The Secrets of the Lazarus Club

by Tony Pollard

  The second case had been less traumatic. An old woman with a bad abscess on her neck – a straightforward lancing job. The extracted pus would have filled one of William’s liquor bottles.

  Then Sir Benjamin appeared, looking as usual rather exercised about something. ‘Dr Phillips, I trust you are fully prepared for tonight?’

  I was still thinking about the little girl and so it took a few moments for his meaning to sink in.

  ‘For tonight?’

  ‘Yes, for your presentation at eight o’clock.’

  It had been weeks since our last meeting, and Brunel’s proclamation that such would be expected of me had by now entirely slipped my mind. ‘You mean to the Lazarus Club?’

  ‘I do wish Brunel would not insist on using that dreadfully melodramatic title,’ exclaimed Sir Benjamin. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Phillips. Brunel, as you are well aware, is my patient. What you may not know is that he is in fact a very sick man and I fear that his increasing interest in… shall we say rather morbid matters is doing little to aid his condition. I would therefore appreciate it if you would refrain from encouraging these unhealthy interests.’

  I could only assume that these morbid matters included the engineer’s interest in the workings of the human body. This was after all not an unheard-of response to somebody suffering ill health but it was the first time any mention had been made of an actual condition. ‘What are his symptoms?’

  The abrasiveness returned. ‘Never mind that. He is my patient and his symptoms are therefore none of your concern. But he has a rather obsessive nature, which I have long since refused to indulge, which is I fear why he has turned to you.’

  Sir Benjamin’s protective attitude was laudable but seemed a little, to use his own term, melodramatic. But I saw nothing out of the ordinary here – Brunel himself had warned me that the man would jealously guard his position of physician to the great and the good. But why he should regard me as a threat I couldn’t quite understand, for there could be no doubting the high regard in which his abilities were held – why, he’d even treated royalty in his time. Perhaps his advancing years were the root cause – it couldn’t be too long before he would have to step down as hospital superintendent, at which time his private patients would become a useful adjunct to his pension.

  Whatever his motives, I was keen to defuse what seemed an entirely unnecessary conflict. ‘Very well, Sir Benjamin, I will endeavour to steer him away from these morbid interests in future. But to get back to more immediate matters, are you certain that I am expected to give a presentation at eight o’clock tonight?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But surely I should have received something by way of a formal invitation?’

  Sir Benjamin sighed but remained unmoved by my plight. ‘I suspect that was deliberate. Even I learned about it only today. I suspect this is Brunel “testing your mettle”, as he would put it.’

  This seemed most unreasonable and I now regretted not raising the issue with Brunel at Babbage’s house. ‘But Sir Benjamin, I would require at least a couple of days’ notice to prepare a presentation.’

  Brodie seemed almost pleased by my capitulation. ‘Then I am to tell the meeting you have declined the invitation?’

  I pulled out my watch. ‘It’s five o’clock already. I have three hours.’

  The mere suggestion that I might be willing to give it a try was enough to irritate him. ‘Understand this, sir,’ he said in his most pompous voice, ‘I was less than happy to discover that Brunel had invited you along to a meeting without first seeking my opinion on the matter, and then to hear him invite you to take up the post of secretary! I trust you will be declining the offer?’ At long last, here was the dressing down I had expected weeks before.

  With no answer forthcoming, Sir Benjamin continued with his admonishment. ‘Given what I have already said about your past association with Brunel and its ill effect on both of you, your absence tonight would probably be for the best. I shall therefore pass on your apologies and we will say nothing more about the matter, nor mention the club by name again. Are we agreed?’

  ‘No, sir, we are not,’ I replied, hotly – now convinced that he had deliberately kept the information from me. ‘It would be impolite of me to decline Mr Brunel’s invitation, no matter how informally given.’

