooded lids. Holding the knife slightly above the skin, he drew it across quickly to reenact the murderer’s probable motion. Yet try as he might, he could not see how the paper knife, with its straight, double-edged blade, might make such a mark. No ordinary knife had made it, he was forced to conclude, but rather a curved blade.
“A sickle?” he asked out loud.
Professor Hascher peered across. “Or some such ozer farm implement, perhaps?”
Thomas’s mind switched quickly to the Brandwick commoners who had stood to lose their land at a stroke of Sir Montagu’s pen, not to mention the coppicers and sawyers. The planned enclosure of the whole of the Boughton Estate would have put an end to their livelihoods and threatened their very existence. He pictured their woodland billhooks and spoon knives with their sharp curved blades, used to slice the larch and hazel. In the wrong hands they could kill a man with one fell blow. So many of the villagers had the wherewithal, and all had the motive to commit such a heinous act. As he examined the wound, it seemed that one of them had done just that.
“You could be right, Professor,” he replied.
Next Thomas moved down to the dead man’s wrists. There were yet more puzzling fibers. He was plucking them out with tweezers when a knock at the door broke into his routine.
“Silkstone, ’tis I,” came a booming voice.
Thomas nodded to the professor and wiped his hands on a clean cloth nearby.
“Sir Theodisius,” he greeted the coroner, opening the door.
“Good God, man. You look like death yourself.”
Thomas nodded. “I have felt better,” he said, allowing Sir Theodisius to pass.
The coroner nodded to Professor Hascher, who took his cue. “Please to excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, bobbing his snowy-white head and leaving the room. He knew that the coming conversation was not going to be easy for Thomas.
Once the two men were alone, Thomas walked over to the corpse. “I fear what I am about to show you will disturb you, sir,” he said, beckoning toward the slab.
The coroner’s brow furrowed, and he swallowed hard. He did not need to be warned. He could already tell from Thomas’s expression that what he was about to witness would unsettle him. Even though he had seen almost as many corpses during his tenure in office as he’d had hot dinners, he still balked at the sight of a dead man. The fact that this particular cadaver belonged to someone he knew in life made it all the harder for him. Nevertheless, he tugged at his waistcoat, as if to prepare himself for what was to come. He took a sturdy breath. “I am ready,” he said.
Thomas stepped aside to reveal the body, and Sir Theodisius shuddered.
“Poor devil,” muttered the coroner, shaking his head as he looked with pity on his old adversary.
“’Tis not a pretty sight, sir,” said Thomas softly. “And there is much that puzzles me.” He pointed to the red necklace around the corpse’s neck.
“What’s this?” The coroner frowned, then looked up with eyes that were questioning and troubled at the same time.
“I fear Sir Montagu was tortured, sir.” There was no easy way to say it.
“Tortured?” The word hung between the two men as both of them contemplated the barbarity of the act. The coroner could not disguise his repulsion at the thought. He began to shake.
“Who? Why?” he asked, seeking the support of a seat. Thomas fetched a nearby crate to take the coroner’s weight.
“This wound is cursory, designed to shock but not seriously injure,” the doctor explained, walking back to the slab. “Whoever inflicted it either wanted to put the fear of God into Sir Montagu or make him divulge information.”
Bringing a lamp closer to the dead man’s head, Thomas next turned the corpse onto its front to show the coroner the fatal wound. But Sir Theodisius was most reluctant to take advantage of the view.
“I shall accept your word,” he told Thomas, holding his kerchief to his mouth.
Undeterred, the anatomist peered into the crimson cavern of the gaping neck with his magnifying glass. The cut was clean. The blade was very clearly honed to be as sharp as a scalpel.
“There is no evidence of chattering,” he mused.
“Chattering?” repeated Sir Theodisius, clearly unfamiliar with the term.
Not bothering to look up from the corpse, Thomas explained: “Yes, I’ve sometimes noted a distinctive cutting pattern when a thin blade jumps slightly from side to side during use.”
“But not in this case?”
“No. The implement, whatever it was, has sliced easily through the cartilage and muscle. A straight blade cuts well enough, but if it encounters a bone, it will tend to shear it, or break it, while the curved blade usually slashes through it more cleanly.”
“So what sort of weapon might it have been?”
Continuing to examine the wound, Thomas told him: “There is no doubt in my mind that the blade was sizable and belonged to a formidable weapon that could, if desired, cut through bone.”
