by Tessa Harris
“Do not worry about me,” replied Thomas, reaching over to pat the old man’s gnarled hands. He suspected he did not know about Sir Montagu’s death. Without access to the newspapers, which Thomas usually read to him in the evenings, there was every chance he did not. He would inform him later. It would come as a huge shock.
“And what of you, sir?” he asked. “What news do you have?”
Carruthers huffed and craned his neck toward the door where Mistress Finesilver, the pinch-faced housekeeper, was crossing the threshold.
“We have plenty of news, do we not, Mistress Finesilver?” he called out. There was a mocking note in his voice.
The woman, who had entered the room with a tray of glasses, threw her master a peevish look. “That we do, sir,” she replied grudgingly. “Rushed off my feet, I am,” she mumbled, setting down the clean glasses on the side table nearby. She poured a tumbler of brandy.
“How so?” inquired Thomas.
“My brother is staying with us,” came the old anatomist’s excited reply. “He arrived at the end of last month.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together like a small child at Christmastide.
“The professor?” Thomas took a glass of brandy from the housekeeper.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Carruthers, grinning broadly. “’Tis many years since I last saw dear Oliver.” Despite being completely blind, the old anatomist insisted he still “saw” people in his mind’s eye. “About a year before I lost my sight, in fact,” he added.
“He is an Oriental scholar, is he not?”
“Indeed. Most learned in Sanskrit.”
“The ancient Hindu language,” ventured Thomas.
“Quite so. He is staying for a few weeks, I am pleased to say, although the Lord knows he has been out all hours visiting old friends. He is away tonight in Oxford, although I expect him back tomorrow.”
Thomas nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard the Indian climate is very unforgiving.”
Carruthers agreed. “Yes, Oliver suffers constantly in the heat, and of course he is not getting any younger.”
“None of us is,” mumbled Mistress Finesilver, handing the anatomist a brandy.
The old anatomist tilted his head and smiled in her direction. “But like mutton, dear lady, the longer you stew, the more tender you become. Yes?”
Thomas could not help but smile, much to the housekeeper’s obvious annoyance.
“Flattery will not air the beds or do the laundry, sir,” came the barbed reply, and with a derisory flick of her duster, Mistress Finesilver left the room. She did not slam the door behind her, but she did not close it quietly, either.
“She is not a happy woman,” Dr. Carruthers told Thomas once he knew the housekeeper was out of earshot. Mistress Finesilver believed her lot to be difficult at the best of times. Circumstances so very often conspired against her. It might rain on wash day, or the milk might curdle, or she might find ants on the sugar cone—they seemed to be everywhere this summer—but still she was expected to soldier on. Now, however, she was almost at the end of her tether, according to the old anatomist.
“Oh?” Thomas had always believed that she considered her glass in life not just half empty, but completely dry. “What ails her now?”
“Sajiv, my brother’s naukar.”
“His servant?”
“She is most put out by him,” the old anatomist confided. “They do things very differently in India, you see.”
“I am sure,” replied Thomas sharply.
Carruthers sensed that Thomas was troubled. He shifted in his chair, easing himself back. “But you have intelligence of a confidential nature to impart,” he said.
Thomas took a deep breath. He had always wondered at the old man’s perception, as if his wits were sharpened by his lack of physical vision. He swallowed down a gulp of brandy to give him courage to deliver his news as much as to relieve the constant, nagging pain in his chest.
“I fear, sir, that I do have intelligence, but it is not confidential. It is already the talk of taverns and coffeehouses in both Oxfordshire and London.”
Dr. Carruthers’s expression suddenly changed. “And it concerns you, dear boy?”
“It concerns Sir Montagu.”
The old anatomist grasped the white stick at his side and thumped the floor with it, as if the very mention of the lawyer’s name riled hm. “What’s that scoundrel done now?” he growled.
Thomas leaned forward. There was no easy way to say it. “He has done nothing, sir.”
