by A S Croyle
“Womack is inventing a special mercury thermometer with a flattened bulb of thin glass. He intends to attach the thermometer to the cadaver’s belly and take temperature readings that will calculate postmortem interval with extreme accuracy.”
“My goodness. That would be quite an invention.”
“One day, I’m certain that he will be a teaching fellow and perform his temperature calculations in the mortuary and in this Anatomical Theater. There he is,” Sherlock said, pointing.
Once we were within earshot of Mr. Womack, I realized that he was talking with someone I knew, Jonathan Younger, who had attended the Harrow School with my brother Michael. He had served as Michael’s best man. Jonathan and Mr. Womack were discussing St. Bart’s most recent football season and Bart’s loss to the Harlequins at Turnham Green. I heard Jonathan say, “After Bart’s first loss to the Harlequins - you remember they scored one goal and one try to nil - I thought the season was over.”
“Yes,” Womack said, “that same day they played again at Forest Gate against Upton Park and lost there as well.”
“But what a turnaround. In the second match of the Cup Ties at Clapham Rovers, they gave Guy’s the old heave-ho.”
Finally, the two men noticed us. Womack turned and said, “Ah, Sherlock, what do you think of the hospital’s football team?”
“I don’t think about it at all, Frederick. May I present Dr. Poppy Stamford? Poppy, this is Frederick Womack.”
The two men standing before me could not have been more different. Frederick was short and dark with glasses. Jonathan was an extremely attractive young man - tall and athletic with flaxen hair, violet eyes and a sunny smile.
Frederick gave me a little bow and said, “A pleasure, Miss,” but Jonathan rushed forward to give me an unexpected hug. “Poppy, how wonderful to see you.”
It occurred to me that Sherlock had not been to Michael and Effie’s wedding and he generally stayed in the lab, did not socialize and had few friends. So he likely did not know Jonathan. “Pardon me,” I said, “I believe I have overlooked an introduction. Sherlock, this is Dr. Jonathan Younger. Jonathan, Sherlock Holmes.”
“Ah, so you are the unauthorized, eccentric occupant of our lab, then,” Jonathan exclaimed. “Michael mentioned you just the other day. Some sort of detective, are you?”
“A consulting detective,” Sherlock said with a grimace.
“Poppy,” Jonathan said, “I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you since Michael and Effie’s wedding, or perhaps it was at her funer-” He stopped mid-sentence.
I had not seen him since Effie’s funeral.
“Yes, I believe it’s been well over a year, Dr. Younger. It’s wonderful to see you. You’re looking well.”
“As are you,” he said. “And call me Jonathan, for heaven’s sake.” He looked at Frederick. “I’ve known Dr. Stamford - both Dr. Stamfords - since childhood. I was her brother’s roommate at Harrow.”
“So you know each other well?” Sherlock asked.
Before I could answer, Jonathan said, “Very well. And you, Poppy, what do you think of St. Bart’s victory over its old enemy, Guy’s Hospital?”
I shrugged.
He turned back to Womack. “I must say, we showed our voice with such patriotism that we drowned out the feeble cries of Guy’s. It was a brilliant victory.” His whole body animated and contorting it into football moves and gestures, he continued. “Bart’s won the toss and kicked against the wind. Uphill, they forced to a touchdown once, and then, just before half-time, they worked the ball, inch-by-inch to the enemy’s line and Ray obtained a try. After half-time, it was Bart’s again. They scored fast and Roberts obtained the ball, and in a beautiful run, he carried it right behind Guy’s post and the try was converted to a goal.” Jonathan’s face was almost effervescent as he recounted the last moments of the game. “Guy’s made a valiant effort, I must concede, but Roberts got the ball once again, made the best run of the game, and obtained a third and last try.
“When time was called, the game stood Bart’s one goal, two tries, three touchdowns, to Guy’s one touchdown. Roberts-” He looked at me and offered as an aside, “Roberts is the quarterback. He was remarkable, but all the forwards were grand, particularly Faddy, Sales and Llewellyn. Oh, and J. Pemberton Campbell. He was stupendous.”
