“No, I am not married. I went there to talk to the barman. I had to find something from him.”
The sudden memory of her business at the pub made Maya tear up again and she held her handkerchief upon her eyes.
“Please don’t cry,” said the man and he kept his hand upon her shoulders to try and comfort her. The image of stray hands on her body returned and made Maya queasy, she angrily shrugged off his hands.
“Keep your hands off me,” she shouted louder than she had intended. Loud enough for a man walking on the main street to stop and look into the alley. He carried a lantern that lit his frame. Maya didn’t need a second glance to know that he was a Longstaff on a beat. The Longstaff stepped forward into the alley and blew his whistle.
“What are you two up to,” he said hoarsely.
Maya felt the urge to get up and run. She didn’t want to be harassed by any person more. The Longstaff came lumbering inside the alley and shoved his lantern in front of their faces scanning them keenly. He was a big man with a thick mustache that covered half his face and a paunch that jiggled comically as he moved.
“You have no house so you do your business on the street?”
“What are you saying,” asked the stranger who had gotten up and now stood between Maya and the Longstaff.
“You know mighty well what I am saying. I would allow no one to cuddle profanely on the street in my watch. Follow me to the constabulary” He took out a cuff from his belt hook.
Maya looked desperately for an escape. She didn’t think she could bear any more indignity in the night, but the other side of the by-lane was blocked and the Longstaff looked no pushover.
“But what is our crime,” asked the stranger. Maya felt irritated by the vermin, he was only making the situation worse by prodding the Longstaff.
“Why, would you call your lawyer,” jeered the Longstaff. “Come with me and I will teach you all the law that you and your lass need.”
The Longstaff held the man’s hand to ensconce it in the cuff but he shrugged it off and reached inside his dirty shirt. The Longstaff stepped back anticipating a weapon and took out his staff.
But the other man did not take out a pistol or a knife but a harmless piece of paper. He handed the paper to the constable and glared at him. The Longstaff studied the paper in the glow of his lamp and Maya found his expressions change.
“I am Captain Ernst Wilhelm of the Vasco Constabulary,” said the man for the benefit of the Longstaff, “and you would report at my desk at 8 in the morning so that we can discuss your conduct.”
He snatched the paper from the hands of the gaping constable, held Maya’s hand, and brushed past his subordinate and out of the street.
“You are a High Guard?” asked Maya when the two were out on the street.
“Yes,” said the man distantly. He seemed to be hurt from Maya’s earlier rebuke when he had tried to comfort her.
“I am sorry for being rude to you earlier,” said Maya trying to keep pace with him, “I was disturbed.”
“I understand that,” said Ernst nodding, “I only wanted to know why you were here, I might be able to help you. I am a High Guard you know.”
Maya pondered for a while. Ernst was right, he might be able to help her.
“I work for the Bombay Detective Agency,” said Maya, “I am a researcher there and was looking at the case of a grave robber. A man called Bernard who I had found out frequented this pub.”
Ernst rubbed his chin.
“But why do you want to know about him.”
“I don’t know,” Maya lied, “I am a junior researcher and only the detectives know about the whole case. My job is to gather information about a subject matter. I don’t think I am very good at it and if I don’t find enough information, I am afraid I might lose my job. I cannot afford that.”
Ernst thought for a while.
“Don’t worry, that would not happen,” he said after some time, “you have met just the right man. Till a week ago I had been looking for grave robbers as well. I cannot be certain but I might just have come across a man named Bernard.”
Maya’s eyes glinted with hope.
17
Ernst's House
Bernard/ Pickle/ Puck: Age around 25, active in the Old Cardim area and wanted for theft in cemeteries of Mustapha Lane, Kolaso, Flea Market, and Little Bombay. Works in the barbershop of Kemal in Flea Market and lives in D 632 in an apartment building in the Flea Market. Does not have any family. House checked, is locked and empty, last seen by a neighbor on 23rd August.
