How stupid to assume a microscope alone would solve his problems. The container of glass plates caught his eye – a repurposed biscuit tin whose girlish princess decoration had nearly worn off. Sibylla’s voice came to him: “If you don’t know a thing, Dodge, find a book that does. Then sit down and read it.”
Dr Eldridge’s tiny library consisted primarily of rickety old shelves groaning with back issues of Caligo’s oldest medical journal, The Speculum, dating back over a century. He flipped through the most recent issues, his eyes scanning the pages for the word “blood.”
An hour later, with a half-dozen relevant articles read, it seemed to Roger no pair of physicians agreed on the purpose of the blood. Many opinionated men engaged in verbal fisticuffs within The Speculum’s pages, including the royal physician to the queen, Dr Finch Lundfrigg, whom Roger had once glimpsed in Dr Eldridge’s lecture hall surrounded by students begging him to autograph their textbooks.
While other physicians theorized blood behaved like a series of water pipes to modulate temperature, or distributed minerals to the extremities, Dr Lundfrigg insisted the blood was an “internal fingerprint” that informed the nature of one’s physical appearance and mental capacities.
Roger left the library more daunted than ever. Still, he’d determined healthy blood looked a certain way, thanks to Dr Lundfrigg’s sketches. Once he understood how to describe what was wrong with Celeste’s blood, he could ask Dr Eldridge his opinion without exposing the particulars of the case.
He returned to the dissection room and fixed a slide of his own blood to the microscope. Lowering his face to the eyepiece, he adjusted the lenses, focusing the bright red smear into a pale field of poppy-red buds – the corpuscles.
He swapped out the slide of his own blood for Celeste’s sample. Now that he knew what he was looking at, the differences between the two samples were plain to see. Celeste’s corpuscles appeared oddly bunched and stacked. Clotting, perhaps, since her blood wasn’t as fresh. As he stared into the lens, his eyes dry from forgetting to blink, he noticed a strange presence in the space between the red cells. Numerous pus globules, more than he’d seen in his own blood, clumped around tiny black speckles of foreign material. Those black speckles hadn’t been in his blood.
Celeste was ill, but he’d never seen her particular symptoms before. Except… he had. Celeste wasn’t the first woman with a strange abdominal wall he’d come across. No, he’d observed something similar twice before, though his other “patients” had been dead when he examined them. The strange bumps beneath Lady Margalotte’s dress and that odd pimpling on Claudine – there had to be a connection.
Both women had been sick when they’d died. Perhaps this Greyanchor Strangler fellow had a twisted sense of empathy, or perhaps he had something to do with what plagued them. Now Roger feared a darker pattern.
If he could check their blood for foreign specks that matched Celeste’s, he might be on to something. Margalotte lay under a mortsafe, but Claudine was in the basement awaiting her special lecture.
Roger raced for the cellars where the stiffs were kept at night. Once he had confirmed his suspicions, he would return to Will-o’-the-Wisp Lane and tell Celeste to move immediately. He’d offer up his room to her and Ada, he’d stand guard on the stairs. And if it meant keeping them safe, he’d even risk his own neck by calling the constables.
When he burst into the cellar, he ran to the first sheeted corpse – a hanged convict. He checked the other specimens, but Claudine was missing. Then he remembered Dr Eldridge had asked him to scrub down the lecture hall for the upcoming course on female anatomy. The “verified lady specimen” must have been moved to the dissection room adjoining the main hall.
And that’s where Dr Eldridge intercepted Roger.
“Ah, Mr Weathersby, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Dr Eldridge, his face glistening and red, propped himself against the doorframe to catch his breath. He leaned into the corridor as if searching for eavesdroppers, then left the door ajar.
“I wanted to thank you for lending me that microscope,” said Roger. Something was amiss but he tried to pretend otherwise. “I’ll have it shining like new as soon as I’ve finished my research. Then I’ll start preparations on the lady corpse. I weren’t about to skip out on you. Why don’t you sit down?”
Dr Eldridge remained standing with his back to the door. The old man rarely stayed on his feet for so long. “That female corpse you brought the other day,” he began.
