Madeleine interrupted the doctor curtly. “I lost the shop, Dr. August, as I was too ill to keep it running. But this is irrelevant now. We’d like to know whether someone was blackmailing you for any reason. And I can’t convey the urgency of this matter to you strongly enough.”
Colin still watched her; how on earth did one go from widow to mercenary?
“Why me?” The doctor’s voice was faint. “You mentioned mutual friends.”
With some difficulty, Colin took his eyes from Madeleine, whose gaze had never wavered from the doctor. “Marble Mile?” he suggested cautiously to the doctor. “Harry?”
Silence from Dr. August as he absorbed this and correctly decoded the meaning.
“Oh, God.” Emotion rasped his voice. “So it happened. So they were blackmailed, too? Harry and Eleanor? I feared it would happen, but…were they?”
“Harry was persuaded to act as a sort of messenger by means of blackmail, yes.”
The doctor made a sound of pure disgust, then shook his head to and fro. He smiled, and it was bitter and wry.
“I never meant for it to happen. I never meant to tell. But the only reason blackmail is effective is that much is at stake, and the blackmailer knows it. And so I found myself rather without a choice, or at least it seemed that way in the moment. And since you already know I’ve something of a large secret, Mr. Eversea—Mrs. Green way—I will tell you: yes, someone did blackmail me. It’s entirely my fault, and it all began because I desperately wanted Mr. Pallatine.”
He said this with a fervor that made Madeleine and Colin carefully avoid meeting each other’s eyes. Colin knew they were both wondering whether perhaps they had a love triangle of an entirely different sort on their hands.
But if the doctor noticed the eye avoidance, he said nothing.
Instead, pistol still firmly and competently clutched in one hand, one alert eye on Madeleine and Colin, he struck a flint to light a candle and then settled a glass globe over it. Diffuse light swelled into the room. It was enough to illuminate part of the surgery, but not enough to alert any passersby that the doctor was in his surgery. Madeleine strolled over and immediately closed the blinds, just to be certain.
Colin peered about the room. Uniformly sized dark bottles of things lined counters, clear jars filled with powders, stacks of folded cotton wool, shadows of dully gleaming, instruments, and—
SWEET CHRIST! There was a ghost in the corner!
A looming, shapeless white mass hovered on the perimeter of the lamplight, and Colin’s spine iced.
Dr. August strolled confidently over to it and began tugging at the ghost.
Ah. Not a ghost. A sheet. And it was draped over something that towered over the doctor and over Colin, something just shy of ceiling height.
A few tugs later the sheet sagged elegantly to the floor. But what was beneath it was hardly better than a ghost:
It was an enormous, entire human skeleton.
“Mr. Pallatine,” Dr. August said resignedly.
Chapter 12
Mr. Pallatine was a sort of amber-brown, a bit glossy, and suspended from a stand. His toes dangled nearly to the floor; his head nodded so that his chin nearly touched his rib cage. He was, in other words, the typical human skeleton, only much, much taller.
“He was my quest,” the doctor said, studying him the way one might the Mona Lisa.
The doctor looked up at the two of them, and actually seemed amused. “The two of you think I’m a ghoul.”
As this was patently true for Colin, at least until further information was obtained, he said nothing.
The doctor sighed. “Let me explain. As a teaching physician, my job is to continually advance my profession, and to do so, we physicians need corpses to dissect, particularly corpses who died of interesting ailments.”
Doctors, Colin thought, inwardly shaking his head. Only doctors found ailments “interesting.”
“For example, I doubt there would be anything terribly interesting about your corpse, Mr. Eversea. You’re a fine looking man, but on the surface of things you appear quite ordinary and you seem healthy. You would have been useful in a very general way, but I doubt I would have added much to our body of scientific knowledge. Not offense meant.”
“No offense taken, Dr. August.” Colin was astounded that his voice was steady.
“I would have been happy to have it, regardless.” A ghost of a smile floated over the doctor’s lips. Gallows humor, indeed, as the only bodies surgeons were legally allowed to dissect were those of executed prisoners unclaimed by families.
