Galvanism and Ghouls

by Tilly Wallace

  Charlie traced the lines of the woman’s face with a fingertip. “Just over a week ago. She had a cough and was going to see the doctor about it. She never came back. When I asked after her, no one knew where she had gone.”

  “How bad was this cough?” Perhaps the woman had taken a turn for the worse and expired on her way to the doctor. An opportunistic person might have sold her still warm corpse to the unknown surgeon.

  The baker shrugged. “I didn’t think it was that serious, but she said it kept her awake at night. Lemon and brandy didn’t shift it, so she insisted on seeing one of them doctors about it.” He screwed up his eyes and the tears trickling down his floury face turned into a rivulet.

  “Do you remember the name of the doctor she saw?” How convenient if the physician she had visited turned out to be the one who had murdered her to possess her form.

  Charlie shook his head. “Don’t know. They hold a charitable surgery at the Royal Hospital twice a week and anyone from around here can go. It depends who was there that day. I can’t believe she’s gone. Are you sure it’s her?”

  Wycliff bit back a sarcastic retort about one dismembered corpse looking much like another. Miss Miles would probably frown and remind him of the father’s grief. He chose a different tack instead. “Your daughter is the first person I have found who matches the sketch and who is missing. Did she have any distinguishing characteristics that could confirm her identity?”

  Sad brown eyes lifted and fixed on him. “She only had one leg.”

  “One leg?” Unless Beth had grown a new one, this confirmed that at least one limb was not her own.

  Charlie wiped both hands up over his face and spread flour into his greying hair. “Lost it as a youngster when she got run over by a carriage.”

  “Which one?” Had Beth’s torso received one donor leg or two?

  “You expect me to remember what carriage did it after all these years?” The baker eased out a crease in the paper where he had clutched it too tightly.

  Wycliff squeezed the bridge of his nose. Lord save him from idiots and the bereaved. “Which leg?”

  “Oh—her left. The wheel took it off just above the knee.” He patted his own leg at mid-thigh.

  That fitted with the scar Wycliff remembered on the body. Had someone tried to make Beth Warren whole again? But that didn’t explain the amputation and reattachment of the other leg and both arms.

  Charlie held the sketch closer to his chest and his voice dropped to a quavering whisper. “Can I see her?”

  “That might not be wise, given it has been some time since her death.” Doctor Husom had dismembered the woman to ascertain which limbs were hers and which might have belonged to other women. Given the father had fainted on the news of her death, finding his daughter a limbless torso might be too much for his constitution to bear. Wycliff would rather not have the man fainting away twice in one day.

  The baker’s bottom lip quivered. “Can I at least have her back, to bury?”

  “Of course.” He was sure that could be arranged. If Husom reattached most of the limbs and she were dressed in a high-necked gown, the man might never know what had happened to his daughter. Wycliff, on the other hand, did need to know.

  “Did anyone go with your daughter to see the doctor, or is there anyone who might have seen her that day?” Answers led to more questions. At least now he knew the woman had gone to the Royal Hospital, but what had transpired from there?

  The quiver of the lip became a full-on shake and Wycliff suspected a hysterical outburst was not far away. “Nancy—she’s our neighbour. She went with Beth that day. She said Beth stayed to talk to the doctor and she came home alone.”

  Wycliff extracted directions on how to find Nancy, and a description of her. Then he told the bereft father he would ensure his daughter’s remains were returned to him, omitting that she would need to be pieced back together first.

  As Wycliff left the bakery, his feet began to protest the miles he had walked. He chided himself for growing soft and focused instead on finding the next clue in his puzzle. The baker had given remarkably good directions and soon he stood on the footpath and stared at a row of brick terraces. A woman he assumed to be Nancy, from the description given, sat on a step with a swollen belly as she knitted and watched a child at play.

  He approached, but stopped out of reach of the child, who had grubby hands. “Are you Nancy? I am Viscount Wycliff, with news of Beth Warren.”

