by Emily Organ
“The missing body of the man I asked you about,” I ventured. “Is it possible that it was taken to Cambridge?”
“Only if I ’ad a record of ’im, and I ain’t got no record of ’im. I got all the papers, though. I’m careful with me papers.”
“So you’ve no idea what might have happened to him?”
“None. Yer asked me that afore, and I still ain’t got no idea.”
“Where did you get these bodies from?” I asked, gesturing toward the coffins on the cart.
“Finchley. They send a fair few up to Cambridge. You can ask ’em yourself. There ain’t no funny business ’ere. They got their papers, I got my papers and everythin’s in order.”
“Good,” I said. “Thank you for speaking to us, Mr Finlay.”
He doffed his cap and continued with his work.
We walked along the platform toward the main entrance of the station. The crowd thronged busily, unaware of the macabre cargo being loaded onto one of the express trains.
“We can’t allow them to get away with it,” I said.
“I know it’s an unpleasant business, but these undertakers aren’t breaking the law.”
“I realise that, but some will be. I just know that they will be! The medical schools pay good money for corpses, and that’s why Joseph Connolly’s body is unaccounted for. How many others have vanished the way he did? Please will you do something for me?”
“Yes, Penny. Am I likely to regret saying that?”
“Would you please speak to the poor law inspector, Mr Weyland? I don’t think he took me seriously, probably because I’m a woman. But he’ll have to listen to an inspector from Scotland Yard. Please, James, will you ask him to investigate?”
Chapter 34
“Scandalous, that’s what it is,” I overheard Mrs Garnett saying as I arrived home that evening and climbed the steps to the front door. “You can’t trust anyone with anything these days.”
She was talking in the doorway to her friend Mrs Wilkinson, a stout woman with a gleaming white bonnet and a thick woollen shawl.
“What’s Mr Torrance done now?” I asked with a smile as I reached them.
“Mr Torrance? What do you mean, Miss Green?”
“I heard you mention the word scandalous and that no one can be trusted these days.”
“Oh, that had nothing to do with Mr Torrance,” replied my landlady. “Mrs Wilkinson has just told me the awful news.”
“What awful news?” I asked, swiftly forgetting my rather poor quip about Mr Torrance.
“The coffin with the sand in it.”
“Sandbags,” corrected Mrs Wilkinson. “Two sandbags, ter be exact.”
“A coffin with sandbags in it?” I asked. “Where was it discovered?”
“In the dead ’ouse at the work’ouse. The bodysnatchers ’ave taken ’er.”
“Her? Who do you mean?”
“The young lady what was in the coffin! They’ve taken ’er out and put sandbags in so as no one’d be any the wiser.”
I readied myself to head back down the steps and return to the newsroom to report on the story.
“Where did this happen, Mrs Wilkinson?”
“Down Shoreditch Work’ouse.”
I gave a sigh. “Thank you, Mrs Wilkinson.”
A man in a dark blue porter’s uniform stood on the workhouse steps in front of a crowd of people and reporters in The Land of Promise.
“I ain’t never known nuffink like it!” he stated. “We brought ’er over to the dead ’ouse in a shell and then we put ’er in the coffin. Chalked ’er name on it an’ nailed the lid down like we always does.”
“So someone has pulled the nails out, removed Miss Lloyd’s corpse, placed bags of sand in the coffin and nailed the lid down again?” asked a reporter.
“Yeah! That’s what they done!”
“Bodysnatchers, Mr Plunkett?”
“Yeah, they’d ’ave ter be!”
“When would someone have had an opportunity to get into the dead house, Mr Plunkett?” I called out.
“They must’ve got in durin’ the night!”
“Was there any sign that the door had been forced open?” I asked.
“Nah. They must’ve picked the lock or got ’old o’ the key.”
“Who keeps the key?” asked another reporter.
“The master ’as one and I got one. No one else ’as ’em.”
“And where do you keep yours?” someone else asked.
“On me belt, and I keeps it on an ’ook in me room night-times.”
“Could someone have taken it from your room?”
“I dunno ’ow, but I s’pose they could of!”
Following the many questions and answers between the reporters and Mr Plunkett, we were able to establish that Miss Sarah Lloyd’s body had been taken to the dead house at half-past six the previous evening. Mr Plunkett had placed her in the coffin and nailed the lid closed. He had locked the dead house up at seven o’clock in the evening, and he presumed that it had remained locked until half past three the following morning when he was awoken to admit the body of a man into the dead house. Once this was done, the door was locked again at four o’clock, and Mr Plunkett was certain that all had remained quiet there until he returned to the dead house at seven o’clock.
Having been notified of the death of their daughter, Miss Lloyd’s family had arrived at the dead house at four o’clock that afternoon. Prior to their arrival, two more bodies had been brought to the dead house, and the undertaker’s cart had arrived to take away five other coffins for burials. Mr Plunkett had supervised this activity without anything having raised his suspicions. The coffin of Miss Lloyd did not appear to have been disturbed in any way. He stated that there was no chance that any coffin might have been confused with another because the name of the deceased was chalked upon it.
