This, of course, was no great psychic revelation, though I did wonder if I’d somehow underestimated how much of the world, of me, Aunt Nola understood. To whom did she refer that tethered me, in particular? Who would remain out of reach? Aidan? Mary?
Possibly Jack?
I chose my next words with great care. “If this card were pulled for someone else, does it have any other connotations? Ones that don’t apply to me specifically, I mean?”
She tapped her chin and looked up and to the right, consulting her spirit guides, or more likely, her memory. “Punishment, sometimes. Redemption—no, not that—atonement. Your hanged man. He did something. Something for which he must be disciplined.”
It was a blessing Nola didn’t know just how much punishment poor Mr. Sawyer had been forced to endure.
The lace of her veil gritted against my lips as I kissed her forehead. With a heavy heart, I promised to run her a bath this evening with a bit of lavender and some Epsom salts. Sometimes, if I didn’t bathe her, she forgot to do so herself. I’d been at work so often of late, the smell of sweat and mothballs alerted me that she’d waited too long.
Guilt seized me. Maybe I’d need to ask Polly, our maid-of-all-work, if she could take on more days a week than three. Perhaps Nola had regressed enough to need constant care.
With the thought weighing heavily on me, I bid my aunt goodbye and rushed down the block to Royal Hospital Road, where I was sure to find a hansom cab to conduct me to the Royal London Hospital. There, in the basement, Dr. George Bagster Phillips was slicing into Mr. Sawyer’s corpse.
10
If I had to assign Dr. Phillips’ examination room a signature scent, it would be eau de terror. That is to say, the acrid, chemical, almost metallic mélange of aromas had the precise effect on the olfactory senses as mortal fear did. As sharp and repugnant as a mouthful of nails. There was’s something loamy about it, as well. Most likely the result of a moist basement and the distinct threat of decaying flesh.
Doctor Phillips’ occupation consisted of racing to keep ahead of decomposition. Of delaying it as long as possible until he might interpret the final signs of life.
He was another of the strange few who profited from the spilling of blood.
I arrived early to the coroner’s office, as I knew Aberline would be precisely punctual, and I wanted a chance to converse alone with Dr. Phillips. I thought he might have some insight into the beads I still held in my pocket, and I absolutely couldn’t discuss them in front of the inspectors. They’d be confiscated as evidence, and the subsequent outcomes of such a thing all boded ill for me.
The Hammer or the Blade would be instantly notified, if Croft didn’t string me up for tampering with his scene first.
Dr. Phillips and I shared a fate, and therefore, we could share indiscretions, as well. There was a black market for corpses, you see, funded by none other than the most esteemed medical colleges in London. Aspiring surgeons and anatomists were in dire need of bodies for dissection, surgical practice, and the articulation of skeletons and the like.
And so, on occasion, I supplied Dr. Phillips with the bodies the Hammer delivered to me, and he outfitted the universities. We split the generous fee.
If I were going to risk breaking the law for the Hammer, I might as well get reimbursed double.
Behind the white screen partitioning the active autopsy from the rest of the cavernous morgue, two men stood over a table, their gestures reminding me of some macabre marionette show. Shadows with scalpels and blustery voices.
“I couldn’t more heartily disagree with you, Bond,” Dr. Phillips said. “This isn’t at all an act of rage brought on by erotic mania. This sort of crime is the product of strategic calculation and the dehumanization of the victim.”
Upon noting the masculine conversation, I released a disappointed sigh.
So much for consulting with Dr. Phillips alone.
Subsequently, I suppressed a gag as I’d forgotten to breathe through my mouth. It took several moments of stabilizing myself with the handle of a long drawer used for the storage of bodies to fortify me against an encroaching bout of hysteria for which my sex was often condescended to.
It was as much a mystery to me as anyone how I could stand the natural odors of death, but not the chemical ones.
Or why, every time I visited a morgue, I expected eight tables lined before me instead of one. Sixteen feet tenting sterile white shrouds.
Another memory. Another nightmare superimposed over my reality. The exterminated Mahoney Clan.
And I, the lone survivor.