“Isn’t Campbell the one who’s seeking an appointment as resident surgeon to Dr. Joseph Bell at the Royal Infirmary in Scotland?” Womack asked.
“The same,” Jonathan said. He turned to me again and said, “After the game, we hoisted Roberts and carried him in triumph from the field amid cries that would rival a flock of sheep!”
I laughed. Jonathan reminded me of my brother - an avid football fan - and also of Cuthbert Ottaway, one of Oxford’s finest former athletes, Ottaway was also fair and handsome and he had quite the magnetic personality. I chanced to meet him on the same day I’d met Sherlock while I was attending the final rowing contest of Eights Week. Jonathan’s features and coloring were similar. However, I hoped Jonathan had a more prosperous future. Cuthbert’s brilliant future and promising career in law had been cut short far too soon. He had contracted pneumonia and died at the age of twenty-seven, just a year ago.
These memories prompted me to ask, “How did Oxford fare last week in the rowing race? The races have just begun, have they not?”
“You didn’t know?” Jonathan asked. “The fog last Saturday was too impenetrable for the race to be rowed at the fixed time. All the rowing on the ebbtide was abandoned. With the weather as it’s been, it is no surprise. But they did finally have a go at it on the following Monday, and Oxford did herself proud. I suppose I am a malcontent with nothing to soothe my soul now that Oxford reckons two wins more than the light blue colors.”
“You went to Cambridge?” Sherlock shrieked.
“Indeed.”
“But not Eton, Sherlock,” I said quickly. “So he is not altogether doomed to the Sixth Circle of Hell.”
“I think Dante would disagree,” Sherlock mumbled. “The Sixth Circle is reserved for heretics, so surely there is at least a half-circle in the Inferno for Cambridge alumni, even if they did not attend Eton.”
Jonathan laughed uproariously. Then he asked, “So what brings you here, Poppy? Are you taking a tour of the new facilities? You must see the new Abernethian Room. Very cheerful with comfortable leather-cushioned seats round the walls and a large table with writing materials and newspapers and monthlies. A lovely place to lounge.”
He and Womack prattled on about one of their physiology professors and I saw Sherlock begin to fidget. Then Jonathan turned to me again and abruptly changed the subject. “Poppy, have you heard that there is an opening for a Junior Assistant Medical Officer to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum near Wandsworth-common Railway Station?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Oh, but never mind. I think they probably don’t want a-” He paused and stuttered. “But... but there’s... there’s also a vacancy for a House Surgeon to the Carmarthn Infirmary The advertisement in the Hospital Gazette said that candidates must be unmarried, know the Welsh language and submit testimonials.”
“I don’t know Welsh, Jonathan.”
“Too bad. I was just thinking it might be a fresh start for you, Poppy. They might not care that you are a female. Then again, the candidate must also be a member of the College of Royal Surgeons who don’t admit-” He stopped and looked down.
Who don’t admit women, I thought.
“You see, I just thought... well, Michael told me that your practice is barely surviving.”
Sherlock clenched his fist at his side. “Her practice is surviving very well, sir. Have you not noticed the fog outside? Patients are beating down the doors to Dr. Stamford’s medical office. She is a good doctor, a staunch practitioner, and does the
best she can to wrest the country from the quicksand in which it is drifting at present.”
Jonathan glanced from Sherlock to me and back again. “Forgive me. I do apologize. I meant no disrespect. So, you have been treating patients for asthma and dropsy, I presume?”
I nodded yet again.
“Are you treating your patients with morphia for the dyspnea?” Jonathan asked. “There is a strong belief that employment of hypodermic injections of the drug can rapidly cure some attack. And opium is a useful drug as well; it relieves bronchial spasms... though I understand it’s rather useless in emphysema.”
This launched a protracted discussion about the treatment of patients with fog-related symptoms, and I saw Sherlock’s agitation and impatience rising. He wandered away and disappeared for a time.
When he returned, Jonathan had just turned our discussion to the Tay Bridge Disaster of 28 December in Scotland. During a violent storm, one that some termed a hurricane, the Tay Bridge had collapsed while a train travelling from Wormit to Dundee was passing over it, killing all aboard.
