The Mysteries of London Volume 1

by Reynolds, George W. M.

  “It was my idea, though,” exclaimed the Buffer. “Don’t you remember when we wanted a stiff ’un for the wery same Sawbones which we’ve got to meet presently, we waited for near two hours at this house-door, and at last we caught hold of a feller that was walking so comfortable along, looking up at the moon?”

  “And then I thought of holding him with his head downwards in a tub of water,” added the Cracksman, “till he was drownded. That way don’t tell no tales;—no wound on the skin—no pison in the stomach; and there ain’t too much water inside neither, cos the poor devils don’t swaller with their heads downwards.”

  “Ah! it was a good idea,” said the Buffer; “and now we’ve reduced it to a reg’lar system. Tub of water all ready on the floor—hooks and cords to hold the chaps’ feet up to the ceiling; and then, my eye! there they hangs, head downwards, jest for all the world like the carcasses in the butchers’ shops, if they hadn’t got their clothes on.”

  “And them we precious soon takes off. But I say, old feller,” said the Cracksman, turning to the Resurrection Man, who had remained silent during the colloquy between his two companions; “what the devil are you thinking of?”

  “I was thinking,” was the answer, “that the Sawbones that you’ve agreed to meet to-night wants some particular body.”

  “He does,” said the Cracksman; “and the one he wants is buried in a vault.”

  “Well and good,” exclaimed the Resurrection Man; “he is too good a customer to disappoint. We must be off at once.”

  The Resurrection Man did not for a moment doubt that Richard Markham had been killed by the blow which he had inflicted upon him with his life-preserver; and he therefore did not hesitate to undertake the business just proposed by his two confederates. He knew that, whatever Richard’s pockets might contain, he could rely upon the honesty of the Mummy, who—horrible to relate—was the miscreant’s own mother. Having therefore given a few instructions, in a whisper, to the old woman, he prepared to accompany the Cracksman and the Buffer.

  The three worthies provided themselves with some of the long flexible rods and other implements before noticed; and the Resurrection Man took from a cupboard two boxes, each of about six inches square, and which he gave to his companions to carry. He also concealed the tin shade which held the candle, about his person; and, these preliminaries being settled, the three men left the house.

  Let us now return to Richard Markham.

  The moment he was deposited in the back room and the door had closed behind the occupants of that fearful den, he started up, a prey to the most indescribable feelings of alarm and horror.

  What a lurking hole of enormity—what a haunt of infamy—what a scene of desperate crime—was this in which he now found himself! A feculent smell of the decomposing corpse in the next room reached his nostrils, and produced a nauseating sensation in his stomach. And that corpse—was it the remains of one who had died a natural death, or who had been most foully murdered? He dared not answer the question which he had thus put to himself; he feared lest the solution of that mystery might prove ominous in respect to his own fate.

  Oh! for the means of escape! He must fly—he must fly from that horrible sink of crime—from that human slaughter-house! But how? the door was locked—and the window was closed with a shutter. If he made the slightest noise, the ruffians in the next room would rush in and assassinate him!

  But, hark! those men were talking, and he could overhear all they said. Could it be possible? The two who had just come, were going to take the third away with them upon his own revolting business! Hope returned to the bosom of the poor young man: he felt that he might yet be saved!

  But—oh, horror! on what topic had the conversation turned? Those men were rejoicing in their own infernal inventions to render murder unsuspected. The object of the tub of water, and the hooks and cords upon the ceiling, were now explained. The unsuspecting individual who passed the door of that accursed dwelling by night was set upon by the murderers, dragged into the house, gagged, and suspended by his feet to these hooks, while his head hung downwards in the water. And thus he delivered up his last breath; and the wretches kept him there until decomposition commenced, that the corpse might not appear too fresh to the surgeon to whom it was to be sold!

  Merciful heavens! could such things be? could atrocities of so appalling a nature be perpetrated in a great city, protected by thousands of a well-paid police? Could the voice of murder—murder effected with so much safety, cry up to heaven for vengeance through the atmosphere of London?

  At length the three men went out, as before described; and Markham felt an immense weight suddenly lifted from off his mind.

  Before the Resurrection Man set out upon his excursion with the Cracksman and the Buffer, he had whispered these words to the Mummy: “While I’m gone, you can clean out the swell’s pockets in the back room. He has got about four or five hundred pounds about him—so mind and take care. When you’ve searched his pockets, strip him, and look at his skull. I’m afraid I’ve fractured it, for my life-preserver came down precious heavy upon him; and he never spoke a word. If there’s the wound, I must bury him to-morrow in the cellar: if not, wash him clean, and I know where to dispose of him.”

  It was in obedience to these instructions that the Mummy took a candle in her hand, and proceeded to the back-room, as soon as her son and his two companions had left the house.

