The Anatomy of Death

by Felicity Young

  And then there was the astonishing fact that his daughter had actually witnessed the murder—if murder it was. Dody had only found that out when Pike had woken in the night muttering Violet’s name. She had assumed he was referring to a wife, but after she had soothed him with more laudanum, he told her that his wife was dead and that Violet was his daughter. He made her swear, for both their sakes, that she would not make his daughter’s involvement in the riot public knowledge.

  For a fleeting moment Dody forgot her cares and smiled as she watched the drizzly streetscape speed by. So, the staid, straightlaced chief inspector had a suffragette-in-the-making for a daughter! The irony was quite delicious; how she wished she could tell Florence.

  Florence.

  The smile faded from her face. Florence’s abrupt departure from the house had been worrying and hurtful, though in hindsight it was just as well, given Pike’s arrival. But Florence was sure to hear the news from Annie, and then what? A policeman was a policeman to Florence, no matter how hurt and helpless he was, and no matter how convinced Dody was that they could trust him. This would surely drive yet another wedge between them.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the day ahead and put a stop to this useless fretting. How illogical, how unlike her it was to worry about something that might never happen. If only she’d had the time for a soothing morning pipe before she’d left home.

  Stepping out of the cab, she paused outside the front of the hospital, one of the first built expressly for women. She gazed up at the building’s unusual façade, a sight that always invigorated her spirit. The windows were of all shapes and sizes: arched and circular and some were leadlight, with a quaint little wooden portico presiding over them. The unique features seemed to join voices and cry out, Look at me, look at me, I have dared to be different, I have defied all odds and I have succeeded! Medicine for women had progressed a long way in thirty years, and Dody felt proud of her own small part in it. Without waiting for the hospital porter, she pushed open the heavy front door.

  The ward rounds took up the better part of the day, and it was past teatime when she finally made her way to the pathology department of St. Mary’s Hospital. A tall white-coated figure was alone in the laboratory, stooped over a microscope at one of the benches. For a moment she thought it might have been Spilsbury himself. The door banged behind her and the man turned to look up. He pushed an untidy fringe of greying hair from his forehead and squinted across the laboratory through a pair of thick-lensed glasses.

  “Dr. McCleland, isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, I’ll be—thought you were still in Edinburgh.”

  Dody hurried over to where he sat and shook his hand, hiding her disappointment. Dr. Eccles was a fair man. He was one of the few who not did not discriminate between male and female doctors. “I’ve been back for just over a week, Dr. Eccles—though it feels far longer than that. Edinburgh seems a long way in the past now.”

  “Fully qualified and raring to go, eh? I believe we’ll be seeing a bit more of you now you’re with the Home Office. Spilsbury spoke very highly of you when he returned from Scotland. I think you might even have changed his opinion about lady doctors—and that’s no mean feat, believe me.”

  Did Spilsbury really say that? Dody felt her colour rise. She consoled herself that, even with his glasses on, Dr. Eccles would probably not notice. “I’m glad to hear it, sir.”

  “I believe he will be seeking a personal assistant when he comes back from leave.” Eccles’s thick lenses glinted. “Perhaps you will apply.”

  “Oh…perhaps.” There was nothing Dody would like more than to be Dr. Spilsbury’s assistant. But she would not want to reveal her interest now, had no wish to betray herself to Eccles. Hers was a silly girlish crush—she knew that and would never take it further, even if Spilsbury were to show more than professional interest in her. Still, there was no harm in dreaming—was there?

  She made a play at examining the rows of specimen jars above Dr. Eccles’s head. “And how are things at St. Mary’s?”

  “Can’t complain. The surgeons are at last taking our work seriously; sending pathological specimens to us is quite de rigueur these days.” He pointed to a box of slides before him. “Tumours mainly, for identification. The old sawbones are finally becoming aware that not everything can be infallibly identified with the naked eye alone.”

  “But no talk yet of an exclusive police crime laboratory here as they are planning for Lyon?”

  Eccles became wistful. “Ah, if only. We’ll just have to leave that to the French for the time being. At least we can learn from their mistakes.” He indicated a lab stool. “Sit down and tell me what I can do for you. If it’s purely my company you are after, may I suggest dinner at the Savoy Grill? The whitebait comes highly recommended.” His lips moved into a smile; he was a shameless flirt—and happily married with half a dozen children. Dody knew very well that if she were to accept the invitation, he would probably fall off his stool in shock.

  “One day I might take you up on your invitation,” she replied graciously, arranging her skirts over the stool, “but tonight I’m afraid I’m otherwise engaged.” He looked relieved. “I was hoping you might shed some light on the latest blood analysis techniques for me.”

  Eccles removed his glasses and leaned back against the bench. “What is it you wish to know?”

  “A simple test that can be done quickly on a bloodstain to determine the owner’s blood group.”

  “I believe research is being carried out, but the development of a simple test is some years away. The Frogs will probably get there first; they always do.”

  “So there is no way I could test a weapon for a human blood group?”

  “None, other than the presumptive test, which will only show you if the stain is, in fact, blood at all.”