  “Turned up at last, did she? Where did she get herself to? Bet it involved a handsome face.” The woman rolled a ball of red wool toward the child with her toe.

  Interesting that she assumed her friend had disappeared because she was with a man. “She is dead, but I am investigating what might have happened to her.”

  “Dead?” Nancy dropped her knitting onto her belly and tears welled up in her eyes. “But it were only a cough, it weren’t serious.”

  “That is why I need to know what happened before you left her. Her father says you accompanied her to the charitable surgery at the Royal Hospital?” Wycliff watched the child ignore the ball of wool and instead fix on a beetle crawling along the footpath.

  “Yes. Once or twice a week they put up a tent in the grounds and you can go talk to a doctor for free. We both went. Beth had a cough and Fred here had one, too.” She gestured to the child, who had the bright eyes and pink cheeks of rude good health.

  Wycliff lifted his boot as the beetle made to crawl over his toe. “Did Beth have any plans for afterward? Perhaps a beau she planned to meet?” That would explain the handsome face comment. A jealous man seemed the most likely place to start. Perhaps she had stepped out with one and consequently enraged another. Was it too much to hope that she had been seeing a student doctor?

  “No, she wasn’t seeing anyone. I was only joking. She would have told me if she were. We didn’t keep secrets between us. I had to leave ’cause Fred was restless and I left her talking to that big doctor.” Nancy brushed aside her knitting and grabbed the back of the child’s shirt to haul him back to the step.

  A cold finger stroked down Wycliff’s spine. “Which big doctor?”

  She raised a finger to the child in a stay motion and then handed the boy a ball from her basket. “The one married to the dead mage.”

  “Sir Hugh Miles,” Wycliff blew out the name on an exhale.

  Nancy looked up and nodded. “That’s the one. Last I saw Beth, she was chatting right happily with Sir Hugh.”

  Fuel would certainly be added to the rumours about Sir Hugh’s being the Chelsea monster if that snippet got out.

  “You know she’s not the only woman gone missing lately.” Nancy pulled her child even closer.

  Cold dread seeped into Wycliff’s bones. “There are more?”

  She nodded and looked up and down the street. “People talk. Apparently there’s some other women who haven’t been seen for weeks, either.”

  Wycliff pulled out his notebook and extracted the scant rumours and scuttlebutt the woman knew. Then, with theories taking form in his mind, Wycliff hailed a hackney and headed for the Royal Hospital.

  He found the doctor in his study, the door open. Wycliff rapped on the door. “Doctor Husom, have you further examined the woman?”

  The doctor looked up from his papers and swivelled in his chair. “Yes. And I have some most interesting findings to share.”

  “As do I. The girl has been identified as Beth Warren. I found her father and learned she only had one leg.” Wycliff gestured to his left leg and the approximate place her father had indicated.

  The doctor pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Ah. That fits with my findings. Come, let us go to my examination room.”

  The two men spoke as they walked, their conversation limited to snatches when no one else passed by.

  Doctor Husom waited until two red-clad pensioners passed, both leaning on their canes. “Her flesh deteriorates quickly. She will have to be buried or assigned to the crematorium very s
oon.”

  Why did she deteriorate and yet what remained of Mr Barnes showed no sign of rot at all? Even given the hand’s Afflicted state, with no sustenance it should have begun to decay. “Her father wishes her body returned to him, although I would recommend a closed casket and removing the leg she is missing from her form.”

  The doctor coughed and drew a handkerchief from his pocket for the next cough. “It will be a case of replacing, not removing. I have removed all the limbs from the torso to facilitate my examination.”

  They reached the examination room at the far end of the building. The doctor pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. “To ensure privacy,” he said.

  A sheet covered the form on the table, but the fabric sagged between the end of each limb and the torso. The doctor removed the sheet with a flourish. Around the woman was a series of dismembered pieces. “I have examined the bones and main tendons and arteries at the end of each limb. I have ascertained that none appear to belong to this woman.”