“Right.” Roger didn’t like how Dr Eldridge blocked his only exit. Probably fatigue had made him paranoid. “About that lady stiff, sir. If I might just tap her for the tiniest dab of blood–”
“Can you tell me again how you came about her?” Dr Eldridge interrupted in a manner usually reserved for drunken students. “You seemed worried about her identity when you brought her in. If you’ll just repeat your story, I think I might be able to solve our little problem.”
“You didn’t seem much interested last time.” Puzzled, Roger studied the man’s face. “I followed a hearse to the mourning chapel and sprung her from the crypt that night, afore the fog lifted. Standard crypt lock, plain pine box. But the lady didn’t look right. You saw her.”
“I did indeed.” The doctor gave a sorrowful sigh, and Roger wondered if the corpse had touched his feelings in some way. “Unfortunately, some others also noticed.” Dr Eldridge stepped back and pushed open the door. “And I’m afraid I cannot with good conscience employ you at my college any longer.”
“You’re giving me the sack?” Roger gripped the empty slab for support. “But that makes no sense. How many stiffs have I brought you? Them what died in their sleep, them who was hanged, old, young, always fresh. And this one does me in?”
The doctor pointed at the door. Roger tried to leave, but a figure blocked his way: a broad-shouldered man in a blue double-breasted coat and custodian helmet, cudgel in hand. A second blue-coated man moved in behind him. Constables.
The first advanced, pulling a pair of iron manacles from his belt. “Consider yourself under arrest for breaking and entering private property within state cemeteries, and unlawful trafficking of the deceased.
Everything you just said while we was listening outside the door will be used against you. Come quietly, and you might keep your teeth.”
“Dr Eldridge, sir!” Roger backtracked hastily. When he met the resistance of brick, he flattened himself against it. “Tell them–”
“As far as the law is concerned, I acquire my specimens by legal means,” said Dr Eldridge, speaking to the constables. “If the men bringing me the specimens are doing so illegally, I assert that I have no knowledge of their methods. This college must be above scandal.” His voice darkened. “And certainly above people trying to dispose of murdered young women.”
The pair of constables flanked Roger and grabbed his arms. He struggled as they pulled his hands in front of him and shackled his wrists. “Pinching stiffs is only a misdemeanor. I never took no property. I’m a man of science! You can’t train doctors without stiffs.” Roger’s chest tightened. “You’re not stupid enough to think I’m the Greyanchor Strangler, are you? There’s more to this than–”
“What’s this?” interrupted the first constable. Thin sideburns ran the length of his cheeks as if they’d been drawn with charcoal. He pulled the cravat from Roger’s neck in one sharp tug, revealing the tattoo shaped like a crenellated wall, the one he’d gotten during his second stay at Old Grim.
“Lookee here. He’s got the brand, Melbus. The lad’s been jugged twice already.” The constable chuckled. “You’ll be in for quite a bit longer than you was before, son, mark my words.”
Roger gave Dr Eldridge a beseeching look as he was dragged from the room.
“There were times when I thought of you like a son,” mumbled Dr Eldridge from the doorway. He choked, yet continued, “But this college is my life. And I’d rather cut out my son than my own throat.”
Roger’s visio
n blurred as tears stung his eyes. “That makes two of you worthless blighters, don’t it!” Rage coursed through his veins like the hot colored wax he injected into display cadavers. When he looked over his shoulder, Dr Eldridge had gone.
The constables brought Roger to Old Grim in a cab. During their ride through the foggy streets, Roger convinced himself a mistake had been made, a clerical error that would be corrected soon enough. It wasn’t uncommon for the wrong man to be arrested and held for a day, sometimes even two or three. Nail had once been kept on suspicion for pickpocketing simply because the victim reported seeing a man with red hair.
The cab halted before a sunken ramp that led deep into the lower levels of Old Grim, levels Roger had never visited during his misdemeanor days. Back then he’d shared a large communal bay more like a barracks than a cell, and he and other fit youths his age were sent to work at the docks or the quarry, overseen by guards with truncheons.
“You’ve never been down here, have you?” said the constable with sideburns as they disembarked. “It’s where we take the rapists and murderers. Not so many windows to climb out of, neither, and I don’t just mean lit’ral ones.”