And there were far, far more medical students than there were executed felons in London.
“I’m honored.” Colin gave him back the same smile. “I imagine my corpse could have fallen into worse hands.”
Still might, he thought but didn’t add.
“But Jonas Pallatine…we all wanted him,” the doctor said wistfully. “Every physician in the land wanted him.”
“Jonas Pallatine?” The name was strangely familiar. And then Colin had it. “Would he be Jonas the Giant? He traveled with circuses, did he not?”
“Oh, yes,” the doctor said. “He was well over seven feet tall, Mr. Pallatine, was, as you can see. He died last year. Quite a magnificent freak, and a very pleasant man, but a bit reluctant to do his bit for science.”
His bit for science, Colin assumed, meant donating his remains after death so doctors could poke about his insides and posterity could continue to gawk upon his magnificent skeleton.
“Did you ever see him when he was alive?” Dr. August sounded mildly curious.
“I did, as a matter of fact. He traveled with a circus to Pennyroyal Green when I was a boy. He greeted me quite pleasantly, and after that I dreamed for weeks that all of my brothers were giants and wanted to eat me. Funny, because I grew up to be the tallest.”
He had the pleasure of seeing Madeleine Greenway turn her head incredulously toward him. Colin wasn’t certain why he did it, the jesting in the midst of unbelievably dark situations. Out it just came.
Dr. August was clearly a man of fact, not whimsy, however. The sort of person Colin typically enjoyed toying with. A bit like Marcus. But the doctor obviously had no tolerance for whimsy at the moment. He gave Colin a mildly puzzled look and continued.
“Well, I’m a surgeon, as you know, and I teach here at the hospital. I’ve worked hard for my excellent reputation”—the doctor managed to make this sound factual, rather than arrogant—“but an excellent reputation requires maintenance and growth. You might have heard how I removed a tumor from the Earl of Lydon’s head?”
Colin and Madeleine nodded, as it seemed the thing to do.
“My father was a physician in Marble Mile, and I was sent to Edinburgh to train, and part of my duty as a physician is to make contributions to medicine, to advance it as best I can and share my knowledge. Well, I came to know Mr. Pallatine through his journeys—you do meet the most interesting people at circuses—and that’s how I learned that Mr. Pallatine’s heart, sadly, never was strong. I do believe his heart ailment was related to his great height, as I’ve heard tales of such things before. I wanted to get a look at his heart, you see. I became obsessed with getting a look at it. His heart began to fail in earnest, and when it became clear that his death was imminent—a matter of weeks—I began to watch him closely. I wanted to be the first to claim his body in the name of science, no matter what. And Mr. Pallatine…well, he rather resented this.”
Colin imagined the man who had good-naturedly made his living from being tall surrounded by scientifically earnest vultures eager to have a crack at his remains.
He suspected he would resent it just a little, too.
“Mr. Pallatine rather set a good deal of store by his body, when really, what need have we of bodies after we shuffle off this mortal coil? And what if the gift of your body would immeasurably improve the lives of people born after you?”
“I imagine not everyone is as capable of being
pragmatic about such things as doctors are.” Madeleine said it evenly. She wasn’t quite chiding him, but Colin had known her long enough—a whole day and a half—to recognize the edge in her voice and what it meant.
Colin glanced away from the admittedly fascinating doctor and his pistol. Madeleine’s face seemed to float, oddly disembodied, in the dark. It was stark, leached of color. Odd, but he’d thought it would have taken a good deal more than a seven-foot-tall skeleton to unnerve Madeleine Greenway, and he began to wonder whether memories had made inroads into her composure.
“I imagine coffin makers would object eventually, if everyone began donating their remains with generous abandon,” Colin contributed. “Seems it would rather erode business.”
Dr. August appreciated this witticism with one raised eyebrow. “Well, I imagine I was a bit too zealous…Mr. Pallatine rather made it difficult for me to get near him, in fact,” Dr. August reflected with rueful irritation. “Barred me from his home. I finally resorted to bribing one of his servants for news of the condition of his health. And when he died…this servant alerted me to the fact. I was able to retrieve his body. And as the servant doubtless missed the income she’d acquired from being an informant, she told me about the Resurrectionists. Seems her man is one of them. Does a decent business selling bodies.”