  “All four limbs are someone else’s?” What sort of madman was he dealing with? Barnes had been taken after death, but what Wycliff had learned pointed to the probability that Beth had been murdered. And what of the other missing women? Had they provided the limbs that were stitched to Beth’s torso?

  Wycliff ran a hand through his hair. He had too many questions and too few answers.

  “Yes.” Doctor Husom stood to one side of his patient.

  “So even the right leg, which was whole, has been removed and replaced?” Wycliff pointed to the limb in question. What drove a man to violate a dead woman in such a way?

  “Correct. I also made a discovery in her throat. I have a drawing to show you.” The doctor picked up a sheet of paper from his workbench.

  “Oh?” Four limbs and none were hers. Had they come from two other women, or more?

  “Her hyoid bone is fractured, which is an indicator of strangulation.” The doctor pointed to the drawing that looked vaguely like a chicken’s wishbone.

  “Could this be proof of murder?” The crimes committed against the woman continued to mount. “She saw a doctor for a cough. Would that produce such an injury?”

  The doctor pushed his spectacles further up his nose with one finger. “I’ve not seen a cough that results in this particular fracture. I am confident she met her end by the hand of another.”

  Wycliff held in a sigh. Whoever their surgeon was, apparently grave digging didn’t satisfy their needs and they were killing the living for the limbs they desired. “Thank you, Doctor Husom, you have been most helpful. I have no further use for the remains, if you could ensure she is returned to her father for burial. Charlie Warren, a baker at the Chelsea Bun Company.”

  Doctor Husom picked up the leg that would not be required. “Tell me, Lord Wycliff, did Sir Hugh make any discovery from the remains he took away?”

  “What remains?” Wycliff searched his memory for other incidents. The only other parts found had been the arm and hand, and he wouldn’t classify that as a body.

  “It was two weeks ago. Sir Hugh had a torso with only one leg. All the other limbs and the head were missing. He asked me if I knew anything about it. The conversation became quite heated at one point, almost as though he didn’t believe my denials.” The doctor fetched a small silver basin with implements rattling inside.

  “He never mentioned it to me.” A leg and torso? Facts began to piece themselves together in his mind.

  Doctor Husom looked up and narrowed his eyes. “How odd. It sounded similar to this case, as I believe the leg was kicking out at anyone who came too close.”

  A kicking leg? Most curious. What was the likelihood it had belonged to the supposedly cremated Mr Barnes?

  It was time for Wycliff to return to Westbourne Green, and a conversation with Sir Hugh. Perhaps that surgeon required a kick as an aide-mémoire.

  15

  The next morning, the newspaper headline declared, Monster Continues to Terrorise Chelsea Fields.

  Hannah held in a sigh at such a grammatical error. The fields themselves were probably ambivalent about the existence of a monster. It would be those out at night who feared encountering it. The subtitle posed the question, Is Sir Hugh Miles experimenting on more than mice? She tried to read the lines upside down as she buttered her toast, but had to resort to pulling the paper closer.

  “What has caught your interest?” her father asked as he entered the room.

  Hannah pushed the newspaper along the table. “Another ridiculous and fallacious article about the possibility of your being the creature that roams the fields around Chelsea. Now the scandalmongers speculate on what you do in your laboratory. It says young women are being snatched off the streets.”

  Sir Hugh carried his plate from the buffet and took his seat at the head of the table. “It will pass. These things always do. I suspect some people like scaring themselves with the idea of a monster stalking the dark, looking for a vulnerable victim. Usually these supposedly vanished young women have taken employment elsewhere or run away with a beau.”

  “But how can they make such horrible accusations about you? They are simply not true!” Her father was a good man and it riled Hannah to think people could believe such nonsense. If the stories continued, what would be next—a torch-carrying mob marching along their road?

  Did women truly disappear without telling their friends or family? She could not imagine being so enamoured of someone that she ran away with him on impulse, without at least telling her mother first. No passion could be so all-consuming that a person forgot common decency and omitted to notify their worried family of their whereabouts.