“Oh?”
“He is dead.”
The old anatomist jerked his head back in his seat. “Good God!” he exclaimed. For a moment he appeared stunned until finally he asked: “How? The aneurysm?” Carruthers knew that Thomas had operated to unblock an artery in Sir Montagu’s leg a few months back.
Thomas shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Then what?”
Thomas’s reply was measured. “I fear he was murdered.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, and the sudden motion caused the old anatomist to spill his brandy in his lap. Thomas quickly relieved him of his glass and produced a handkerchief.
“By whom, dear boy? By whom? Surely not the Brandwick commoners?”
Thomas, mopping his mentor’s breeches, sighed. “I am convinced the people of the village have nothing to do with it, although the local magistrate thought differently. He rounded up those who protested over the enclosure of the Boughton Estate and threw them into Oxford Jail again.”
Carruthers flapped away Thomas’s hands. “Don’t bother about that. Just pour me another drink,” he told him.
Thomas obeyed and refilled his own glass from the decanter, too.
“But now the men are released?”
Thomas decided to tell his mentor the whole story from the beginning: how Lupton and Talland had first been suspected but now were cleared, and how Captain Farrell’s grave had been robbed of the diamond ring by Joseph Makepeace, acting for some villain whose identity was not yet known.
Dr. Carruthers paused, his razor-sharp mind whirring away. “So tell me what you have found,” said Thomas’s mentor after a moment. “You have conducted a postmortem on Malthus?”
The questions came thick and fast. Thomas handed Carruthers his brandy and took another gulp from his own glass. As the evening drew on, he started to relate the chronology of the terrible misfortune that had befallen his old adversary and the effect it was having on Lydia.
“It was she who found Sir Montagu in his study, blood everywhere,” he said.
“The poor child!” interjected Carruthers. “She must have been distraught.”
“I fear so, sir. The whole household is shocked beyond measure.”
“Quite so. Quite so.” The old anatomist tapped the floor with his stick. “And cause of death?”
Thomas’s breath juddered in his chest, causing him to tense in pain. “His head was half severed from his neck, sir.”
“By Christ!” At the news the old anatomist almost leapt from his chair, slopping more brandy onto his lap.
“A single blow with a sharp blade cut the spinal column in half.”
“Good God!” cried Carruthers.
Watching the fire burn low, Thomas related the findings of the postmortem on Sir Montagu: how he believed the blade to be curved, and the odd fibers he had found embedded in the superficial wounds around the wrists.
“There was something else, sir,” continued Thomas.
“Oh?”
“A shallow cut around the front of the neck. As if the blade had first been held to his throat.”
Carruthers gasped. “So you think he may have been threatened initially?”
Thomas nodded. “His murderer, it appears, tried to obtain information from him before he hacked off his head.”
The old anatomist nodded, then sipped his brandy in thought. “And now you will tell me whom you suspect of committing such a terrible act.”
Thomas always
felt flattered by his mentor’s unwavering faith in his abilities. On this occasion, however, he had to disappoint. “I wish it were so,” he replied.
“Come, come, dear fellow,” pressed Carruthers. “If I know you, you are at least formulating a theory.”
Thomas let out a sharp laugh. “One is taking shape,” he replied, “but it is only embryonic at this stage, sir.”
The old anatomist drained his glass and held it out to Thomas with the ardent look of a man who had no intention of going anywhere until the whole story had been told. “Then I will let it gestate. In the meantime you can pour me another and tell me all about the postmortem,” he said.
Chapter 18
As the shadows on the wall lengthened, Thomas relayed to Dr. Carruthers not only the graphic details of the postmortem on Sir Montagu’s corpse, but also the shocking desecration of Michael Farrell’s grave. The old anatomist listened intently, interjecting and querying now and again. Soon, however, it was clear that the brandy and his advanced age were taking their toll. Thomas ached to settle in his own bed, too. He was relieved when the mantel clock struck ten.