Mr Plunkett said that Miss Lloyd’s family members had been greatly distressed that the coffin lid was nailed down and that they would be unable to see their daughter one last time. When the family returned at half past seven that evening, Mr Plunkett had no idea what they planned to do. He had assumed that they wished to spend a little more time with their daughter and had left them alone with her while he walked around the yard smoking his pipe.
Just ten minutes later he heard screams and ran to the dead house, where he found the family in great distress. He was horrified to see that the lid had been removed from the coffin, and even more horrified when he saw that the woman’s body was missing. He checked that the name he had chalked onto the side was correct, and it was. Mr Plunkett’s first thought was that the wrong coffin had been opened, but even if it had he couldn’t imagine how or why bags of sand should have been placed inside.
The other coffins in the dead house at the time were opened and checked, and were found to contain the bodies of the appropriate people. The police at Commercial Street had been summoned, and Inspector Ferguson and his men were making enquiries at the workhouse.
“It weren’t nuffink ter do wiv me!” protested the dead house porter. “I didn’t know nuffink abaht it!”
As the reporters clamoured around him with more questions, confusion reigned outside the entrance of the workhouse. I was expecting Mr Lennox or Mr Hale to appear and impose some sort of order, but when they weren’t forthcoming I surmised that they were probably busy speaking to the police officers.
I pushed my way through the crowd to the entrance and tentatively headed into the hallway. With no other staff about I continued, unchallenged, along the covered walkway. As I walked, I tried to comprehend what had happened. I wondered where Miss Lloyd’s relatives were and how they must have been feeling. She appeared to have been a young woman, and I was interested to know what the cause of death had been.
Might her death have been suspicious?
Chapter 35
The dead house was a windowless brick structure at the far end of the yard from the infirmary. It seemed I wasn’t the only person to have w
andered in, for a large group of people had gathered outside the little building, some of them holding lanterns. In the flickering light I could just make out the grey uniforms of the inmates and the blue uniforms of the police constables. There was also an assortment of onlookers and a few reporters hanging around with their notebooks. I joined the crowd, hoping to hear more about this sad occurrence.
There was a lull in the noise around me as the door of the dead house opened and out stepped the bushy-whiskered chairman of the board of guardians, Mr Buller. He was accompanied by Mr Hale, Inspector Ferguson and James.
“This is a despicable outrage!” fumed the chairman in response to the questions the reporters shouted at him. “What sort of world do we live in when the remains of our dead cannot be respected? Sealed coffins are kept under lock and key, yet we must suffer such atrocities!”
“Where do you intend to start looking for Miss Lloyd’s body, Mr Buller?” someone asked.
“That is a matter for the police now, and I trust that Inspector Ferguson and his men will do all they can to assist with the inquiry, with the help of Scotland Yard, of course. I trust that the remains of the poor woman will soon be found and returned to her family.”
Mr Buller pushed his way through the crowd and strode over to the walkway that led to the administration block. Most of the reporters and some of the onlookers followed him. Other people tried to access the dead house door, which was closely guarded by two constables.
James hadn’t yet seen me in the gloomy yard, so I slowly approached him.
“Penny!” he said with a weak smile. “It’s an unpleasant business this, don’t you think?”
“I wonder whether poor Miss Lloyd’s body was being loaded onto that train at Liverpool Street station,” I replied.
“You think Finlay could be behind this?”
“It’s possible. Has he been here today?”
“Apparently Mr Hicks, another undertaker, visited at midday today.”
“I spoke to his son about Mr Connolly a matter of days ago. Is he the undertaker who took away the five coffins?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“But there was no sign of Finlay?”
“Not that we know of yet.”
Inspector Ferguson joined us, giving me a brief nod of acknowledgement.
“What are your thoughts on all this, Inspector?” I asked him.
“I believe someone has stolen the corpse in order to benefit financially,” he replied. “My concern at the present time is that this could already be a common practice. It just so happened that the Lloyd family decided to prise the lid off the coffin in this instance.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said James. “And that’s to exhume all of the workhouse’s recent burials.”
I gave a shudder.
“Most of them are in Tower Hamlets cemetery,” replied the Inspector. “I’ll have to ask the coroner’s permission.”
“But how many will you exhume?” I asked. “The undertaker, Mr Finlay, told me there are between three and five burials from the workhouse each day.”
“It sounds as though quite a few will need to be exhumed,” said James. “Just a fortnight’s worth of burials could number… let me see now.” He paused to make the calculation. “Between forty and seventy coffins! And I’d say that you would need to exhume more than just the past fortnight. You’d probably have to go back a few months.”
Inspector Ferguson wiped his brow. “Good grief! What a thought. There’ll be hundreds of them! And it will all be a thorough waste of our time if we don’t find any more bags of sand.”
“But a necessary endeavour all the same,” said James. “We need to establish whether what has happened to Miss Lloyd was an isolated case or part of a wider pattern.”
“What a horrible job,” said Inspector Ferguson with a tut and a shake of his head.
“I’m sure the cemetery staff will be able to help your men,” said James. “Meanwhile, what of the medical schools? We should have each school of dissection checked for the body of Miss Lloyd.”
