The Dead Shall Not Rest (11 page)
Read The Dead Shall Not Rest Online
Authors: Tessa Harris
The bell of St. James’s struck three before Thomas finally fell into a deep sleep. In fact, his slumber was so deep that Mistress Finesilver could not wake him simply by knocking on his door several hours later. It was up to the count to enter the light-filled room and rouse his friend with a tug on his shoulder.
“Dr. Silkstone,” he called anxiously. “Dr. Silkstone. You must come quickly. Something terrible has happened.”
Chapter 16
T
he chamber had been left exactly the way the maid had found it, save for the bloody footprints. The young singer lay on his back on the mattress, his eyes closed and the coverlet pulled up under his chin. His head was tilted backward and his dark hair framed his soft, almost feminine features. His skin was as smooth as alabaster and his lips were fulsome, but colorless. It was only when she saw the splashes of blood that had collected on the rug by the bed that the girl went screaming to raise the alarm.
he chamber had been left exactly the way the maid had found it, save for the bloody footprints. The young singer lay on his back on the mattress, his eyes closed and the coverlet pulled up under his chin. His head was tilted backward and his dark hair framed his soft, almost feminine features. His skin was as smooth as alabaster and his lips were fulsome, but colorless. It was only when she saw the splashes of blood that had collected on the rug by the bed that the girl went screaming to raise the alarm.
Thomas arrived at Smee’s Hotel in Jermyn Street just after eleven o’clock that morning. Sir Peregrine Crisp, the Westminster coroner who had engaged his services, had already ordered that the room be secured until the young anatomist’s arrival.
Signor Moreno, whose own room was only two doors away, had rushed to the scene as soon as he heard the maid’s screams. So overcome with grief and horror had he been that his instinct, according to the hotel’s proprietor, the eponymous Mr. Smee, had been to try to throw himself on the corpse, but he had been prevented from doing this. He had, however, stepped on the bloodied rug, and the footprints that led from the room and out into the corridor were his.
The count accompanied Thomas, and on their arrival they were met by a somber-looking Sir Peregrine and Mr. Smee. Understandably, the latter appeared most concerned that such a terrible event should have occurred in his establishment. He was a very rotund gentleman who sweated profusely.
“This will not look good. Indeed it will not,” he muttered to Thomas as he led him up an uneven flight of stairs and along a narrow corridor to the soprano’s room.
Sir Peregrine, a man of imposing stature who wore a periwig that had been in fashion at least twenty years before, led the way into the chamber, ducking at the lintel. Thomas scented the ferrous smell of blood in his nostrils as soon as he walked in.
“The door was apparently open, not forced, but nothing has been touched, Dr. Silkstone, although those are Signor Moreno’s footprints,” said Sir Peregrine, pointing to the crimson stains.
“And where is Signor Moreno?” asked Thomas.
Mr. Smee stepped forward. “He’s in a very bad way, Doctor. My word, he is,” he said, shaking his round head.
“I shall go and see him,” the count announced, leaving the room.
The window shutters were still closed and Thomas asked for them to be opened so he could see more clearly the horror that lay in front of him. The maid obliged, pulling them back with trembling hands before curtsying and fleeing in tears. Light now flooded the small room. It was furnished comfortably, with a chest of drawers, an escritoire near the window, and a washstand, complete with pitcher and ewer. On the bedside table was a candle half-burned in its holder.
Thomas walked over to the burr-walnut chest of drawers and opened them one after the other. A coat and two shirts lay neatly in the first. Two pairs of shoes were ranged in the second. The third was empty. On the dressing table sat a looking glass in a fixed easel frame. Two brushes were positioned next to a circular leather case containing everything a gentleman might need for his toilet: eau de cologne, wig powder, toothpicks, and an alum block for shaving.
Following the young doctor’s movements, Sir Peregrine became agitated. “May I ask what you are about, Dr. Silkstone? I asked you here to examine the body.”
Deep in thought, Thomas looked at the coroner blankly at first and then realized he was being addressed. “Forgive me, sir,” he said. “But do you notice anything odd, anything out of place in this room?”
The coroner looked about. “No. No, I do not,” he said slowly.
“Precisely,” replied Thomas.
Sir Peregrine rolled his eyes heavenward. “What on God’s earth is your meaning, Dr. Silkstone?”
“My meaning, sir, is plain. There does not seem to have been a fight here. No violent struggle. It may mean that Signor Cappelli’s attacker was known to him.”
“That is all very well, but I’d be much obliged if you could turn your attention to the body, sir,” charged Sir Peregrine, drumming his fingers on the dressing table.