  Dody saw herself seated on a stool like this in the draughty Edinburgh laboratory as she performed the basic test for haemoglobin. Again she felt her elation when she saw the reactive fizz of the reagent when it reached the red blood cells. She had not even contemplated the possibility of working out the identity of the owner back then. Chief Inspector Pike seemed impressively ahead of the game.

  “Blood alone won’t help you much,” Eccles said, “and it would be a rare truncheon indeed that would have no human bloodstains on it at all.”

  Dody agreed, although she would not dream of saying such a thing to Pike. She was sorry, too, that the blood testing had turned out to be a dead end, for he would be disappointed. How strange, she thought, a week ago she would not have given tuppence for his feelings.

  Olivia Barndon-Brown lived in a comfortable flat at the top of a dazzling white terraced house about a mile’s walk from the McClelands’ Bloomsbury residence. Dody instructed the driver of the motor taxi to wait in the street for her until she had finished her business. She would have walked home from here, but for the borrowed crutches.

  In the hall Dody waited for the doorman to climb the stairs and announce her arrival to Olivia. She pondered how she might make peace with her sister without actually encouraging her home immediately. Olivia, who appeared to be the peacemaker of the group, might help, though everyone’s nerves had been frayed since Lady Catherine’s death and even the affable Olivia had seemed unduly agitated, her smile not so ready of late.

  She looked over her shoulder and up the stairs. They were taking a long time. It occurred to her that if Florence were to suggest that Dody was a threat to their pending operation, Olivia might very well instruct the doorman to say there was no one at home.

  At last she heard someone descend the stairs. She turned, expecting to see the doorman, but it was the Irishman, Derwent O’Neill, a grin stretched across his unshaven cheeks.

  “What are you doing here?” Dody asked, the shock of seeing him overriding any semblance of good manners.

  O’Neill stopped on the last step and loomed over her. His eyes slid down her body and rested for a moment on her breasts. “I’m the advance pa
rty, sent to flag a cab for the ladies.” Lifting his gaze, he glimpsed her cab through the parlour window. His smile broadened. “Talk about the luck of the Irish—and motorised, too.”

  “That is my taxicab,” Dody said stiffly. “You will have to find another.”

  There was a flurry of footsteps down the stairs and Derwent stepped aside for Florence, Daisy Atkins, Olivia Barndon-Brown, and Jane Lithgow and her glassy-eyed fox to pass.

  “I’m escorting the ladies to the Rose and Crown. Would you care to join us, Dr. McCleland?” O’Neill asked.

  Florence fussed with her gloves and would not meet Dody’s gaze.

  “Really, Mr. O’Neill,” Florence said, “my sister wouldn’t be seen dead in a public house.”

  Derwent gripped Dody’s elbow and spoke in her ear, so only she could hear him. “Come on now, it does a woman good to loosen her stays every now and then.”

  Dody shook him off and said loudly, “Florence, when can I expect you home?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I need some more clothes. I’ll telephone Annie to bring some over.”

  “Tell me what you need and I’ll organise it.”

  “Why can’t we ’ave that taxi—we’d all fit into that,” Daisy said.

  “Because it’s Dr. McCleland’s,” O’Neill said, mimicking Dody with an arch haughtiness.

  “But what are them things jammed against the window?”

  “Crutches for a patient, Daisy,” Dody said quickly. Florence lifted a sceptical eyebrow, which Dody’s conscience took to mean: Since when has the delivering of medical supplies been one of your duties? “And now I should go,” she added. “The patient has just been discharged from hospital and is quite immobile without them. Please telephone me, Florence, we need to talk.”

  She hurried out of the front door, feeling several pairs of eyes on her back. Derwent O’Neill’s mocking laughter accompanied her in the taxi all the way home.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nellie Melba’s liquid soprano seeped through the closed door of the morning room and into the hall, where Dody stood removing her coat. “Si Mi Chiamano Mimi”—she had not listened to the aria since leaving for Scotland. She stood still for a moment and closed her eyes, letting the melody soothe her jangled nerves. But it was not to be for long.

  She heard the swing door from the kitchen and opened her eyes to see Annie wringing her hands.

  “I’m so sorry, miss,” the maid said, reaching for Dody’s hat and coat. “This were all I could think to do to keep him where he was—I must have put this particular disc on for him half a dozen times.” She turned towards the morning room and took a deep breath as if about to enter a lion’s den. “Now you’re home, maybe he’ll let me turn it off.”

  Dody put up her hand. “It’s all right, Annie. Leave it.”

  Annie looked relieved and started backing towards the downstairs door.

  “He hasn’t got a contagious disease, you know, Annie.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s a copper, isn’t he?” Annie briefly cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Is there anything I can get you before dinner, a sherry perhaps?”

  “I know it’s a bit late for tea, but I’d love some all the same. Bring in a tray for two. Has he eaten anything today?”

  “Cook made him sandwiches for lunch and he ate the lot.”

  “Good, he must be feeling better.” Dody leant the crutches against the hall chair.