  Sir Benjamin bristled further at this, but I knew him well enough to turn the argument in my favour. ‘And in any case,’ I continued, ‘would it not reflect badly on the hospital if I were to decline the invitation simply because I was not prepared? In short, sir, I think it would reflect as badly on you as it would me.’

  I had him in a corner, and he knew it. ‘Very well then,’ he growled. ‘If you insist on going ahead, I trust you will show the hospital in the best possible light.’

  Sir Benjamin’s departure left me very little time to enjoy what I knew might turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. I now had less than three hours to prepare a presentation to some of the nation’s finest minds.

  Back at my rooms, the only food I could muster was a half-plate of cold meat and for once I regretted not having engaged a housekeeper. At around seven-thirty, I set out with what few notes and diagrams I had managed to throw together.

  On the tavern stairs I felt like a condemned man climbing the scaffold, throat dry and stomach bound in knots, though the latter was, I am sure, in part a result of my unsatisfactory repast. Fortunately, though, this anxiety passed away entirely as soon as I began my presentation.

  It was Brunel’s turn to take the minutes, and having begrudgingly replaced the cigar between his fingers with a pencil, he was ready for me to begin. Russell, on this occasion relieved of his responsibility as scribe, seemed much more relaxed than previously. Ockham, dressed again as dandy rather than labourer, occupied the same seat as before, while Perry, Bazalgette, Whitworth and the others distributed themselves around the flanks of the table. Sir Benjamin offered apologies on behalf of Stephenson, who was unwell, and Hawes, who had urgent government business to attend to.

  My master stroke, or so it proved, was to repeat my earlier, private demonstration for Brunel, placing minimal reliance on the drawings and making constant reference to a real heart, which sat on the small cutting board before me. The next hour was something of a blur, but by the end of it the heart lay in pieces and the audience was satisfied enough to offer up a robust round of applause. Even Sir Benjamin seemed pleased with my performance, but perhaps not quite as pleased as Brunel was to put down his pencil. There were questions aplenty, not surprisingly many of them from Brunel, who had obviously given the subject some considerable thought since our early encounters.

  The company began to disperse while I tidied up the detritus of my presentation, wiping down the board with a cloth and wrapping the pieces of the heart in it. Before I could return it to the bag Brunel asked if he could take it away with him, explaining that he would find it useful to examine the pieces at his leisure. Grateful to be relieved of the item, I handed over the heart, but not before removing the gore-soaked cloth and rewrapping the pieces in a clean handkerchief. ‘Don’t hang on to it for too long. It hasn’t been preserved in liquor and so will decay rapidly.’

  ‘Just a couple of hours will suffice,’ he said, dropping the bundle nonchalantly into the pocket of his coat. ‘But first things first,’ he said, slapping me on the back. ‘Myself and some of your fellow Lazarians would like to take you for dinner to celebrate your success this evening.’

  And so it was that I came to be accepted as a fellow member of this illustrious but obscure little club, albeit in the guise of its unpaid secretary. My decision to accept the post had delighted Brunel as much as it had irritated Sir Benjamin. It was however Babbage, who in addition to inventor of calculating machines and scourge of street performers happened to be a talented cryptographer, who told me that the earliest holders of the post did just what the name suggests – they kept secrets. Little did I know then just how many secrets I would uncover while servi
ng as secretary to the Lazarus Club.

  Satisfying as it seemed at the time, not least because it must have come as something of a kick in the pants to Brodie, my induction into the Lazarus Club in fact marked the beginning of my troubles, the first inkling of which came in the form of another visit from Inspector Tarlow. Since our rather difficult second meeting another corpse had been pulled from the river, again minus heart and lungs. He had not however troubled me for a post-mortem examination on that occasion and I only learned that a fourth body had been discovered when he came to visit me just a few days after my formal acceptance into the club.

  Tarlow was alone, which at first made me think he was here to deliver another warning, as I had done little to alter my personal habits since our last meeting. What he did deliver was a small wooden box, which he gestured for me to open.