Doing as he was bidden, Thomas studied the young man’s face. There was slight bruising around the mouth. He parted the full lips. It was as he thought; there were incisions where the delicate inner skin of the lips had been pierced by his own teeth, and the front incisor was chipped. It looked as though he had been suffocated, but turning the coverlet back revealed much more.
Even Sir Peregrine, a man who had seen more corpses than the alleyways of St. Giles in his long career, was forced to look away in disgust. The source of the blood became immediately apparent. The young man’s throat had been slit from ear to ear, but instead of a long, straight gash, the normal method of dispatch practiced by muggers and cutpurses, a large portion of his entire neck had been removed. A gaping black hole was left in the throat.
Sir Peregrine held his kerchief up to his mouth. Even Thomas felt slightly nauseous at the sight.
“What in God’s name . . . ?” The coroner’s horrified voice trailed off in disbelief.
“It seems the murderer has removed the trachea,” said Thomas thoughtfully, bending over the victim’s throat.
“But what . . . Why . . . ?” The coroner was so troubled his speech was becoming incoherent.
Thomas delved into his bag and pulled out a pair of forceps and a magnifying glass. Carefully prizing apart the two short flaps of skin that skirted the wound, he peered inside the gaping hole. To his utter amazement he found that the entire larynx had been removed, and with it the vocal cords.
“This is extraordinary,” muttered Thomas, to himself as much as to anyone who would listen.
Suddenly, from down the corridor the two men heard a commotion. The shouting grew louder.
“Let me see him. I must see him.” The distraught figure of Signor Moreno stood in the doorway, his face tearstained. The count was with him, tugging at his coat like a small dog.
“No, Moreno, you must not . . .”
The tall Tuscan merely brushed the little man aside and lunged forward into the room before dropping onto his knees at the sight of the young man’s throat.
“You should not be here, Signor,” Thomas reprimanded.
The coroner motioned to a fretful Mr. Smee to remove his guest and he duly obliged, putting his arm out to help the Tuscan steady himself.
“Carlo. Carlo,” he wailed as he was led away.
“May I take custody of the body, sir?” asked Thomas, walking over to the washstand to clean his bloodied hands.
“You are not to dissect it, Dr. Silkstone,” chided Sir Peregrine.
“I mean merely to examine it, sir,” retorted Thomas.
“You have until first thing tomorrow,” instructed the coroner. “After that the Tuscan consular officials will want the body back for burial.”
“Thank you, Sir Peregrine,” said Thomas, rolling up his sleeves and beginning to pour water from the pitcher into the large bowl to wash his hands. As he did so, however, he noticed something odd. The liquid was a deep pink color and smelled of something he could not quite place. Remembering Dr. Carruthers’s words when faced with such a situation, he quickly poured a small quantity of the water into an ampule. “Ignore nothing, however insignificant it may seem at the time,” his mentor had said when lecturing on the art of the postmortem. Although it seemed insignificant now, Thomas told himself, the liquid might be crucial later on.
The body was to be taken to Thomas’s dissecting room in Hollen Street as soon as Sir Peregrine could arrange a cart and an escort. In the meantime the doctor decided to walk back alone. He felt he needed to clear his head. Although he said nothing incriminating at the time, he had a feeling that whoever carried out that ghastly murder was highly skilled. There had been precision and cold calculation in the incisions. He was convinced he was not dealing with a crime of passion, motivated by greed or lust or jealousy, but of something much more chilling than any of these venal sins. Whoever murdered this young man not only stole his life, but his voice as well.
A slow and steady rain began to fall, topping up puddles and potholes that were already full from a downpour in the early hours, as Thomas walked down Russell Street, his feet slapping in the mud. Passing carriages threw up spray as they progressed along the uneven thoroughfare of the Strand and he was beginning to regret declining the coroner’s offer of a ride back to his laboratory. He did not want him to know that he intended to return via Cockspur Street.
He was approaching the junction of St. Martin’s Lane when a small post chaise, drawn by four horses, swept past him, splashing his stockings and breeches as it did so. He looked up to curse the postilions and saw, staring down at him from the carriage window, the face of Lydia. He saw her lips part and her eyes widen as he held her gaze before the carriage turned out of sight around another corner. He assumed she was heading for the count’s lodgings. He quickened his pace, no longer caring about his muddied breeches and wet topcoat.
Five minutes later Mistress Goodbody was opening the door to the bedraggled doctor.
“Why, Dr. Silkstone, but you are soaked! Come in, come in.”
“Is Lady Lydia in?” he asked, wiping his muddy shoes on the boot scraper.
