The Darwin Affair

by Tim Mason

  Two weeks went by with Field in residence in the public house, wandering about the place, vaguely eyeing the clientele and wondering what in God’s name he was doing there. He had broken up two fistfights and escorted five or six inebriated patrons from the premises in all that time. Goodfellow would wink at him from behind the bar and tell him what a grand job he was doing and Field would move off again, more baffled than ever. His pay packets were delivered directly to No. 2 Bow Street. Jane had never seen money like this. Perhaps Mickie Goodfellow truly did not know how much (or rather, how little) a chief of detectives earned. Or maybe he knew it very well and wanted to ensure that his new man would not be likely to leave. Field was earning nearly three times his old wage; he’d be mad to give it up.

  In the third week of July, during a morning lull, Goodfellow had suggested they sit down together for a drink in the saloon bar.

  “Any word from your old mates in the Metropolitan, Charlie?” asked the publican.

  “Not to speak of, Mick,” said Field, sipping his beer.

  “Not even that nice young chap, the Llewellyn boy?”

  Field said nothing.

  “Well, I call that a shame. If this is what years of hard work and loyal friendship get you, what’s the point?” Goodfellow took a draft of beer while Field eyed him silently. There were two others in the saloon bar, gentlemen talking quietly at a nearby table; a third now entered and joined them, carrying a half-pint of stout from the main bar.

  The publican saluted the newcomer from his table. “Good morning, Mr. Wells!”

  “Morning, Goodfellow,” said the gentleman with a quizzical glance at the inspector.

  In response, Goodfellow gave the man a nod and a wink, to Field’s confusion. The gentleman glanced at his two companions and then said to Goodfellow, “Have you got anything for us, then?”

  “I do indeed, Mr. Wells. We’re having a very productive week. I’ll be with you gentlemen presently.”

  Goodfellow turned to Field. “All’s well at home, Charlie? Good, good. You’re not finding your new duties overly taxing, then? Shouldn’t think so. The pay’s decent, anyway? Right, that’s what I like to hear.”

  Field stared at him. “What’s going on, Mick?”

  “Progress, Charlie. Discovery. Knowledge. Understanding. These are exciting times, my friend, and you and me—we’re a part of them.”

  “What’s going on, Mick?” said Field again drily. He noticed the table of gentleman had grown to four, and they were all watching him and the publican.

  “When history sets down the chronicle of our age,” said Goodfellow, “our names will be writ large as two who helped mankind advance.”

  “Wake me, won’t you, when you’ve run out of gammon?”

  “Now what did we say, Charlie?” Goodfellow wagged a finger in Field’s face. “We’re going to be agreeable, right? Respectful. Decent. All right, Charlie?”

  “You know me, Mick.”

  A spasm of irritation crossed Goodfellow’s face, and then the man nodded ruefully and chortled. “I do indeed, Charlie. Intolerable man. Always was, always will be. Come along, then!”

  Goodfellow rose, nodded to the gentlemen, and led the way to a door marked gents, which had a yellowing, fly-specked handwritten notice attached: Not in service.

  The publican unlocked the door and led Field and the others into a dank stone corridor leading, one would have expected, to the jakes in the courtyard behind the pub. He paused at a door in the wall on his right and produced another set of keys. Unlocked, this door opened into an unlit room. It was surprisingly cold. Field heard the retort of a gas jet being lit and became aware of a sweetish, sickly odor. A slowly rising glow illuminated the room.

  There were sturdy wooden shelves attached to three of the four walls of a modest-sized room, one set of shelving mounted a few feet above the other. On the floor beneath, large blocks of ice nestled in beds of straw. The shelves themselves were roughly three feet deep, more than large enough to hold the bodies. The corpses, male and female, young, middle-aged and old, were naked. Field guessed there were perhaps twelve of them.

  The gentlemen fanned out through the room, examining the bodies with appraising eyes. Several had a tag affixed to a toe. Field approached one—a male, gaunt and old. The hand-scrawled label read Chapel. He moved to the next corpse, a female, perhaps thirty years of age when she died, he guessed, and read the label: Tailor.

  Field looked up at Goodfellow.