“Let’s not forget, Phillips, that my area of expertise is profiling violent offenders.” Dr. Thomas Bond, and Dr. George Phillips conversed in the way of men in their profession, eschewing their titles in private for the sake of brevity, or so I assumed.
“Pish.” Dr. Phillip’s shadow gestured with his scalpel. “Offender profiling is an infant science not yet old enough to be weaned from its mother. And let us not forget that your profile did exactly nothing to aid in the Ripper’s apprehension. Why the inspectors summoned you to my hospital—to my morgue—is beyond my scope of comprehension.”
Bond clasped his hands behind his back. “As is the subtle and complex science of the brain,” he muttered.
“Why you—!”
To advertise my presence, I disturbed a tray of metal instruments adjacent to an empty examination table, exclaiming my hasty apologies immediately afterward.
I tried not to smile too broadly as both men popped a head around opposite sides of the white screen. Two of London’s preeminent surgeons looking as sheepish as caught-out, quarreling schoolboys.
“What ho, Miss Mahoney?” Dr. Phillips rested a stabilizing finger on the used scalpel in his left hand. “I heard the word Ripper whispered over Mr. Sawyer, here, and was certain your shadow would quickly follow.”
“You know me well, sir.” I bobbed a curtsy, noting that, by all appearances, Dr. Phillips had gotten just about as much sleep as I had. Beneath his surgeon’s apron, his vest and shirtsleeves were rumpled, and his cravat askew. The pomade in his hair must have been from last night as it hadn’t withstood his hat this morning, the strands jutting in eccentric angles.
Strange, as he was generally such a tidy man, in both action and appearance.
Dr. Thomas Bond, on the other hand, was the picture of a British surgeon. Dapper, crisp and handsome in the way one’s father was, clad in a dark, woolen suit, starched collar, and a crimson cravat. With Dr. Phillip’s impressive muttonchops and Dr. Bond’s dashing mustache, they almost had a full beard between them.
“Dr. Bond.” I nodded. “It’s been too long.”
“Miss Mahoney.” He curtly kissed the air above my glove. Some would consider the gesture the height of propriety. Others would consider it an insult. It was impossible to tell how Dr. Bond meant the gesture.
He was another man, aside from Croft, whom I found difficult to properly read.
“How long has it been?” he asked in a voice as cool and smooth as the steel table upon which the corpse of Frank Sawyer was splayed before us.
“Since the Kelly inquest, I believe.” Before he could offer a demurral, I reclaimed my hand and maneuvered around the screen. I positioned myself lengthwise along the table where Dr. Phillips was posted at the head, and Dr. Bond at the foot.
“Please, don’t let me interrupt your…discussion.”
“You know us doctors,” Phillips said mildly. “Prefer a good debate to an actual discussion.”
I inspected the dishes into which Mr. Sawyer’s organs had been separated. His brain, the only organ left inside the body by the killer, had been extracted—presumably by Dr. Phillips—and placed in its own container. It gleamed wetly beneath the Royal Hospital’s new electric lights. Like a maze, the brain. A tangle of mysteries. I wondered if we’d ever truly survey enough of it to make a decent map. To comprehend all the journeys one must take through the labyrinthine ripples to find one’s sel
f.
“This is highly irregular,” Bond observed, though from what I could tell, he conveyed more curiosity then censure. “Miss Mahoney is neither a nurse nor the police. Should she be privy to all this death and blood?”
“I’m a Post-Mortem Sanitation Specialist, Dr. Bond, I dare say I’m in the business of blood.”
“Indeed,” he murmured.
Did I detect a note of admiration?
Instead of looking up at him, I pinched the clean edge of the bowl containing the contents of Mr. Sawyer’s stomach and tipped it a little, trying to get a good look beneath. Fish, potatoes, and maybe…maybe it had been fish pie, if that was a crust.
“I confess, I was glad to hear tell that you’d landed on your feet, Miss Mahoney,” Dr. Bond said.
“What do you mean?” I checked the liver next. A bit larger than I was used to seeing, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“Upon meeting you at Miller’s Court on the day we…found Miss Kelly, I assumed you were a…an associate of hers. I feared that you might one day share her fate.” The cool inflection of his voice warmed a little. “I was glad to learn that you’d chosen another path, ghastly as it might be at times.”