  The horrible old woman was not afraid of the dead: her husband had been a resurrection man, and her only son followed the same business,—she was therefore too familiar with the sight of death in all its most fearful as well as its most interesting shapes to be alarmed at it. The revolting spectacle of a corpse putrid with decomposition produced no more impression upon her than the pale and beautiful remains of any lovely girl whom death had called early to the tomb, and whose form was snatched from its silent couch beneath the sod ere the finger of decay had begun its ravages. That hideous old woman considered corpses an article of commerce, and handled her wares as a trader does his merchandise. She cared no more for the sickly and fetid odour which they sent forth, than the tanner does for the smell of the tan-yard, or the scourer for the fumes of his bleaching-liquid.

  The Mummy entered the back-room, holding a candle in her hand.

  Markham started forward, and caught her by the wrist.

  She uttered a sort of growl of savage disappointment, but gave no sign of alarm.

  “Vile wretch!” exclaimed Richard; “God has at length sent me to discover and expose your crimes!”

  “Don’t do me any harm—don’t hurt me,” said the old woman—“and I will do any thing you want of me.”

  “Answer me,” cried Markham: “that corpse in the other room——”

  “Murdered by my son,” replied the hag.

  “And the clothes? where are the clothes? They may contain some papers which may throw a light upon the name and residence of your victim.”

  “Follow me—I will show you.”

  The old woman turned and walked slowly out of the room. Markham went after her; for he thought that if he could discover who the unfortunate person was that had met his death in that accursed dwelling, he might be enabled to relieve his family at least from the horrors of suspense, although he should be the bearer of fatal news indeed.

  The Mummy opened the door of a cupboard formed beneath the staircase, and holding forward the light, pointed to some clothes which hung upon a nail inside.

  “There—take them yourself if you want them,” said the old woman; “I won’t touch them.”

  With these words she drew back, but still held the candle in such a way as to throw the light into the closet.

  Markham stepped forward to reach the clothes, and, in extending his hand to take them from the peg, he advanced one of his feet upon the
floor of the closet.

  A trap-door instantly gave way beneath his foot: he lost his balance, and fell precipitately into a subterranean excavation.

  The trap-door, which moved with a spring, closed by itself above his head, and he heard the triumphant cackling laugh of the old hag, as she fastened it with a large iron bolt.

  The Mummy then went and seated herself by the corpse in the front room; and, while she rocked backwards and forwards in her chair, she crooned the following song:—

  THE BODY-SNATCHER’S SONG.

  IN the churchyard the body is laid,

  There they inter the beautiful maid:

  “Earth to earth” is the solemn sound!

  Over the sod where their daughter sleeps,

  The father prays, and the mother weeps:

  “Ashes to ashes” echoes around!

  Come with the axe, and come with the spade,

  Come where the beautiful virgin’s laid:

  Earth from earth must we take back now!

  The sod is damp, and the grave is cold:

  Lay the white corpse on the dark black mould.

  That the pale moonbeam may kiss its brow!

  Throw back the earth, and heap up the clay;

  This cold white corpse we will bear away,

  Now that the moonlight waxes dim;

  For the student doth his knife prepare

  To hack all over this form so fair,

  And sever the virgin limb from limb!

  At morn the mother will come to pray

  Over the grave where her child she lay,

  And freshest flowers thereon will spread;

  And on that spot will she kneel and weep,

  Nor dream that we have disturbed the sleep

  Of her who lay in that narrow bed.

  We must leave the Mummy singing her horrible staves, and accompany the body-snatchers in their proceedings at Shoreditch Church.

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  THE BODY-SNATCHERS.

  THE Resurrection Man, the Cracksman, and the Buffer hastened rapidly along the narrow lanes and filthy alleys leading towards Shoreditch Church. They threaded their way in silence, through the jet-black darkness of the night, and without once hesitating as to the particular turnings which they were to follow. Those men were as familiar with that neighbourhood as a person can be with the rooms and passages in his own house.

  At length the body-snatchers reached the low wall surmounted with a high railing which encloses Shoreditch churchyard. They were now at the back part of that burial ground, in a narrow and deserted street, whose dark and lonely appearance tended to aid their designs upon an edifice situated in one of the most populous districts in all London.

  For some minutes before their arrival an individual, enveloped in a long cloak, was walking up and down beneath the shadow of the wall.

  This was the surgeon, whose thirst after science had called into action the energies of the body-snatchers that night.

  The Cracksman advanced first, and ascertained that the surgeon had already arrived, and that the coast was otherwise clear.

  He then whistled in a low and peculiar manner; and his two confederates came up.

  “You have got all your tools?” said the surgeon in a hasty whisper.

  “Every one that we require,” answered the Resurrection Man.

  “For opening a vault inside the church, mind?” added the surgeon, interrogatively.

  “You show us the vault, sir, and we’ll soon have out the body,” said the Resurrection Man.

  “All right,” whispered the surgeon; “and my own carriage will be in this street at three precisely. We shall have plenty of time—there’s no one stirring till five, and it’s dark till seven.”