“Why, yes, she has just returned not five minutes past,” she said, taking Thomas’s wet hat, clucking like a concerned mother hen as she did so. “Please wait in the drawing room and I shall see if she is receiving visitors.”
It was not long before she returned, looking slightly crestfallen. “I am afraid her ladyship says she is too tired to receive you today, Dr. Silkstone,” she said sheepishly.
Unable to hide his frustration, Thomas sighed deeply. “Is Lady Lydia unwell?”
“Not unwell, sir.” Charles Byrne’s loud voice boomed from the doorway. He stood towering over Mistress Goodbody, dressed smartly, with his dark hair hidden under a powdered wig.
“Mr. Byrne. ’Tis good to see you looking so restored,” greeted Thomas as the giant strode toward him.
“I am much better, in spirits at least, sir,” he replied. “We have j-just returned from Lincoln’s Inn to see the lawyer who says he can get my da a p-pardon. I made my mark on a paper.”
Thomas’s expression changed. The giant’s words wiped the smile from his lips. He had suspected as much, but did not want to think of it. So Lydia had just returned from seeing that braggart Marchant and now would not entertain him.
“Perhaps you could convey my respects to her ladyship and tell her I am always at her disposal should she need me?” Thomas told him.
The giant nodded his large head, detecting the annoyance in the doctor’s voice. “That I will, sir.”
Chapter 17
T
homas returned home to find the coroner’s men off-loading the makeshift wooden coffin into the side gate. They were accompanied by the count, who was directing proceedings. Mistress Finesilver was also watching, mindful of doors being scraped and windowpanes broken.
homas returned home to find the coroner’s men off-loading the makeshift wooden coffin into the side gate. They were accompanied by the count, who was directing proceedings. Mistress Finesilver was also watching, mindful of doors being scraped and windowpanes broken.
“Have a care, will you?” she called as the men carried the coffin on their shoulders through the narrow entrance to the laboratory and set it down on the floor.
By now the rain had stopped and pale sunlight drifted in through the high windows of Thomas’s laboratory, making it easier for him to see. Even so, he knew he had to work quickly. He had only a few hours in which to determine the cause of death and, hopefully, to provide the coroner with some clues or pointers as to who might be responsible for this dastardly crime.
“I smell blood,” said Dr. Carruthers, feeling his way into the laboratory. Since he’d gone blind, his other senses had become heightened to compensate for his lack of sight.
“Indeed you do, sir,” said Thomas, preparing himself for the postmortem. He donned his large apron to shield his clothes from bodily fluids as he worked, and made sure his hair was secured tightly at the nape of his neck. “Sir Peregrine Crisp has engaged me to work on the body of a young man found dead in his bed this morning.”
“And I am assuming there was foul play,” said the old anatomist, easing himself into a nearby chair.
“Yes, unless he managed to slit his own throat from ear to ear himself,” replied Thomas.
He pulled back the sheet in which the corpse had been transported. Already the body was beginning to turn, and rigor mortis had set in. He was glad that his mentor was sitting nearby. It was always good to bounce ideas and theories off one so knowledgeable.
“I shall examine the whole first, sir, before concentrating on the wound,” he told Dr. Carruthers.
“Indeed so.” The old man nodded.
Beginning at the young man’s feet and legs Thomas noticed nothing unusual, save for the fact that they were completely hairless. Apart from slightly more developed thigh and calf muscles, and indeed their length, they could have belonged to a boy. His abdomen was insulated with a thick layer of fat and his breasts were budding ’round the nipples, like a pubescent girl’s. Moving down to the genitals he noted that this was, indeed, a castrato.
“Moreno told Count Boruwlaski the boy had been involved in an unfortunate riding accident,” said Thomas cynically, inspecting the area.
Carruthers let out a jaundiced laugh. “Yes, I’ve heard the horses around Bologna and Rome are particularly prone to throwing their young male riders,” he quipped.
The operation to remove the testicles had obviously been carried out many years before by someone using crude instruments. The scar tissue was still rough and jagged. There was no seed, but there could still be pleasure at least. He had even heard of a castrato who was chased out of a European court for his philandering. At least that was some compensation for the agonies the boy must have suffered during the torturous procedure, thought Thomas.
“What devils do such things in the name of religion?” he muttered under his breath.
He moved up the body to the torso. “Interesting,” he remarked.
“What have you found?” Dr. Carruthers tilted his head.
Thomas ran his hands over the smooth chest and thoracic cavity. “The rib cage is much bigger than one would expect on a youth of this size.” He had often surmised that the physiology of a body could be adapted by its various uses, just as animals seemed to adapt to their natural habitats.
“Could it be the lungs are more developed than normal?” suggested the old anatomist.