“The way I understand it, the piers were narrower and their cross-bracing was less robust than on prior bridges designed by Sir Bouch,” Jonathan explained. “Apparently, he made no allowance for wind-loading, and there were other flaws in the design of the bridge as well. I heard that only forty-six bodies of the fifty-seven who perished were recovered.”
I sighed. So once again, I thought, a new year had dawned on weeping families, mourning for friends and dear ones, just like those who had been left behind after the two train collisions in December of 1874 - collisions where Uncle and I had tended to the wounded. In one swift moment, a fraction of a second, passengers were torn from a pleasant excursion and thrust into the grim reality of death. I could hear them crying out, their voices drowned out by the howling storm, their pleas for help muted by the rising tide. Their families would have to live with the fact they were carried out to sea, never to be seen again, never to be given a proper burial. A feeling of horror arose in me with memories of the Norfolk tragedies I had personally witnessed.
Sherlock gave Jonathan a stern look and said, “Please, Dr. Younger, spare us the details. Dr. Stamford has herself rendered care to railway and other disaster victims. As has her brother Michael, which I would think you would know if you were truly his friend. Have we all not had enough during this most unfortunate period of gloomy death and disease and war and trouble? Must you bring forth more dread tidings?”
I touched Sherlock’s arm. “It’s all right, Sherlock.”
He offered his elbow and abruptly turned about, dragging me with him. “Excuse us, gentlemen. We have an appointment with a corpse.”
Chapter 10
Once we were in the lab, Sherlock loosened his tie and tossed his coat and waistcoat over a chair. “Younger is impertinent.”
“No, he isn’t,” I protested, as I removed my cape, scarf, gloves and bonnet. “I’ve known him for years. He’s very sweet and quite gregarious.”
“I must disagree. There is compelling evidence to the contrary. He is obnoxious and condescending and you should have nothing more to do with him.”
I had had enough of Sherlock’s possessive nature, I truly had. Though he refused to give into his affection for me, he was ever-so covetous of my time. I’d finally grown tired of languishing in self-pity and sick of trying to convince him that we were right for each other. I did still love him, but I had shed an ocean full of tears. I had spent endless nights mourning our summer tryst, and I was desperately trying to move on.
“Sherlock! What is wrong with you? Has your brain been suddenly inundated by a feast of toxic particles of the fog? Do dispatch a regiment of gluttonous warriors from that cold heart of yours to gobble the poisons and recapture your senses. Jealousy does not suit you.”
“What?”
“If you allow your heart to feel, I fear that your other organs, including your brain, may soon deteriorate and stop functioning,” I snarled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I simply meant that he offended you.”
“You have no right to decide if I am offended.”
“He belittled you,” he bellowed. “Taunting you with posts to which your application would be futile and disparaging your now flourishing practice.”
“Flourishing for the time being, but only because of the fog and because people cannot afford to go elsewhere. My practice may not survive, Sherlock. I must concede that.”
“Concede nothing!” he shouted. “You are a brilliant woman. I would not keep you in my company were that not the case.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated. “Now let’s have a look at our unnamed corpse, shall we?”
As I viewed the unattached parts of the poor soul, Sherlock read to me an advertisement that had appeared in a recent edition of The Students Journal and Hospital Gazette.
Fresh botanical specimens and other seasonable plants, including Aconite, Belladonna, Conium, etc. (likely to be seen at examinations during the summer months) Carriage paid. 5s. per set; singly, 8d each - Saunders, Private Tutor, 79, Gaisford Street, N.W.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
“I think it’s clear that anyone with a few shillings can get his hands on deadly nightshade, even if none is growing in the area.”
“Precisely. Poison with which to kill the swans. Perhaps I should answer this advertisement to see how easily one might acquire the poison. Now do see what you can tell me about this body.”
I looked at the body parts and clothing laid out before me. The deceased had been found dressed in top hat and tails and none of it had disintegrated. The gentleman had not been dead long; there was little evidence of decomposition of the remains. The head had been severed from the torso, as had the legs and arms. The man was in his early forties, white, and well-nourished.