“Servants. One must be so careful about trusting servants,” Colin commiserated. He wasn’t convinced the doctor wasn’t quite, quite mad.
“Do be aware that I was obsessed,” the doctor reminded them gently. “I abhor them on principal, the Resurrectionists. They’re the very dregs of a society that already boasts—as no doubt you’ve learned over the past few weeks, Mr. Eversea—many contemptible layers. I do understand the horror people must feel knowing the peaceful eternal rest of their loved ones might be interrupted one night by a Resurrectionist with a shovel. But how…” Passion gave the doctor’s voice volume and tension; he paused, and sighed, rubbed a palm over his eyes. “How in God’s name are we ever to improve our craft as surgeons, our knowledge of the human body, or save more lives, if our teaching hospitals haven’t corpses to practice upon? Think of all the pain that could be prevented or remedied…”
He looked over at Madeleine then. And there wasn’t regret in his expression, or undue sympathy. More of an acknowledgment of whatever had happened years ago. And a search for understanding in her face.
She remained still. She didn’t nod, raise a brow, or sigh. Just waited.
“And if your loved one requires surgery…wouldn’t you prefer your doctor had explored or cut into an actual human prior to the experience, rather than a papier-mâché facsimile of a human? Because this is what our students are often forced to do.
“But we haven’t enough corpses to practice upon, and the laws prevent us from obtaining any more. And God help me if I spread more death simply because I don’t have skill enough. Realize this before you pass judgment on me for buying bodies. Paupers, most of them, with no one to claim them. The truth of the matter is…Resurrectionists exist because there is a need for them.”
“We are in no position to pass judgment, Doctor.” Madeleine said quietly. “We only want answers.”
Colin asked, “Did anyone else besides this servant know this about you?”
“Only the servant, Mary Poe, and the…‘gentleman’”—he gave that word an ironic intonation—“I deal with when purchasing corpses. Critchley, his name is.”
“How did it happen, Dr. August? When did the blackmail begin?”
“I was here in my surgery late one evening when he simply…appeared in the doorway. Not a tall man. Stout. Thinning hair, spectacles. He was so shockingly ordinary, in fact, that at first I couldn’t believe my ears when he said…when he said the words. I actually laughed. Surprise, I suppose. I asked him to repeat himself. And then…it wasn’t funny. He told me, very reasonably, that he knew all about my dealings with the Resurrectionists. And he said he imagined that if my dealings with the body snatchers were made public, my reputation, my family, my life, would be in ruins.”
“Which is what makes blackmail so very effective,” Colin mused ironically.
“Quite, Mr. Eversea.” The doctor acknowledged this with a twitch of the lips. “In exchange for his silence on the matter, this man suggested, very politely, that I give him a sum of money, and he named an extraordinary amount. I told him I hadn’t the money to give him. Interestingly, he offered a peculiar alternative: could I give him a secret? As a doctor to kings and earls, he thought I might have one worth a good deal of money. And that…well, I did have a secret to share. I carefully avoided telling the secrets of kings and earls, and those, I assure you, I have as well. But if you’ve spoken to Eleanor—the countess—then you know the secret I told this man. Would you like a cigar, Mr. Eversea?”
Colin didn’t even blink at the change in topic, though inwardly he gave a start. “Yes, thank you. I would like a cigar.”
“Mrs. Greenway, they’re in the humidor behind you, if you would be so kind. I would offer you a brandy, but I need to refill the decanter. It’s empty.”
“I’m all right, thank you, Dr. August, without brandy or a cigar.” She found the humidor and brought forth two cigars, and she did the clipping of them. The doctor lifted the lamp globe, and the two of them lit their cigars over the flame and sucked them into life.
There was a pause to take in the rush of delicious smoke.
“Did you happen to notice this gentleman’s waistcoat buttons, Dr. August?” Colin asked.