  The surgeon and the body-snatchers then scaled the railing, and in a few moments stood in the churchyard.

  The Resurrection Man addressed himself to his two confederates and the surgeon, and said, “Do you lie snug under the wall here while I go forward and see how we must manage the door.” With these words he crept stealthily along, amidst the tomb-stones, towards the church.

  The surgeon and the Cracksman seated themselves upon a grave close to the wall; and the Buffer threw himself flat upon his stomach, with his ear towards the ground. He remained in this position for some minutes, and then uttered a species of low growl as if he were answering some signal which caught his ears alone.

  “The skeleton-keys won’t open the side-door, the Resurrection Man says,” whispered the Buffer, raising his head towards the surgeon and the Cracksman.

  He then laid his ear close to the ground once more, and resumed his listening posture.

  In a few minutes he again replied to a signal; and this time his answer was conveyed by means of a short sharp whistle.

  “It appears there is a bolt; and it will take a quarter of an hour to saw through the padlock that holds it,” observed the Buffer in a whisper.

  Nearly twenty minutes elapsed after this announcement. The surgeon’s teeth chattered with the intense cold; and he could not altogether subdue certain feelings of horror at the idea of the business which had brought him thither. The almost mute correspondence which those two men were enabled to carry on together—the methodical precision with which they performed their avocations—and the coolness they exhibited in undertaking a sacrilegious task, made a powerful impression upon his mind. He shuddered from head to foot:—his feelings of aversion were the same as he would have experienced had a loathsome reptile crawled over his naked flesh.

  “It’s all right now!” suddenly exclaimed the Buffer, rising from the ground. “Come along.”

  The surgeon and the Cracksman followed the Buffer to the southern side of the church where there was a flight of steps leading up to a side-door in a species of lobby, or lodge. This door was open; and the Resurrection Man was standing inside the lodge.

  As soon as they had all entered the sacred edifice, the door was carefully closed once more.

  We have before said that the night was cold: but the interior of the church was of a chill so intense, that an icy feeling appeared to penetrate to the very back-bone. The wind murmured down the aisle; and every footstep echoed, like a hollow sound in the distance, throughout the spacious pile.

  “Now, sir,” said the Resurrection Man to the surgeon, “it is for you to tell us whereabouts we are to begin.”

  The surgeon groped his way towards the communion-table, and at the northern side of the railings which surrounded it he stopped short.

  “I must now be standing,” he said, “upon the very stone which you are to remove. You can, however, soon ascertain; for the funeral only took place yesterday morning, and the mortar must be quite soft.”

  The Resurrection Man stooped down, felt with his hand for the joints of the pavement in that particular spot, and thrust his knife between them.

  “Yes,” he said, after a few minutes’ silence: “this stone has only been put down a day or two. But do you wish, sir, that all traces of our work should disappear?”

  “Certainly! I would not for the world that the family of the deceased should learn that this tomb has been violated. Suspicion would immediately fall upon me; for it would be remembered how earnestly I desired to open the body, and how resolutely my request was refused.”

  “We must use a candle, then, presently,” said the Resurrection Man; “and that is the most dangerous part of the whole proceeding.”

  “It cannot be helped,” returned the surgeon, in a decided tone. “The fact that the side-door has been opened by unfair means must transpire in a day or two; and search will then be made inside the church to ascertain whether those who have been guilty of the sacrilege were thieves or resurrection-men. You see, then,
how necessary it is that there should remain no proofs of the violation of a tomb.”

  “Well and good, sir,” said the Resurrection Man. “You command—we obey. Now, then, my mates, to work.”

  In a moment the Resurrection Man lighted a piece of candle, and placed it in the tin shade before alluded to. The glare which it shed was thereby thrown almost entirely downwards. He then carefully, and with surprising rapidity, examined the joints of the large flag-stone which was to be removed, and on which no inscription had yet been engraved. He observed the manner in which the mortar was laid down, and noticed even the places where it spread a little over the adjoining stones or where it was slightly deficient. This inspection being completed, he extinguished the light, and set to work in company with the Cracksman and the Buffer.

  The eyes of the surgeon gradually became accustomed to the obscurity; and he was enabled to observe to some extent the proceedings of the body-snatchers.

  These men commenced by pouring vinegar over the mortar round the stone which they were to raise. They then took long clasp-knives, with very thin and flexible blades, from their pockets; and inserted them between the joints of the stones. They moved these knives rapidly backwards and forwards for a few seconds, so as effectually to loosen the mortar, and moistened the interstices several times with the vinegar.

  This operation being finished, they introduced the thin and pointed end of a lever between the end of the stone which they were to raise and the one adjoining it. The Resurrection Man, who held the lever, only worked it very gently; but at every fresh effort on his part, the Cracksman and the Buffer introduced each a wedge of wood into the space which thus grew larger and larger. By these means, had the lever suddenly given way, the stone would not have fallen back into its setting. At length it was raised to a sufficient height to admit of its being supported by a thick log about three feet in length.