“So there you have the case so far, sir,” he concluded. He hoped his mentor would take the hint and allow them both to retire. The brandy had eased the nagging pain a little, but he knew he would be unable to sleep unless he took something stronger.
“A most interesting and perplexing one,” came Carruthers’s considered reply. Holding out his hand, he counted off the evidence that Thomas had imparted on his fingers. “First the coir fibers, the footprints, and a curved blade, then the depraved theft of the diamond from Farrell’s grave. Surely there must be some connection between the two crimes?”
“If there is, I have yet to find it, sir,” replied Thomas. “As I said, the grave was robbed several days before the murder, and until we find the man who commissioned Makepeace . . .” He broke off as the old anatomist tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a yawn.
“A task for tomorrow, I feel,” Dr. Carruthers suggested, trying to heave himself out of his armchair. His old joints cracked like unseasoned wood on a bonfire.
Thomas was glad when he finally pulled the cord to summon the housekeeper. Escorting his mentor to the door and into Mistress Finesilver’s care, the young doctor bade him good night. From the study doorway, Thomas watched him shuffle across the hall, but before he began to climb the stairs, his mentor paused.
“It is good to have you back, dear fellow,” he said with a smile.
“It is good to be back, sir,” he replied.
Thomas’s gaze followed the old man as he struggled up the stairs to his bedroom; then, helping himself to a lighted candle from the console table, he lifted the key to the laboratory from a hook in the hallway. He needed to go in search of more laudanum.
The night was still and balmy. As he crossed the courtyard, Thomas could hear the usual sounds of the city: the watchman calling the half hour and the trundle of the soil truck as it made its way along the cobbles. Reaching the laboratory, he turned the key in the lock. It groaned open. The light from the street lamp above shone through the high windows and went some way to illuminating his path. In the gloom a lantern flared into life from his candle flame. The lofty room was lined with shelves crammed with jars and goglets full of all manner of apothecarial ingredients. Pungent and exotic smells exuded from their lids and lingered on the stale air.
Thomas headed straight for a small cage in the corner where he kept his pet rat. The creature went by the name of Franklin, in honor of his father’s polymath friend. He had been rescued from the dissecting table four years back, much to the housekeeper’s dismay. Yet Mistress Finesilver, no doubt cajoled by Dr. Carruthers, had been true to her word and always fed and watered the white rodent in his absence. His candle aloft, Thomas peered into the cage and smiled to see the rat alive, seemingly well and keen to embrace freedom.
Franklin darted out as soon as his master opened the little door, before scuttling along the workbench. Thomas reached into his coat pocket for his napkin. He had saved some scraps for his own light supper, and the rat ate them eagerly. The sight brought a smile to his lips, but it was not long before another twinge of pain reminded Thomas of his mission. A red-hot poker plunged into his chest, doubling him up for a moment. Once recovered, he scanned the shelves, narrowing his eyes to read the labels on the bottles. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for. Carefully he reached up toward a bottle and winced as the pain returned with the stretch.
“Laudanum,” he said out loud. But something was wrong. He weighed the bottle in his hand. It felt light. Too light. He uncorked it and would have poured its contents into a nearby glass had he not found the receptacle empty.
“Mistress Finesilver,” he muttered. The housekeeper was rather too partial to her tipple. He had always doled out a good dose of tincture whenever she asked for it, but now, it seemed, she was taking liberties, obviously thinking it her place to help herself when she felt like it. She had been at the bottle. By the looks of it, in his absence, she had consumed it liberally, so now there was none left for him. He would have to make up another batch for his own ministrations, even though the mixture would take several hours to steep before it was ready.