Dr. Bond and Dr. Phillips had both been called to Mary’s crime scene. They’d watched me break apart. They’d watched Croft pull me, sobbing and hysterical, away from what was left of my friend.
Disconcerted, I made a non-committal sound and moved on to the kidneys.
“What are you looking for?” Dr. Bond asked.
“Missing parts,” Dr. Phillips guessed before I’d drawn a breath to answer. “If memory serves, the kidney was a preferred delicacy of the Ripper.”
“Just so,” I said. “I took a peek in the basin last night, but it was rather dark. I noted all the organs were present, but I wondered if perhaps a piece was missing from one of them. As the Ripper only took and ate a portion of Catherine Eddowes’ kidney, not the entire thing.”
“Everything is undamaged and intact.” Dr. Phillips motioned with the scalpel between Frank Sawyer’s legs. “Whoever gutted this poor lad did so with a deft and precise hand, but was more intent upon making a ghastly example of him than a meal, in my professional opinion.”
I had to admit, even to someone as used to death as I, the sight of an unsexed corpse turned the coffee in my stomach to an acid splash against my chest.
Swallowing was no easy feat after that.
“Quite,” Dr. Bond agreed. “And upon perusal of your post-mortem report, I’m of the opinion that—”
“What the bloody hell is she doing here?” The rough growl announced the arrival of Inspector Croft. He charged around the screen like a Spanish bull, going so far as to stop and glare at me, his nostrils flaring.
I half expected him to paw at the ground, put his head down, and charge.
“I’d admonish you to watch your language in front of a lady, Inspector.” Dr. Bond lowered thick, well-kempt brows over his mild eyes.
“That lady is looking at a man’s spine through his open body cavity, and you’re worried I’ll offend her delicate sensibilities?” Upon noticing the carved-out hollow where Frank Sawyer’s sex used to hang, Croft said a few more words I promised myself I’d research later, though I wasn’t sure I’d find them in the dictionary.
“Miss Mahoney and I have an arrangement,” Dr. Phillips revealed, and, for a moment, my pulse quickened. It wasn’t as though I actually thought he would confess to our illegal activities, but, as I said before, Croft’s presence put me on edge. I’d always suspected he saw much more than he let on.
I didn’t very much think he’d mind seeing me hanged as a body snatcher.
“She often gains additional insight on a case once the police have cleared the scene,” Phillips continued. “And, on occasion, I consult with her to ascertain if she found anything in the blood she cleaned up.”
“Did you?” Croft demanded of me.
Suddenly, my pockets felt as if they contained bricks rather than beads.
“No,” I lied.
Croft turned to Dr. Phillips. “Did you summon her to Frank Sawyer’s common house last night?”
Dr. Phillip’s soft grey eyes darkened, and he cast me a guilty glance. “As much as I trust Miss Mahoney’s skills, I’d not call her to Dorset Street, Inspector. Not after Mary…”
“Interesting.” Croft’s glare pierced me like a sharp needle, but I refused to look away. “Consultation over, then. You may take your leave, Miss Mahoney.”
During the exchange, Aberline had followed Croft around the screen and now finished exchanging handshakes with the doctors. “Oh, do stand down, Croft,” he drawled. “I’ve similarly made use of Miss Mahoney’s recollections, and to positive effect. Friends and family of victims tend to watch themselves around inspectors and constables. But they will reveal things in Miss Mahoney’s presence wot have more than once provided a break in my case.” The inspector took a post next to me, tipping his hat. “The London Metropolitan Police is obliged to you, m’girl.”
I smiled at him, but mostly because I found anyone referring to me as m’girl at my age rather hilarious. And not a little flattering.
Croft stood across the table, and I was glad, as we’d have struggled to make room for his shoulders should the three of us stand abreast.
I met his scowl with a toothy—er, toothsome smile. I prayed my relief wasn’t as palpable to everyone else as it was to me.