  “Will Tailor’s the chap who brought that one in,” said the publican. “The digger gets his pay, see? The tag is his invoice.”

  For years medical students had been allowed to dissect and study only the bodies of executed criminals. As many of these as there were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number was still far too small to satisfy the demand. The Anatomy Act of 1832 relaxed the strictures to a degree, allowing the aspiring vivisectionist to dissect the bodies of paupers and others who died in the workhouse, as well as the corpses of those few who chose to donate their earthly frames in the interest of science. But demand was rising to an unprecedented degree, and there were simply too few bodies to go around, hence the body-snatching industry.

  A favored technique involved the nocturnal digging of a relatively small hole near the top of the burial site, descending and opening that end of the coffin and pulling the corpse out headfirst. Less dirt was disturbed this way, and the diggers’ tracks could more easily be covered. Sometimes the entry hole would be dug several feet from the grave so as not to attract notice. A tunnel was constructed, and small adults or sturdy children were sent down to open the box and haul out the body. All of this had to be accomplished as soon after the burial as possible for obvious reasons, especially in the warmer months. The situation got so troublesome that families would post guards to watch over their loved ones’ plots during the first critical days.

  The snatchers called themselves resurrectionists. They were always busy.

  “So?” said Field. “Am I supposed to faint now, Mickie? Turn purple? Arrest you? I am no longer a policeman, if you recall.” Field turned to the others. “You gentlemen would be from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, I assume? Convenient for you, just steps away. I work for this gentleman now, I do what he tells me. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

  Goodfellow put an arm warmly around Field’s shoulders. “That’s me old mate, I knew you’d come through.”

  “But honestly, Mick, this is much ado about not so much, ain’t it? All right, it’s a bigger operation than any I’ve seen. Granted. But for the most part the Metropolitan has been turning a blind eye to you resurrection fellers for years. To protect this, you needed to hire me?”

  Suddenly there was a deep rumble and then the sound of a pipe organ playing, very close, very loud. Solemn music. The medical men seemed uninterested; they returned to their examinations of the bodies. Field looked to Goodfellow for an explanation, but the publican merely put a finger to his lips, his eyes closing, seeming to relish the music. It rose in volume suddenly as double doors in the fourth wall swung open and a buxom woman entered, pushing through black velvet curtains. She was dressed in deep mourning: bombazine and crêpe and layers of veil.

  “Reverend Carmichael’s outdone hisself today,” she said to Goodfellow in hushed, pious tones. “They can’t hardly see for cryin’ in there.”

  “Mrs. Carmichael,” said Goodfellow, “allow me to introduce Charles Field. Charles, this is Mrs. Carmichael of Shepherd’s Rest.”

  The woman lifted her veil, revealing copper-red hair and full coppery cheeks. She dipped and winked. “Pleased, I’m sure.”

  There was a rattle of wheels and a bier and coffin appeared through the black velvet, pushed by two tall young men. They also were dressed in mourning, with tall hats draped in crêpe. “Quick now,” said the buxom woman, “or I’ll know the reason why!”

  The dirge finished and the organ took up an energetic recessional hymn. The two boys unscrewed the coffin and o
pened the lid. In a single motion they hoisted the body out of the casket and onto an available shelf. The deceased appeared to be a male in his twenties. The boys rapidly unbuttoned the grave clothes and stripped the corpse, throwing the clothes into the open coffin. Mrs. Carmichael drew a burlap bag from between blocks of ice and lifted it with effort into the casket. She situated the weighted bag, draped the clothes anyhow over it, and shut up the whole affair. The lads screwed down the lid and assumed their positions, one on each side, just as a glorious head of flowing silver hair appeared from between the velvet curtains. The Reverend Carmichael smiled benevolently, nodded, and disappeared. Adopting a solemn demeanor, the boys slowly pushed the bier back into what Field realized was obviously the chapel next door to the Fortune of War. The woman sighed piteously and followed them out. The entire operation had taken less than two minutes.

  “Right,” said Field to Goodfellow. “Like a night at the fucking ballet. You did well to hire me, Mickie. For this you’d be hanged.”