  The girl stood where she was, clutching Dody’s hat and coat and scrutinising her face. “The tea, Annie,” Dody reminded.

  Annie made twirling motions with her fingers. “Um, perhaps, miss, you’d like to go upstairs first, brush your hair and have a little wash?”

  Dody glanced at her reflection in the hall mirror. “Oh, what a mess, I see what you mean.” It wasn’t the flying tendrils of hair—they were fairly normal after a busy day at the hospital—it was the red-rimmed eyes betraying her tearful journey home from Olivia’s flat.

  Annie softened her tone. “Will Miss Florence be home soon, miss?”

  “Next week, I think,” Dody said vaguely, mounting the stairs to her rooms. “The tea, please, Annie.”

  Nellie Melba was still singing when Dody entered the morning room ten minutes later. Pike must have persuaded Annie to replay the aria when she had delivered the tea tray. Lost in the music, he lay on the chaise, eyes closed, one hand waving rhythmically as if he were conducting Miss Melba himself.

  Dody cleared her throat. His eyes flew open and he started to get to his feet. “No, please, stay where you are,” she said as she went to his side.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Habit. I hope you didn’t mind me listening to your gramophone. I have never had the chance to hear one play before—it’s quite wonderful.”

  Dody smiled. “But not as good as Miss Melba in person, or so I have been told.”

  “True. No machine could possibly capture the essence of that lyrical soprano—it must surely be heard in its natural form to be believed.” He settled back against the pillows and Dody placed the back of her hand against his forehead.

  “Good. No fever. How is the knee feeling?”

  “A little throbbing, but not as much as last night. May I take it that you enjoy music, Dr. McCleland?”

  “I enjoy music very much, though it’s years since I managed time for a concert—hence the gramophone. Did you see my disc collection? I also have some marvellous Caruso recordings.”

  “I would have liked to hear more, but it seemed easier for your maid to keep playing the same one.”

  Dody settled herself in the chair opposite him. “Machines frighten her. I’ll give her another lesson so you can listen to whatever you like tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. “I plan on taking the eight-ten to Hastings tonight. Annie telephoned my sergeant and had him bring over my things.” He pulled back the blanket to reveal a pair of flannel trousers. “Not the best for winter weather, but they are the widest cut I have and I managed to fit them over the splint. I am taking up your suggestion; a few days away and I can return to work right as rain.”

  “I’m sorry, I will not hear of you leaving tonight.” Goodness, Dody thought as she heard herself speak, I’m sounding like a bossy matron.

  “I am your prisoner?”

  “The earliest you can leave is tomorrow,” Dody continued in the same tone, “but only after a thorough examination. You also need to practise walking with the crutches.”

  “I have used crutches before.”

  Idiot, she chastised herself. Of course he had. The crutches were not really at the heart of the matter anyway. After the disastrous meeting with Florence, her only consolation was that she would not be coming home to an empty house. She realised then, as she looked sternly at him on the chaise, that she liked him, desired his company even. Lord, Florence would be mortified. But, of course, there were also valid medical reasons for him staying where he was.

  “The swelling must diminish before I can allow you to leave,” she said. “I’m afraid you are destined for another night on the chaise. My coachman will take you to the station tomorrow morning, provided I think you are fit enough for the journey to Hastings.” She reached for the teapot and poured them both a cup. “If you continue to argue with me now, I will not give you the crutches at all.”

  Pike held up his hands in defeat, a hint of amusement in his expression. “Very well then, but I think your long-suffering maid probably deserves a bonus for having put up with me all day.”

  Dody allowed a slight smile back. If Pike knew the extent of poor Annie’s suffering because of his presence, he’d recommend more than a bonus. Dody cut Pike some cake, which he ravenously devoured. She found she had no appetite and left her plate untouched. “Where do you plan to stay in Hastings?” she asked.

  “A guesthouse where I’ve stayed before,” Pike replied. “They’re sure to have vacancies at this time of year.”

  “And what of Superintendent Shepherd?”

  “I had
my sergeant tell him that I am struck down with influenza and the doctor’s orders are for a seaside cure. I’ll use the time to visit my daughter again, think about the case, and study the surveillance photographs once more.” He nodded to his briefcase on the floor. “Sergeant Fisher brought them here for me. There may be something in them I’ve missed.”

  “You can trust this sergeant of yours?”

  “He is one of the few men in the force I would trust with my life.”

  When Annie appeared to clear the tea tray and draw the curtains, the conversation returned to music. Pike told Dody that an ex-corporal he knew worked at the Covent Garden box office and sometimes provided him with discounted tickets to musical productions. Then he surprised her. If he could obtain tickets, would she care to join him and his daughter to see Miss Melba perform in La Bohème?

  Dody surprised herself even more by accepting the invitation.

  By dinner, she found her appetite had markedly increased. Annie brought them fish pie with potato mash and broad beans cooked in bacon, which they ate at the card table, Pike’s splinted leg propped on a chair. Dessert was chocolate tart.

  “My sister’s favourite pudding,” Dody remarked over a second glass of hock. “Cook always made it to cheer her up on the last day of the school holidays.”