“We should indeed.”
“I’d be happy to enquire with the medical colleges if you’re busy overseeing the exhumations, Inspector Ferguson,” James volunteered.
The inspector gave a dry laugh. “I wonder who’s got the rum job there!”
“How many schools of dissection are there in London, I wonder?” said James.
“Dr Kemp, the medical officer, might know,” I suggested.
Dr Kemp told us more about the young lady whose body had been stolen.
“Miss Sarah Lloyd was a young lady of twenty-two. She was admitted to the workhouse two weeks ago,” he said. “She was suffering from bronchitis when she arrived, and sadly her condition worsened. She was admitted to the infirmary three days ago, and we treated her as well as we could. However, her constitution had already been greatly weakened and unfortunately she died early yesterday evening.
“I certified that her death had been due to bronchitis, and the porters arrived with the shell, which they used to transport her to the dead house.” He wiped his brow. “We followed the usual routine when someone dies, and I really can’t understand how this has happened. How could someone just take her? And when I think of that girl’s poor family… They shouldn’t have removed the coffin lid, of course, but we should be grateful that they disobeyed our orders and did so, otherwise we never would have found this out, would we?”
“There’s a possibility, then,” I ventured, “that this has happened before?”
“Good grief, Miss Green, I would hope not! But when the coffin lids are nailed down as they are, and a bodysnatcher has the audacity to break into the dead house and open the coffins in that way… Yes, I suppose it could have happened before and we would have been none the wiser!”
The senior nurse, Miss Turner, joined us. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. “It has upset us all deeply,” she added. “Everybody who works here, and the inmates too.”
“So despite the coffin lid being nailed down,” said James, “the coffin was actually opened twice. Once by the person who took Miss Lloyd’s remains and once by the family.”
“That appears to be the case,” replied Dr Kemp. “I must say that the family members of the deceased are usually a little upset that they are unable to see their loved ones for a final time, but the coffins have always been nailed shut for sanitary reasons. There is a large population of people here in a confined space, and I’m sure you don’t need me to explain to you how swiftly disease can spread in such conditions, especially when many of the inmates are already in poor health. They’re much more susceptible to it than other people. We have insisted on the coffins being sealed shut for some years now, but this is the first time I have ever known a family remove the lid themselves.”
“A bodysnatcher, Dr Kemp, would have to be in league with a school of dissection, wouldn’t you say?” I asked.
“No reputable medical school would conspire with the likes of bodysnatchers these days,” he replied. “There’s simply no need. An arrangement is in place to supply the medical schools, and I should add that this workhouse does not partake in it. Everyone receives a proper funeral and burial here.”
“Is there any reason, other than dissection, why someone would steal a body?” I asked.
“I can think of no reason at all why anyone would wish to steal this poor woman’s remains. But clearly someone had a reason, and it is the job of the police service to find it out.”
“We’ll need to check the records at the medical schools,” said James. “Are you able to tell me how many there are?”
“I can’t recall the number off the top of my head, but I can certainly list them for you,” replied the doctor. “There’s St Bartholomew’s, St Thomas’s, Guy’s, London Hospital College, St Mary’s, Westminster, St George’s, Charing Cross, Middlesex, King’s College and University College. Not forgetting the Women’s School of Medicine, of course.”
/> “That’s twelve altogether,” said James once he had written them down. “We’ll need to send officers to each of them.”
“Aren’t there also night schools?” I asked. “I’m sure Dr Macpherson at St Bartholomew’s mentioned them.”
“That’s a good point,” said the doctor. “I know of one in Holborn, which is run by Dr Clayton, but there may be others I don’t know about. Do excuse the bluntness of what I’m about to say, Inspector, but your men will need to be quick if the body of Miss Lloyd is to be recovered in one piece.”
“What about Mr Hicks, the undertaker?” I said to James once we had left the infirmary. “He visited the dead house and took away five coffins. Perhaps some of them were swapped around without Mr Plunkett realising.”
“But the coffin with the bags of sand in had Miss Lloyd’s name chalked on the side.”
“Then the undertaker must have swapped her body for the bags of sand.”
“You think the undertaker may be behind this?”
“He might be. If five coffins were removed that day there would have been some toing and froing, and general confusion. Perhaps the swap was carried out while that was going on? They could have removed Miss Lloyd in one of the coffins and those in charge would have been none the wiser. Do we know whether Mr Plunkett was present for the entire time the undertaker was there?”
“I can only assume that he was, but maybe he wasn’t. He may have simply unlocked the door for the undertaker and then left him to it. After all, he presumably knows the undertaker and his men well as they visit the place every day.”
“Which makes it more likely that he would have left them to get on with the job unhampered, doesn’t it? If they turn up and do the same job every day, they would hardly require any supervision. I can imagine there are records to cross-check with each other, but nothing more than that.”
James nodded. “It’s the most likely explanation we have as to how Miss Lloyd’s body was removed from the dead house. Any other form of removal would have aroused suspicion. It means that the undertaker would need to have brought a coffin with him to put Miss Lloyd in.”