“That is possibly the case.” Thomas nodded, aware that a thorough and intrusive surgical examination of the chest was out of the question.
There were just two more areas to examine before Thomas reached the neck wound: the arms and hands. Again there was no sign of bruising. Opening the stiff, pale fingers, he also scrutinized under the nails. As far as he could see they were clear; no scraps of flesh or strands of hair lurked beneath the keratin to suggest there had been any form of struggle.
“The fingernails are clean, sir,” he confirmed. “And now we proceed to the face.”
Thomas inspected the mouth cavity once more, bounded at the sides by the maxillary bones. They were still intact, but he noticed now that there were more cuts on the tongue. These, together with the lacerations on the fleshy folds of the inner lips and the broken front tooth, merely confirmed his previous suspicions.
The nose, too, once elegant and pointed, now veered slightly to one side. Probing deeper he also found that the two palatine bones that form the roof of the mouth and the floor of the nose were crushed. A huge force must have been brought to bear on the face to produce such an effect.
“We have a classic case of suffocation here, Dr. Carruthers,” he announced.
“So the poor devil was suffocated before he was sliced up,” mused the old surgeon.
“Thankfully, it would seem so,” replied Thomas. “So now we begin in earnest.” He stood upright, stretching his tired back muscles before hunching over the corpse once more, a pair of forceps and a sharp knife in his hand.
“Tell me what you see,” instructed the old surgeon.
Thomas took a deep breath. Now he was entering a realm that was familiar to him. Like a watchmaker, he knew what to expect to find in the internal workings of the human body. He understood the mechanisms of each organ, each shaft of bone and each cushion of muscle and its correlation to adjacent parts. He had come to comprehend the relationship between elements that made a hole and of corresponding functions and purposes. Yet how strange it was to be confronted with a clock case when most of its inner machineries had been removed.
“I am looking at the neck. About six inches in length from the mandible to the clavicle,” he said.
“A long one,” commented Carruthers.
“I see an incision has been made at the front of the neck just below the thyroid cartilage.”
“Incision, you say?” repeated Carruthers. “Do not murderers usually slash, or cut or gash?”
Thomas paused and nodded slowly. “That is my experience, sir, but that is why this case is so unusual.” He peered at the deep, gaping wound. The skin had been cut away in a neat and deliberate square as if it were surgical gauze. The tissues around the opening were swollen and a thin, brownish fluid had crusted around the edge, yet the cut was smooth. The blade used, he surmised, was sharp, clean, and concise.
“Go, go on,” urged Carruthers.
Thomas delved deep into the wound and probed it using a scalpel.
“Well?” The old doctor was growing impatient.
“I need to be sure,” Thomas told him, lighting a candle. “Can you hold this for me, sir? I need to be sure that my eyes are not playing tricks.”
The old doctor began to move toward the table and Thomas took his hand before folding his fingers around the candle-holder.
“If you stay there, then I will be able to confirm what I suspect,” the young anatomist told him.
Now that the area was illuminated, Thomas could see much more clearly. There was the muscular tube of the pharynx, extending from the base of the skull to its junction with the esophagus next to the ring of the cricoid cartilage. There, too, was the tip of the oropharynx, but of the larynx, which would normally lie in front of the lowest part of the pharynx, there was nothing. Between the pharynx and the level of the sixth cervical vertebra was just a dark void.
“It is as I thought, sir,” said Thomas, snuffing out the candle with his finger and thumb. “The killer has cut out the larynx and with it the vocal cords.”
“But who would do such a thing?” said Dr. Carruthers, shaking his head. “He would have to be mad.”
“Or a genius,” added Thomas under his breath as he began recovering the cadaver. It would remain in the laboratory overnight until the coroner’s men came for it at first light.
The sun had disappeared behind dark clouds once again and the report for the coroner needed to be written. By now the stench of the corpse was too bad to remain in the laboratory, so Thomas suggested that he and Dr. Carruthers finish their discussion in the house. It would be up to Franklin, Thomas’s white rat that lived in a cage in the corner of the room, to keep guard over the body until first light.
The young doctor was just locking the outer door to the laboratory when he heard footsteps on the gravel pathway.
“Who goes there?” asked the blind doctor.
“ ’Tis Count Boruwlaski,” replied Thomas, watching the little man bluster toward them.
“Count, what is the matter?” he asked, seeing the troubled look on the visitor’s face.
“Ah, Dr. Silkstone, Dr. Silkstone. It is Signor Moreno,” he cried, trying to catch his breath.
“What ails him?” frowned Thomas.
The dwarf shook his head and gulped. “They have arrested him for murder.”
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