  ‘Careful, doctor, the contents are a little ripe.’

  Indeed they were, for the removal of the lid liberated the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh. The contents were wrapped in hessian sacking with ice packed around it, though this was rapidly melting, so much so that I had noticed water dripping from the box even before it had been handed to me. Placing the bundle on the table, I carefully unwrapped it. The stench grew stronger as the coarse fabric was teased away from the adhesive surface of the carrion which lay within. With the gore-impressed sacking removed I took up a scalpel and poked at the grey mass of muscle sitting upon it. A little prodding and pushing was enough to separate what had at first seemed an amorphous mass into four distinct pieces and to my horror I recognized the atrophied remains of the heart I had dissected during my presentation to the Lazarus Club and then given to Brunel for his further delectation.

  The quartered organ presented me with a terrible dilemma. My immediate inclination was to come clean and tell Tarlow everything; after all, no law had been broken. But to do that I would have to tell him about the club, the existence of which seemed to be a fairly well-kept secret among its members and their friends. Further, it struck me that having won the trust and respect of such an esteemed group such a confession would be regarded as nothing other than an act of betrayal.

  ‘Well, inspector, as I am sure you are aware, what we have here are the remains of a human heart. One of the pieces has been badly mauled, looks like it has been chewed. Where did you find it?’

  ‘The mauling was inflicted by a small terrier, the owner of which was taking it for a walk in a very respectable area of the city when it dug the thing out of a pile of rubbish. As fortune would have it a police constable was passing by as the dog-walker struggled to wrestle that piece of gristle from its mouth, causing quite a commotion into the bargain. The constable recognized the mouldering scraps for what they were and took charge of them. You have just confirmed our suspicion that they did in fact constitute a human heart.’

  ‘You think that it came from one of the corpses pulled from the river?’

  ‘A natural conclusion, wouldn’t you say? How many human hearts can there be kicking around the city?’

  ‘Not many, I suppose – all of our anatomical leftovers are incinerated and certainly don’t end up on the rubbish heap. What about that rubbish heap? You said it was in a respectable part of the city?’

  Tarlow nodded. ‘In Pall Mall, awaiting collection by the dust cart.’

  I tried not to sound anxious. ‘Very respectable. Can you tie it down to an address?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no, not even to a street. The rubbish had come from several adjoining streets. I sent men back to examine it more closely but by then it had been cleared. It may not even have come from the locality, just dumped there by somebody walking by.’

  The news was not as bad as it could have been. Duke Street, where Brunel lived, joined with Pall Mall, but in the circumstances it would be impossible to trace the heart back to his house at number 18. It also seemed likely that as the area was so respectable Tarlow was favouring the hypothesis that it had been dumped by a passer-by. This was enough to satisfy me that it was highly unlikely that the heart could be connected either to Brunel or myself and so I saw no reason at all to broadcast my involvement.

  The inspector seemed to think I had asked enough questions. ‘What can you tell you me about it, doctor? Anything special in the way it has been cut up into four pieces like that?’

  I looked down at the mess on the table. ‘It would allow for a thorough examination of the interior aspects, giving access to all the chambers.’

  ‘Would you cut it up like that, perhaps to demonstrate the organ to your students?’

  I was tempted to answer no, there was no way a surgeon would cut up a heart like that, but he may already have sought advice from elsewhere and already know it was an accepted dissection technique. If that was the case then he was merely testing me.

  ‘Yes, it’s not far off the sequence of incisions that I or any other surgeon would use. The technique is clearly set out in the surgical textbooks.’

  ‘Then it needn’t be the work of a surgeon?’

  There he was with the surgeon thing again. ‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘There is no great skill involved. In fact, it’s almost the natural way to quarter a heart, if that’s what you want to do.’

  Tarlow seemed disappointed. ‘So it doesn’t narrow down our search.’ But then, sounding a little cheerier, he announced: ‘There is one other thing that may prove of assistance.’