“This was not done with a hatchet or saw, Sherlock. Whoever cut up this body has surgical training. Where was the body found?”
“St. Marylebone Cemetery in East Finchley. This grave was very near the grave of Sir George Hayter, Her Majesty’s principal painter in ordinary. He was buried there just a few years ago.”
“I know of it. My Aunt Susan’s grandparents are buried there. The parish boundary stone is in Regent’s Park.”
“Did you know that The Non-Conformist Chapel was opened there in 1854, the year of my birth, as a Dissenter’s mortuary chapel? I find that appropriate.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I was bewildered at times at how such a focused mind could wander into totally unrelated discourse. Sensing my impatience, he said, “At any rate, this is not where Wiggins was customarily sent to exhume bodies. He generally went to pauper’s fields and hospital cemeteries. He had an arrangement to get the bodies to Oxford by train, but this time he was apprehended by a constable.”
“Sherlock, they don’t even have a proper medical school at Oxford yet. On the grounds, I mean. There is an infirmary, which Michael says is well-arranged and equipped, and there are instructors, like the Regius Professor of Medicine, but the students have to go off campus. They cannot even spend much time at the Radcliffe Library because at the same time they are prosecuting their studies elsewhere.”
“True. There were some twenty-five hundred undergraduates last year, but only sixty have graduated in medicine thus far,” he said. “Dr. Ackland was always lobbying for more money for the school. He said that in the absence of a true medical school, there is a blight on the University’s reputation and he sought to restore the ancient prestige of Oxford.”
“Michael told me that he resigned his position at the Radcliffe Infirmary last year because there is no real medical school and his position was nothing more than a sinecure. And from what I understand, Oxford has a dearth of cadaver specimens for its medical students to study.”
&n
bsp; “As does Bart’s, for that matter,” Sherlock said.
“But I thought the wretched Resurrectionists were finished. Isn’t that why Parliament passed the Anatomy Act years ago? To prevent body-snatching for payment?”
“Yes, but Mycroft says that because the schools do not have enough cadavers for pupils and surgeons to dissect, there are rumours that even the Royal London Hospital has resorted to obtaining specimens from the hospital’s own burial grounds - in other words, former patients. I’d wager that if an investigation were undertaken, we’d find that some coffins have more than one occupant, and there would be fewer bodies than heads. Think about it. If, during the winter, the medical professors and surgeons keep all who die under their care, then in the summer they have enough and some to spare. But during the summer months, it is difficult to preserve subjects. They inject a solution of arsenic and chloride of zinc or glycerin, but now, under the law, bodies can only be kept for eight weeks.”
“This is a gruesome situation,” I said. “Oxford is full of medical scandals, it would seem. The coroner there, Mr. Hussy, acts like an old woman. He didn’t call in the House Surgeon when someone died at the infirmary a few weeks ago; he called a visiting surgeon who refused to come. Hussy does this every time there is a fatality - probably because the House Surgeon thinks half the time Hussy cannot do his job. But robbing graves?”
“Actually, I think Hussy is trying to do his job. It is not just unclaimed bodies that are used for anatomical research and to train medical students. People prey on the poor, Poppy.”
“What do you mean?”
“They talk guardians into contracting for the bodies of loved ones - people in workhouses and the like,” he explained. “The staff at Radcliffe Infirmary have a particularly disdainful attitude toward the poor. Just this year, there was a terrible scandal about the dissection of pauper corpses and contracts with relatives. There has been a tug-of-war over which bodies end up in the Dead House and how they get there, who pays for the coffin, and so on. There’s all sorts of back-door trading at the infirmary. Medical students, professors and researchers are definitely involved in the body-buying trade. And it is a covert trade, Poppy, a despicable one in which many are involved. The deceased, the relatives, the railway, with tips to porters who look the other way when hearse drivers deliver cadavers. Do you realize we are in a recession and that a deceased infant’s body can earn poor relatives a year’s wage and save the cost of a funeral?”