The coroner arched a brow. “So ’twas not the paper knife?”
Thomas straightened his
back and reached once more for the suspect knife. For a second he studied its smeared blade. A tallow stump lay cold in a nearby holder, and he ran it along the length of the knife. It scoured the wax, but nothing more.
“Not the paper knife,” repeated Thomas. Then, as if to reinforce his point, he traced the path of the blade along the wound and could tell immediately.
“But the blood on the blade!” protested Sir Theodisius.
Thomas shook his head. “It must have come from another source other than the mortal blow,” he concluded. He began to turn the corpse onto its back once more. The effort, however, was too much for him. He winced in pain. Reluctantly, the coroner stepped forward and, without a word, used his considerable weight to lever the body over.
“Thank you, sir,” said Thomas, gasping for breath.
Now standing by the corpse, Sir Theodisius seemed impervious to the anatomist’s gratitude. He was eyeing his former colleague’s ashen face and, in particular, the bloody gag that was still stuffed between his blue lips. Its presence, thought Thomas, explained why no one in the household was roused during the attack. He could just make out the initials M. M. embroidered at the corner. The kerchief was Sir Montagu’s own.
“Curious,” remarked Sir Theodisius.
Thomas followed the coroner’s gaze. “Sir?”
“If the murderer went to the trouble of gagging him, he did not intend to dispatch him with haste.”
Thomas knew the gag backed up his theory that Sir Montagu was subjected to an interrogation prior to his gruesome end. “If, as I believe, the killer was looking for something specific, a movement of the eyes or a nod of the head would have been a sufficient means of communication.”
Sir Theodisius took up the thread of his argument. “But what if the information the murderer sought was not forthcoming, either because Sir Montagu was not privy to it or because he refused to be intimidated?”
“Either way,” said Thomas, taking his forceps and carefully removing the bloody rag, “he paid the price with his life for refusing to cooperate.” And what, he asked himself privately, could be worth killing for in such a callous and fiendish manner?
Chapter 9
The thieftakers had cause to be very pleased with themselves. Later that night they apprehended not one but two wanted men in one fell swoop. Nicholas Lupton and Talland, the bald and burly ruffian, had been found at an inn in the village of Aston Abbotts. A wily hostler at the Royal Oak had suspected the men were fugitives from the way their horses had been ridden so hard. Foaming at their mouths, their fetlocks swollen, the poor creatures were clearly in need of a proper rest and watering. The hostler alerted the landlord, whose wife had heard the warnings of undesirables on the loose earlier in the day. The thieftakers were duly summoned to the suspects’ chamber as they bedded down for the night.
As was to be expected, the ruffian put up a fight, landing blows and breaking chairs in an effort to avoid capture. The other man, a more refined sort, had attempted negotiation rather than brute force. He challenged the thieftakers to call upon his good acquaintance, the Earl of Rainton, who owned a few thousand acres around the town. The earl would, he said, vouch for his good character. His claims, however, carried no weight, and he was bundled, along with his unsavory cohort, into a carriage bound for Oxford Castle, a day’s journey away, to await trial.
His own pain was proving Thomas’s most pressing enemy as he sat to write his postmortem report. Pain followed swiftly by uncertainty. Sir Arthur had requested that the work be completed with all haste. The doctor worked as best he could, trying to ignore his throbbing chest and a nagging headache that refused to shift. After finishing the document, Thomas was required to deliver it to the justice’s residence on the other side of Brandwick. Because of his injury, he prevailed upon Jacob Lovelock to harness the gig and drive him to Sir Arthur’s home, an elegant Palladian mansion framed by oaks and beeches.
Thankfully Thomas was not kept waiting long, but neither was he accorded much courtesy. The magistrate did not even bother to invite his guest to sit—an invitation that would have been most welcome. Instead he started to thumb through the report.
“I am sure you would like to read it at your leisure, sir,” ventured Thomas, watching the scowl spread across Sir Arthur’s features.
“What?” barked the magistrate. He threw the report down on the desk, sending it sliding across the polished surface. Thomas shifted uneasily as, brows dipped, Sir Arthur looked up. “I’ll see them hang for this,” he growled as he tented his fingers.
Thomas was confused. He had not laid the blame at anyone’s door in his report. “Who, sir? Who’ll hang?”