  Goodfellow beamed proudly and took Field aside. “We all get paid twice, see? Once by the family of the deceased and then by the customers who buy the bodies. I wish I could take full credit for it, Charlie, but that belongs to another. It was all in place, set up by him, as is the reverend’s landlord. All I had to do was say yes, which I did, and quick.”

  “What’s in the sacking?”

  “Scraps from the butchers in Smithfield. Creates an authentic air after a few days, if the grave is dug shallow, which it generally is these days, times being what they are.”

  “And the clothes?”

  “The law says if you leave the grave clothes, the crime ain’t so bad. Take the grave clothes and you’re much likelier to hang, don’t ask me why.”

  One of the medical men looked up from the pitiably vulnerable form of the young dead man. “Consumption,” he said with a bored shrug.

  “So, here’s the matter, Charlie,” said Goodfellow. “You’re one of us now, ain’t you? A peeler comes sniffing about, you direct him elsewhere. If need be, you offer him a little incentive in the way of pounds, shillings, pence, right? Nothing excessive, but you know what I mean. And if you ever was to get a demented notion in your head to peach, well, these fine gents here is all witnesses to you being up to your neck in it. So let’s all be friends and not even dream of spoiling a very good thing. All right?”

  To what have I sunk? A bleeding body-snatcher’s pimp.

  “Charlie?” said Goodfellow, in a warning tone.

  “I’ll be back,” growled Field. He pushed through the pub and out into the street, gulping for air. If there had been a miscreant’s head to crack, it would have helped. But no—he was the criminal now. He’d put himself forever beyond the pale, on the other side of the law, and for what?

  Without knowing where he was going, he found himself minutes later taking the steps of St. Paul’s two at a time and felt a degree of relief as soon as he plunged into the cool dark vastness within. The cathedral was nearly empty but a service was in progress; a Eucharist sung by the choir of men and boys.

  Whatever am I doing here?

  He made his way to the very front pew, and when the pew opener seemed to suggest that he did not belong there—at least not without first making a substantial payment—a single murderous look from the former policeman was enough to dispel any difficulties.

  God judgeth the righteous, intoned the choir, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

  If he turn not he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow and made it ready . . .

  As they sang the words of the psalm, the men’s and boys’ attention was fully fastened on the choirmaster. The purity of the boys’ voices stung Field’s eyes, and he bowed his head.

  He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death;

  He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors . . .

  Whatever had they done with that list of St. Paul’s choirboys that Mr. Kilvert had put together? Kilvert had been eliminating names too recent or too old to have been in the choir alongside of Philip David Rendell, leaving some half-dozen or so possible names. And then they’d had word of David Gates’ murder and that line of inquiry had been set aside, forgotten. They had made the disastrous journey to Oxford from which Josiah Kilvert had not returned.

  Among the children, one voice dominated. Field picked out the singer: somewhat taller than the others, blond, his face a picture of rapt intensity. Twelve or thirteen years old. Field tried to imagine the boy’s eyes deeper and darker.

  I was a reproach among all mine enemies but

  especially to mine neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance:

  They that did see me without fled from me.

  The killer who eluded him had perhaps stood right there, had perhaps sung these very words. Field thought it possible, anyway. How did a child become a monster?

  I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind:

  I am like a broken vessel.

  There was no comfort for him here. Field rose, opened the door to his pew, and sped up the aisle, the choir’s voices hurtling after him.

  28

  St. Thomas’ Hospital, just across London Bridge, had been in operation since the twelfth century, when Augustinian monks began to offer care and shelter here for the sick and homeless in the name of the martyred Thomas à Beckett. Shut down for a time in the sixteenth century by the English Reformation, it eventually reopened with a similar name but a new Protestant dedication, to St. Thomas the Apostle. By the Victorian era it had become a medical training center and a lying-in hospital for expectant mothers. This very year, 1860, Florence Nightingale had founded her famous school for female nurses here. The St. Thomas’ operating theater was among the oldest in Europe.