The doctor went still. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Eversea?”
It distantly amused Colin that, of all the extraordinary topics broached during the past few minutes, this was the one that seemed to startle the doctor.
“He was wearing a waistcoat featuring mother-of-pearl buttons, Mr. Eversea.” Dr. August cast his eyes at Mr. Pallatine, who had a glow of his own, if not a mother-of-pearl sort. “I wondered that a man who could afford such a waistcoat would need to resort to blackmail. I noticed because the rest of his clothing was so somber. His buttons caught the light.”
“Did you notice any other distinguishing characteristics?”
“Apart from what I’ve described to you? No, Mr. Eversea. Only that he seemed to be undertaking his task with a certain amount of…pique. Almost reluctantly. I sensed something weighed heavily upon his mind.”
Silence reigned in the wake of that sentence, as this rather described all of them.
Colin sucked in the cigar smoke as if it was oxygen. It tasted like his old life: of crawling home from clubs, and evenings at brothels, and quiet evenings at Pennyroyal Green, surrounded by brothers in one room while the women talked about them in the next.
“Excellent cigar,” he said mildly.
The doctor nodded his thanks. “They’re an indulgence.”
They smoked quietly for a moment. Cigars pointed toward the ceiling, pistols pointed at Colin and Dr. August.
“Did you know you’re rumored to be worth one hundred pounds by way of reward, Mr. Eversea? But I haven’t read it in a newspaper yet. ’Tis just rumor, heard from the staff here at the hospital, who heard it from others on the street. One…hundred…pounds.” The doctor shook his head with rueful respect.
“One hundred pounds? I’ve been longing to know just how much I’m worth. My creditors will find that amusing, I’m certain.”
The doctor smiled faintly. “One hundred pounds would buy a lot of corpses.”
Colin, who normally knew how to respond to nearly everything, hadn’t the faintest idea how to respond to this.
“I don’t believe you killed Roland Tarbell, Mr. Eversea,” Dr. August said suddenly. He made it sound as though he was delivering a diagnosis.
“No?” Colin’s heart was knocking again. But the word was a masterpiece of nonchalance.
“Nothing about you strikes me as delusional, and I’ve met and studied many an incurably delusional man. The blackmail trail is very interesting—diabolically c
lever, in fact. Your trial was a travesty of speed and simplicity. And why on earth would any guilty man linger in London?”
“Because the roads out of London are probably patrolled by soldiers?” Colin always became glib when pistols were pointed straight at him, he decided.
“One hundred pounds.” Dr. August smiled around his cigar, then pulled at it until it glowed as if in outrage. As though he was sucking a decision from it.
Colin did the same to his. His heart had begun to beat a little faster, however, and suddenly the most minute motions leaped into prominence. He saw Madeleine’s thumb twitch a little on her pistol. Colin began to consider ways to make a grab for the doctor’s pistol. A leg kicked out into the doctor’s groin, perhaps, and then a lunge for the wrist?
Colin blew out the cigar smoke, and it made a ghost shape above his head, taking on the light of the lamp before drifting away. Heavenly, the flavor was. The fact that it might be his very last cigar lent a bit of piquancy to it.
“Are you going to tell the authorities that you saw me, Dr. August?” He made the question idle. “We won’t allow you to keep us, you know.”
He allowed the threat to hover like the smoke.
And they all sat in another silence that would have been characterized as cozy, if not for the brace of half-cocked pistols aimed at two-thirds of the people in the room.
The doctor took a very long time to reply. He glanced at Mr. Pallatine, as if looking for advice from that quarter.
And then he gave a short laugh. Colin wasn’t the least comforted by the sound.
“I was coerced by this man into betraying friends, Mr. Eversea. The information I provided, apparently, was used to save your hide. But I did it in order to save my hide. And possibly the hides of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of human beings, for this is my quest as a physician. We can argue over whose existence has more worth—mine or yours—but yours is the only existence currently assigned a value, Mr. Eversea.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair. His pistol was a plain one: brass, polished walnut. No mermaids.
The Perils of Pleasure Page 17