“Why, the villagers of course, Silkstone.”
Thomas, feeling the room pitch about him, steadied himself on a nearby chair. “The villagers?” he repeated.
Whether he was unaware of Thomas’s discomfort or simply chose to ignore it, Sir Arthur carried on, opening the small silver box on his desk. “’Tis clear they did this to exact revenge,” he muttered, taking out a pinch of snuff and laying it on his hand. “Sir Montagu was the man who wanted to deprive them of their livings by closing the common lands to them.”
The explanation was a wasted one. Of course Thomas was fully aware of the tension between the villagers and the Boughton Estate. He shook his head in despair as he watched the magistrate inhale the snuff, first through his right nostril, then the left.
“This does not prove who was responsible for Sir Montagu’s death, sir, only the manner of it.” He waved his hand at the document.
Sir Arthur sniffed loudly, mucus dislodging itself in the back of his throat. “And the manner of it!” He glanced away in disgust. “You say his head was almost sheared off by a curved blade, possibly a coppicer’s tool.”
Thomas had wavered before committing that possibility to paper. He feared the magistrate would seize upon it as proof of the woodlanders’ complicity. In Sir Arthur’s attitude toward the villagers, and indeed toward him, Thomas found him to be very like Sir Montagu. It was as if both men had been educated in the same school of superciliousness toward those they considered of inferior birth. “There are certain pieces of evidence that remain inconclusive,” he protested weakly. He felt too ill to put up a real fight.
Sir Arthur arched a brow. “Such as?”
Thomas leaned forward toward the document. “The rope fibers and the footprints, sir . . . I . . .”
Yet clearly the magistrate remained unmoved by the doctor’s protestations and cut him short. “’Tis well-known that your sympathies lie with the commoners, Silkstone,” he sneered. “But please, do not make excuses for them.” He handed back the report to Thomas with a glare. “Believe me, whoever murdered Sir Montagu Malthus will be given no quarter.”
As soon as he returned to Boughton Hall, Thomas took to his bed.
“You have a fever, my love,” said Lydia, seated at his bedside. Thomas knew what she said to be true. He feared his exertions had brought on an ague, and he had seen many a man die of a similar affliction after an infection of a wound. His forehead was wet with sweat, and even though his skin was searing hot, his teeth chattered with cold. He knew he would have to take charge of his own care.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to his medical case. Lydia followed his hand and fetched it. Returning to the bedside, she opened the latch as he directed her to reveal several small bottles and phials all secured in rows. “Laudanum,” he croaked. She poured him out a dose from the labeled phial and watched anxiously as he downed it. After a few minutes, his breathing steadied and his pain seemed to trouble him less until he lapsed into sleep just as night fell.
For the next few hours, he slept fitfully, sometimes calling out, sometimes mumbling. Lydia remained at his side until his fever broke shortly before dawn. He managed to settle into a better sleep, but less than three hours later, he awoke. At the sight of a maidservant opening the shutters, Thomas heaved his head up from the pillow.
“What goes on?
” he asked, shielding his eyes from the bright morning light.
“Forgive me, my love,” said Lydia, suddenly appearing at his bedside and taking his hand. She laid her other palm on his forehead and gave a satisfied nod to reassure herself. “Your fever has gone,” she told him with certainty, adding, “And there is more good news.” Thomas focused on her. “I have just had word that Mr. Lupton has been apprehended.”
Thomas rubbed his eyes. “Has he indeed?”
“They have transported him, and that brigand Talland, to Oxford Castle.” She smiled as she spoke, but her pleasure quickly turned to apprehension once more as Thomas began easing himself gently into an upright position. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I am about to get dressed,” he said, throwing her a guileless look.
“Dressed? But you need rest.”
Any thoughts of spending the day in his sickbed were suddenly banished from Thomas’s mind. He reached for her hands and smiled. “You know there is no rest for the wicked, my love,” he told her with a wry smile. “And I have much work to do.” Oxford Castle and its forbidding prison would be his next port of call.
Chapter 10
The coach carrying Thomas thundered through the huge portico of Oxford Castle and deposited him once more into the familiar domain of the fearful and the condemned. Waiting for the footman to bring the steps, he spied the ever-eager gibbet that stood waiting to receive its steady stream of victims. He wondered if Nicholas Lupton would soon be one of them.