  “With Lord Wycliff investigating the matter, I am sure he will unmask the true monster in due course.” Sir Hugh tucked a napkin into the top of his waistcoat and then picked up his cutlery.

  Hannah poured coffee for her father and stirred in two lumps of sugar. “The article dwells on the wounds seen on the woman found near the Physic Garden. Lord Wycliff said she bore many similarities to Mr Barnes’ hand.”

  “Is that so?” Hugh looked up from his breakfast, his eyes narrowed with interest. “Ah, here is the man himself.”

  Hannah tried not to jump in her chair as the viscount appeared in the breakfast room. He had a way of walking without making a sound, even though he had hard soles on his boots.

  “Tell me, Lord Wycliff, about this woman found in the fields. Was she Afflicted like Mr Barnes?”

  The viscount nodded to Hannah and then collected a plate from the end of the buffet. “That I do not know, Sir Hugh. But the woman bears the same surgical scars as the hand and forearm we examined. Except in this case, all four limbs have been stitched to her torso.”

  Her father paused and his eyes rolled to one side in thought. “All four? That is remarkable. Are they all hers?”

  Lord Wycliff took a seat across from Hannah, not the usual one diagonally opposite. “Doctor Husom is investigating that hypothesis. Are you aware of any medical school that amputates and reattaches the limbs of cadavers?”

  Sir Hugh swallowed his mouthful before answering. “It would be a decidedly odd thing to practice. We normally just saw off damaged limbs and close over the wound. I’ve not heard of anyone having success in reattaching a limb. There are so many veins and tendons that must be joined. Even a third-generation aftermage with healing magic would struggle to complete such a surgery before the patient died.”

  Hannah recalled what she had witnessed during the SUSS meeting. “Could it be an extension of the resurrection challenge, Papa? Perhaps there is a scholar trying to determine the nature of life and how it can be infused into dead flesh?”

  Her father chewed his mouthful and took his time to swallow and answer. “None of the others have mentioned it to me, but then, some keep their research closely guarded. I could not entirely dismiss the idea. What of Lord Dunkeith, Hannah? Did he strike you as the sort to be stitching together corpses in the parlour of his Chelsea mansi
on?”

  Hannah laughed. Lord Dunkeith seemed far too civilised for such a monstrous undertaking. He had a disposition suited to mixing potions, not plunging his hands into the flesh of another. “After we gathered the plants for Mother, he showed me his work area. He uses the conservatory attached to the house. It is a place surrounded by plants and sunlight. Quite apart from not being the sort of place for such a gruesome undertaking, the walls are made of glass. Anyone could glance inside and see what he did.”

  “Perhaps he has a secret underground autopsy room elsewhere? I understand flesh lasts better in the chilled air below ground,” Lord Wycliff said.

  Hugh pointed at Wycliff with his knife. “Quite so, Lord Wycliff. No one can tell from a cursory glance what a man might be concealing far beneath the surface.”

  Wycliff narrowed his eyes and huffed. Then he made a show of flicking the newspaper open.

  Hannah stared at her toast, but her throat seemed particularly dry. Society had cast her father as a mad scientist performing awful experiments in the underground laboratory. They didn’t need such prejudices fuelled by false newspaper articles, or an investigator casting aspersions in the wrong direction.

  “What of Doctor Husom, Papa? Have you seen his laboratory where he studies galvanism?” To master electricity seemed both terrifying and exhilarating.

  “No, I have not. Although I am given to understand that he only possesses the equipment that he demonstrated at the meeting. I wonder if that would generate sufficient charge to animate an entire body, as opposed to making an arm rise?” Sir Hugh drained his coffee and set the cup to one side.

  “Animating the body still does not return the mind. Even if he were successful, would he not create something akin to your secondary Afflicted?” Wycliff asked.

  Sir Hugh screwed up his face at the idea. “An excellent point, although I would assume he tests it on cadavers who still possess their brains, whereas the secondary Afflicted have been robbed of theirs.”