Slightly peeved at the discovery, Thomas fumbled for the key to the store cupboard. He went inside. Thankfully the staple ingredients were easily to hand: a flagon of white wine spirit, a pot of saffron, and two phials of essential oils, one of cinnamon, the other of cloves. There was just one more thing required for the manufacture of laudanum. He reached for a canister. Again he was careful in his movements, and he managed to retrieve the jar without any further distress and left the cupboard with his arms full of vessels and phials. Setting them down on the workbench, he gently prized off the lid of the canister. It was then that it hit him. A vapor wafted up so sweet and enticing that he recognized it immediately. A memory was triggered. Suddenly he saw Sir Montagu’s bloody corpse at the desk once more. It was the smell that had pervaded the study where the body was found. It was the smell of opium. “Of course,” he said to himself at the realization.
Holding the recollection in his mind, he had just reached for his weighing scales when he heard the door creak on its hinges at the far end of the laboratory. He turned.
“Who’s there?” he called, squinting toward where a silhouette had suddenly appeared on the wall behind him. He listened for the tapping of Dr. Carruthers’s stick. There was none. “Sir? Is that you?” he called out. No reply, but footsteps approaching through the gloom. As his heart raced, he reached for a coal shovel by the grate.
“Who goes there?” he called out again. He lifted the shovel aloft as the cloaked figure of a man moved toward the pool of lamplight on the flagstones.
“Lupton!” The steward’s familiar features emerged from the shadows.
“I am glad to find you, Silkstone,” came the reply.
Thomas laid down the shovel and walked toward him. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he asked. Lupton was a free man. Why, Thomas wondered, would he pay him a visit?
Lupton removed his hat and ruffled his sweat-dampened hair. “I cannot return to Boughton,” he said. “And I needed to see you.” There was a note of humility in his voice that surprised Thomas.
“You have information?”
Lupton nodded. “Perhaps.”
Thomas guided him over to the stools by the workbench and lit another lamp so that he could see his old adversary’s face clearly. He had the flushed complexion of a man who had ridden hard. Across his body was slung a leather pouch, the sort used by messengers. He settled himself down, still a little out of breath from his exertions.
“Well?” Thomas was in no mood for courtesies.
Lupton sighed. “I spent many a long hour in prison racking my brains about Sir Montagu’s murder,” he began. “I was so caught up in trying to push through the plans for enclosure that I became blind to everything else. But there was something I did recall. S
omething unusual.” He seemed, to Thomas, to have the air of a penitent about him.
“Yes?” he pressed.
“A few days before the attack a stranger called at Boughton.”
“A stranger?” repeated Thomas.
Lupton lifted his hand, as if to stem the tide of questioning. “The butler dealt with him and ’tis a pity I did not.”
Thomas looked puzzled. “Howard did not mention anything to me.”
“And why should he have? There was no reason to link the two events.”
Thomas nodded. Such testimony stacked up with his findings. “The evidence showed that the grave was disturbed several days before the murder,” he confirmed.
Lupton continued. “Howard told me a gentleman called and asked to see Mr. Lavington.”
“Lavington!” echoed Thomas, his face suddenly blanching.
Lupton nodded. “When Howard told him Lavington was, in his words, ‘deceased,’ the stranger apparently became vexed. He asked when and where, but did not wait for a reply.”
Thomas stroked his chin in thought. “And Howard did not think to call you?”
Lupton shook his head. “It was just after the riots in the village and I’d told him I was not to be disturbed.”
Thomas pictured the steward surrounded by petitions, the blood of innocent villagers on his hands after the recemt mayhem.
“And Lydia was not informed?”
Lupton’s neck, slung so low into his shoulders, suddenly straightened. “I would not trouble her ladyship,” he replied indignantly. “You forget I was, in effect, the master of the estate.”
Thomas drew his lips into a thin line. He was also all too aware that, despite his denial, Nicholas Lupton still harbored feelings for Lydia. For a moment the unspoken truth hung in the air between them. “Of course,” he said finally. “So, do we know the name of this stranger?”
A look of self-satisfaction scudded across Lupton’s face as he reached into his frock coat pocket. “I made inquiries. He stayed the night at the Three Tuns and signed the register.”