  ‘Oh, what’s that, inspector?’

  The policeman reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavily stained piece of white cloth. ‘The bits of the heart appear to have been wrapped in this handkerchief.’

  My own heart sank like a stone. Tarlow unfolded the handkerchief and examined one corner, where even before he showed it to me I knew the letters ‘G’ and ‘P’ were embroidered in blue silk thread. I had thought nothing of it at the time but the handkerchief in which I had wrapped the heart had been embroidered with my monograph by my sister and given to me as a present some years previously. Since the meeting I had come to regret the loss of the keepsake but nowhere near as much as I did now. How could Brunel have been so foolish as to dump the heart on his own doorstep, and still wrapped in my blessed handkerchief! If only I hadn’t been so carried away with the excitement of the moment and warned him to be careful.

  ‘There’s a monograph on it,’ observed the inspector as I prepared myself for the worst. ‘But, unfortunately,’ he continued, ‘the dog also got hold of the handkerchief and chewed into the corner. Only part of a letter remains. Looks like it could have been a “C” or an “O”, perhaps even a “G”.’ He handed me the rag. ‘What do you think?’

  Suppressing a sigh of relief, I looked at what remained of the letter, remembering how much care my sister had taken with the stitching. ‘It could be a lower case “a”, or even a “Q”, I suppose.’

  Tarlow took the handkerchief back, looked at it once more and nodded before stuffing it back into his pocket. ‘I won’t keep you any longer, doctor. My thanks for your assistance once again. Could you do me a favour and dispose of that wretched thing for me? I can’t bear to carry it around any longer.’

  ‘I will be glad to, inspector. By the way, how long ago did the last body come to light?’

  ‘About three weeks ago. Why?’

  I made a performance of wrapping the heart back up again. ‘Well, if we assume that there was a timelag between removal of the heart and the dumping of the body, and then presumably further delay before it was recovered, let’s say that the heart would have been removed from the fresh body perhaps four weeks ago, maybe even longer.’

  ‘Right, go on.’

  ‘If I understand you, this heart came to light much more recently.’

  ‘About two days ago.’

  ‘Then, as there is no evidence for the artificial preservation of the heart through the use of chemicals, it would seem unlikely that it comes from that body. I’ll grant you, it is past its prime, but it is not as badly decayed as it should be if it was rem
oved from a body around a month ago.’

  The inspector did not seem entirely convinced. ‘What about ice?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, but difficult. As you’ve no doubt found yourself, keeping a regular temperature with ice for that long is tricky. We use it in the mortuary sometimes but it only gives us a few days’ more grace.’

  ‘So what you are suggesting is that this heart may not be related to the last murder or indeed any murder at all?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Or perhaps we just haven’t found the body from which this heart was removed yet.’

  Tarlow reminded me of the terrier chewing on the heart: once he got hold of an idea it took a real struggle to get him to let go.

  ‘I had better be on my way,’ he said, and then, turning to leave, he put his hand in the pocket containing the handkerchief. ‘I never caught your first name, Dr Phillips.’

  I almost choked on my reply. ‘George, the name’s George Phillips.’

  10

  As the spring of 1858 passed into summer, so the meetings of the club became more regular and I soon fell into my new role, and truth be told I found it no chore at all, jotting down the salient points and then fleshing out my notes in longhand before surrendering them to Brunel. There were talks on all manner of subjects, from mechanical tunnelling devices to the medicinal use of exotic plants from the Amazonian rainforest. Though new speakers appeared every month the core membership of the club remained constant, and I began to feel very comfortable in the company of my fellow Lazarians, though there were times when Brunel and Russell could barely bring themselves to talk to one another, so strained was their professional relationship. If there was an occasion when Russell failed to appear at a meeting, however rarely that might be, then it was obvious to all that the cause had been a particularly unpleasant spat between the two of them – Brunel however seemed entirely unmoved by such unpleasantness and never failed to appear.