  In this venue Decimus Cobb was unknown, but a surgeon calling himself William Tailor, who resembled Decimus in every detail, was a highly respected figure. When Tailor presented his young apprentice, the sisters were in a flutter to make Tom feel welcome. Surgeons were still considered members of the working classes in that they labored with their hands; even so, it was considered generous of Tailor to bring in this poor, quiet Cockney boy and teach him skills that would allow him to better himself.

  In a world without anesthesia, the success of a surgeon was measured by his ability to cut, saw, drill, amputate, and sew quickly. Dr. Tailor enjoyed a reputation at St. Thomas’ and elsewhere as one of the fastest. He was even known occasionally to sing as he worked: sacred music, in a beautiful countertenor voice.

  Tom was not afraid of blood; he was a butcher’s boy, after all. He had experience with knives. He knew how to cut through flesh, muscle, tendon, and bone. He even had experience with the screaming, which was a regular feature of the daily drill at St. Thomas’. Pigs produced similar sounds when the knife went in.

  To begin with, Tom merely observed the goings-on, standing at attention on the risers of the operating theater with Decimus at his side, Decimus watching Tom watch. The boy saw ulcerous growths removed; he saw a man’s skull drilled into and a gush of clear fluid shoot out; he watched a goiter the size of a melon cut from a woman’s neck. After a week, Decimus left Tom on his own in the observers’ gallery while he himself went to work with blade, drill, and saw. He was remarkably fast. He used his own tools, some of which he had invented himself. In his hands, they were a blur of brass and silver, splashed with scarlet. He worked so rapidly that there were instances in which the patient did not cry out at all. One man, whose lower leg Decimus had just taken off—closing the wound and sewing up the stump with great speed—urged Cobb to go ahead and get started. When Decimus told him his ordeal was already over, the man wept with relief and gratitude. The Chorister looked up at Tom, cocked his head, and winked.

  Eventually, Tom took his place with the others on the operating room floor. There were always helpers needed to hold the patient still and this was young Tom’s first job. Some of the patients exhibited remarkable strength as the knives penetrated their flesh, but To
m was a strong lad himself and up to the task. He spoke little, did as he was told, and observed everything closely. The sisters clucked over this “pair,” as they came to be known: the young ginger-haired Cockney and his brilliant master.

  In time, after arduous instruction, Tom was placed in charge of his mentor’s kit while he operated. When Decimus called for a tool, it was the boy’s responsibility to place it instantly in Master’s waiting hand. The first time he’d reached for a razor-sharp knife that Decimus had demanded, the rage that lived somewhere within him had risen to his throat, but he quelled it and, with only a moment’s hesitation, gently laid the tool handle first in his master’s hand. Tom was a good and obedient student.

  One day Tom stood by with surgical thread and needle, ready to pass them to his master after he’d finished taking off a farmer’s gangrenous foot. One helper held down the man’s upper torso while another leaned on the farmer’s legs, pressing them to the operating table. Tom heard the amputated foot drop into the bucket on the floor. He extended the needle and thread, but Decimus didn’t take them. Instead, he wiped his hands on his apron.

  “You finish him up, Tom,” he said. “I must run.” Decimus turned and left the operating theater. Tom saw the farmer’s eyes widen in fear. Without thinking, the boy frantically sought open tubes and tied the slippery things shut; he folded the flap of flesh and skin the way he’d seen Master do it; he plunged the surgical needle in and out, drawing the sutures as tightly and as quickly as he could, desperate to stem the flow of blood coming from the wound.

  Then, somehow, it was over. The farmer was still living. The others round the operating table clapped Tom on the back. His life as a surgeon had begun.

  Decimus took his pupil from one hospital to another, introducing him to the routines at St. Bartholomew’s, the City Hospital, and the College of Surgeons. Other days, Tom was left alone at Half Moon Street, where he continued to occupy the attic room. Decimus had supplied him with several books of engravings, illustrating locales and architectural sites in Germany. He was to memorize everything he saw: the size and shape of certain grand homes and palaces, as well as palace grounds and surrounding countryside. He was given illustrations of a variety of royal carriages to study. Tom still maintained the fiction that he was illiterate, but when Master was away, he would study the accompanying texts. Belinda would sit on the floor, chattering or singing liturgical responses (learned from Master) in a clear, high voice.