“I might be a repeat offender, but you’ll see… I’m no murderer.”
Roger stumbled forward as the two constables frogmarched him down a muddy ramp. The ramp became a winding stone staircase slick with moss and ended in a gaslit office. A clerk sat behind a paperstrewn desk.
“Name?” he asked without looking up. “Offense?”
“I won’t speak till I have legal counsel.” Roger did his best to look innocent and affronted, but the constables jostled him roughly.
One of the constables volunteered the requested information instead. “His name’s Roger Weathersby, and see this brand on his neck? Former convict, known corpse-trafficker, and I reckon a murderer to boot. You going to deny it again, son?”
Roger bit his tongue – better to remain silent than get tricked into a confession. The clerk shrugged. While the constables gave the particulars of the arrest and the clerk made notes in a ledger, Roger suppressed an urge to shout how wrong they were. They removed the manacles from his wrists, then shucked off his mute’s frockcoat, his waistcoat, and searched his pockets to find only the laundry slip for his rented afflictions.
“Where’s your coin, son?”
“I weren’t yet paid for my last job. I won’t be till this afternoon once I’ve returned my afflictions,” said Roger. They’d taken everything but his shoes, trousers, and shirt. He wondered how far they intended to take this farce.
“We’ll hold your belongings for now,” said the clerk. He made a bundle of Roger’s removed clothing and pinned a card to it. “Prisoners pay for their own meals and bedding if they want more than a biscuit and sackcloth – and I advise you to tip your jailer well. He’ll clear out a holding cell for you.”
Even if Roger wasn’t broke, he refused to pay for basic decency.
“For now, you can stay in the counsel room till evening, when you’ll be advised on legal matters.”
“This won’t take long, will it?” Roger’s plea sounded tinny and far away, drowned by the constables’ laughter. The cold, clammy air dampened his clothes, and he had the sensation of being dragged deep underwater, away from the light.
He didn’t deserve this. Though he enjoyed bending the law on occasion, bodysnatching was illegal – barely – because the public feared stiffs and didn’t understand how badly doctors needed them. Still, he couldn’t afford to stay in jail, not with the real strangler out there and Celeste sick. Then there was Ada. She expected him to return with medicine, and he’d given his word to protect her. If he didn’t meet the girl like he’d promised, she’d assume he was a lying bastard who’d forgotten her on purpose.
Worries filling his head, Roger was led to a vaulted room that had the look of an old wine cellar, but for the massive desk in its center. A metal ring was bolted to the floor before the desk, and to this Roger’s chains were fettered so he could kneel, but not stand.
“What is this?” Roger shouted, as he was forced to crouch at the jailer’s feet. He’d never faced this level of humiliation during his previous arrests. “I didn’t kill no one! I have rights. This is no way to treat a suspect.”
“If you’re lucky, you’ll have counsel when you stand afore the magistrate,” said the jailer in a voice tinged with mock pity. “Just wait here all patient-like. I wouldn’t expect no one before afternoon tea. Behave yourself now and don’t make no disgraceful noises.”
The jailer left him huddled in the dark.
At first, Roger beat the floor with his fists. Then he tried to contort his hands and slip them free of the iron bracelets, but he only managed to scrape his skin raw. This must be the beginning of the end. No one would find him here. The jailer might as well have tossed him into the deepest pit of Grim’s lowest level, and everyone outside would forget he’d ever existed.
No. He arched his back and pulled himself upright. He couldn’t give up now. Not with Ada out there, waiting for him. He knew first-hand how rotten it was to care for an ailing parent alone. He’d been eighteen when he’d buried his mother, but Ada wasn’t more than ten. If Celeste died, she’d take it hard. And then what? The daughter of a doxy would surely become one, too.
Roger could do nothing while chained in this hole. But it could be worse. Though he was a repeat offender with a zigzag mark on his neck, that didn’t mean he’d hang. There were no formal charges on his name yet, just hearsay. Evidence existed to pin him for a single resurrection. He wasn’t a murderer, a housebreaker or a highwayman – all hanging crimes. One incident of bodysnatching meant the stocks or whipping post. He’d take his flogging and, as a repeat offender, a month of hard labor on one of the Mudtyne hulks. Ada was resourceful enough to take care of herself for that long, and then he’d start his life over. After all, he’d done it twice before.