“Do pardon me, Dr. Phillips, for calling upon Dr. Bond to attend today,” Aberline apologized. “Croft and I are fair certain Mr. Sawyer met his end by someone other than the Ripper, but we thought a congregation of a few of us Ripper veterans might create a more definitive picture. And I hoped that maybe we could make use of his profiling skills.”
“We were only just discussing theories as to motive,” Dr. Phillips gestured to Dr. Bond, with the scalpel he’d yet to relinquish. “Bond, here, only knows how to cry sexual psychosis, whilst I deduce the killer had clinical motives.”
“See here! Erotic mania often has more to do with violent rage than actual sexual desire,” Dr. Bond defended. “It appears to me that the castration was performed prior to death, and if that isn’t sado-sexual, I don’t know what is.”
“Is that true?” Croft turned to Dr. Phillips, who nodded.
“My examination has led me to the conclusion that the series of events was thus. First, the murderer tied a fully clothed Mr. Sawyer’s hands behind his back, as evidenced by the broken capillaries and bruising he presents with on the wrists and ankles here, and here.” He motioned to a few red, angry circles that would not have been so visible had the corpse not any blood left in it. “The dislocated shoulder and broken clavicle suggest that the killer hung him by both his hands and his left foot whilst he made quick work with the knife. I can tell you, the killer was left-handed.”
“That’s why there were no footprints in the blood, other than Agnes Sawyer’s,” I realized aloud, earning a sour look from Croft. “If he was hung from the low rafter like a pig on a spit, the butchery is easily contained.”
“Very good, Miss Mahoney.” Dr. Bond pointed at the double gashes in Frank Sawyer’s neck, still so prevalent even after Dr. Phillips had tucked his chin down to close the wounds. “Symbolism is very important to this killer, obviously. I’m of the opinion that he knew Mr. Sawyer intimately. This was less a crime of opportunity and more a crime of passion.”
“Could the wife have had anything to do with it?” I ventured, thinking of Oscar’s Salome theory. “Perhaps he was unfaithful. A mistress, maybe? Or her angry husband?”
“An angle we’re considering.” Aberline checked his watch. “But Mrs. Sawyer is a broken woman by all accounts. She claims her husband was a right angel. Without him, she’s bound for the poor house.”
“Guilt can break a person just as easily as grief, I think,” I remonstrated.
“You’ve a rare mind, Miss Mahoney.” Dr. Bond examined me as one might a puzzle with a missing pie
ce.
Or a mystery in need of dissection.
“If we could continue?” The look Dr. Phillips leveled at his colleague rivaled that of Croft’s in its brutality, but he finished his summation. “The killer must have merely unbuttoned the shirt and vest and pulled the trousers to the knees while the man hung by his hands and foot. Cutting first the…”—he flickered a glance at me before continuing—“the sex organ, then emptying the body cavity into the basin with surgical precision, and lastly, slicing the throat with these two deep, Ripper-like gashes. This accomplished, he redressed the man and cut the ropes from around Mr. Sawyer’s hands, letting the rest of the blood drain from the victim’s neck and cavity until exsanguinated.”
We all stared at poor Mr. Sawyer with renewed appreciation for his ordeal. Croft, Aberline, and Bond had given in to the urge to cross one foot in front of the other, pressing their thighs together sympathetically.
I did my very best not to let my lips twitch. It wouldn’t do to let on how aware I was of the gratitude each man felt for what hung between his legs.
Not that any of this was funny, but laughter was as hysterical a response as tears, and I tended to lean toward one rather than the other. Which, to be honest, was no blessing, especially in my profession.
Tears were much more socially appropriate and acceptable, especially where murder was concerned.
“This further indicates that the murderer is not the Ripper,” Croft surmised what we were all thinking. “He always sliced the throats first and conducted his mutilations after his victim had bled out.”
I had the very distinct impression that every man in the room made a concerted effort not to look at me.
I didn’t mind, as I was certain my expression would have invited speculation. My mind rapidly flung itself from thought to thought like a bee unable to commit in a flower garden.
No one seemed to think the Ripper had killed Frank Sawyer. No one but the Ripper, himself. He’d hissed it in my ear back in Crossland Alley. Hadn’t he?
The Business of Blood Page 11