He must have fallen asleep on the floor, for when he woke hours later, a pair of patent leather shoes gleamed before his eyes in the gaslight. Roger shifted onto his knees and looked up into the serious, spectacled face of Mr Murray. Beside Roger stood a jailer, idly thwacking a truncheon against his palm.
“Ah, Mr Weathersby,” said the lawyer, a stack of papers in his hands. “We meet again, and so soon. I thought you rather evasive during our conversation yesterday, but truth and murder will out, as they say.”
“Why do people keep bringing up murder?” Roger snapped.
Mr Murray sighed. “If you plan to argue innocence in a court of law, you’ll find it very difficult.”
Roger needed to stay calm to get through to this man. “I stole a stiff. I admit it. It’s not uncommon, and if you don’t steal nothing more, it’s barely a crime. I’ll take my lashes, that’s the risk of the job. But there’s no reason for doing me down like this. What haven’t I been told, sir?”
Mr Murray sat at the desk and began to read from his papers. “One Roger Weathersby first appears in court records nearly five years ago, upon his release from three months of hard labor. Interestingly, there is no written documentation of his crime. In fact, there’s no previous record of Roger Weathersby anywhere, not even a report of birth. But only a year after his release, an undertaker’s apprentice named Roger Weathersby was accused by his own master Mr Grausam of eleven counts of resurrectionist activity. A court found him guilty and sentenced him to a flogging and six months of hard labor. On his release he was branded. A subsequent arrest will be the end of legal leniency.”
Mr Murray shuffled his papers while Roger knelt with his face burning in rage. “That’s none of your business.”
“Just last week, this same Roger Weathersby sold the corpse of Claudine Walston to an unknowing physician at an anatomical college. Matters surrounding the woman’s death, along with physical evidence, suggest that this Roger Weathersby had, motivated by coin and inhuman urges, suffocated the innocent lady by his own hand and violated her. Further evidence suggests he killed
one Lady Margalotte in the same dastardly way, though he was thwarted before he could unearth her, too. In fact, there are a dozen such cases that might be linked to this man.”
“Lies!” Roger pounded the floor. “You rotten lot of bastards. It’s a frame job. I’ve been set up–” The jailer landed a kick on Roger’s jaw and sent him sprawling.
“My words to you as your legal advisor,” continued Mr Murray, “seeing as the evidence falls so hard against you, is to plead guilty and pray for a drop of her royal majesty’s mercy.”
Roger pushed himself up and spat out a mouthful of blood. “But I ain’t guilty.”
Mr Murray left his desk to stand over Roger with a leer. He leaned down and whispered, “Then you should have left Ms Walston’s corpse alone. Unfortunately, someone must be held accountable. The people expect the Greyanchor Strangler to eventually be caught, and one must manage public expectations, as it were. Finding a suitable scapegoat can be nearly as tiring as arresting the culprit himself. You happen to have a vagabondish look about you. In the court of law, perception is everything.”
“But she were dead when I found her! I can prove it, if you bloody imbeciles will let me speak.” He had a lot more to say, too – about Celeste’s blood and illness, and how none of this seemed right.
Mr Murray shook his head. “You’d do well to hold your tongue. Since it would be best that I handle your case myself, I will note here that you are not of your right mind. How could a man who strangles invalids be sane enough to stand trial? And so you see, your counsel is complete. I thank you for your time, Mr Weathersby.”
10
Sibylla spent the morning packing her travel trunk while scheming how she might earn the queen’s grace without divulging the identity of her bastard brother. So far her list of queen-endearing strategies included marrying her cousin, catching the Greyanchor Strangler, or plotting the assassination of an Arenberg head of state. After all, Arenberg’s pragmatic policies toward its neighbors had soured everyone’s good opinion of them, including her grandmother’s. Certainly interfering with a foreign nation’s government was more palatable than accepting her cousin’s hand.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 10