Maya had no doubts about the profession of Bernard Knowles after reading his biography in the notebook of Ernst Wilhelm. The High Guard had spent two months investigating grave robberies in Old Cardim, and had developed a database of all the men who indulged in the crime. It was a long list of about 70 people and Bernard occupied the position in the middle of the list which meant that he wasn’t among the most notorious of grave robbers. Ernst had already arrested around 40 people on the list when he had been transferred to a different case. He had apparently already tried to find Bernard to arrest him, having been to his house and the barbershop where he worked but the house was locked and no one had any idea about his whereabouts. He had last been seen by a neighbor around 10 days ago.
Maya looked up from the notebook that she was reading. She was in the living room of Ernst Wilhelm’s two-room apartment in Old Cardim, a five-minute walk from where the Longstaff had apprehended them. Since it was not safe for her to head home alone in the night, he had offered her shelter and some more information about Bernard if she came to his apartment.
Ernst was a bachelor and it was never appropriate for a woman to be found spending night with a man but she had no other choice. There were no carriages to Vasco at this time and she could possibly not walk all the way home. So Maya had accompanied Ernst to his apartment. He lived in a middle-class locality with well-maintained single-storied houses, each flanked by small kitchen gardens and roads bordered by hedges and sewer drains flowing on the sides, covered by slabs. The High Guard didn’t seem to be home too often. He had searched his worn-out clothes for the keys to the door for an eternity before remembering that he kept it in the pot of a money plant that hung from the ceiling just outside his door. The two rooms of the apartment were in a condition that would fatally upset Maisie. The drawing-room, which was furnished by a couple of armchairs, was littered with newspapers and police files and smelt of dirty laundry and sweaty socks. Ernst had apologized sincerely for the condition of his house and cleaned it as much as he could before offering Maya one of the armchairs.
He had then found her a loaf of bread, the only edible thing in the house, and apologized again for his inability to be a competent host. Maya did not mind the house, in fact, she felt slightly better in a messed up place as it made her mind feel relatively tranquil. Ernst himself had half a loaf of bread, given her his notebook with the details of the grave robbers, and went to the other room to take some rest.
Maya cast a glance at the other room where the High Guard already seemed to be asleep. He had not changed his smelly clothes and was snoring gently. Maya snuggled up in the armchair and thought about the next steps. She had solved the first part of the mystery, she had no doubt that the person who supplied Charles Melcrose with cadavers was a grave robber and that he had forged his license as well as the documents about the bodies. She now would have to inform the doctor about her progress. She decided to put all her findings in a paper much like the way the detectives at the agency did, along with copies of proofs and the sources and references. That would take at least a couple of hours. But Maya decided to postpone this exercise. She was feeling tired and the messy room was the coziest place she had been in a long time. She yawned widely then keeping the notebook on the chair beside, cradled herself in her arms, and closed her eyes. It didn’t take long for her to find sleep.
18
Anatomist's Secret
Doctor Charles Melcrose put his
small saw aside and observed the groove that he had made at the skull of his latest subject. He shuddered to imagine the pain that he would feel if he was treated in the same manner. It was hard to remind himself that the skull belonged to a dead man and that dead men did not feel.
The doctor then picked up a chisel and keeping its tip in the groove rapped it firmly with a mallet. The top of the skull fell upon his surgical table, spreading a colorless fluid all over. Panting with inexplicable excitement, the doctor quickly scooped his notebook in his hand, saving it from being drenched in the internal fluid of the head. He kept the notebook in a niche in the wall, then took up a curved scalpel and detached the brain from the skull.
Studying the brain was a cumbersome affair and the doctor did not like the process of extracting the brain from inside the head. Not so much because of the technical complexity involved but merely because Charles Melcrose felt that removing the brain from someone’s body was akin to removing the soul. He felt reluctant and hesitant in being the one responsible for the loss. But the study of the human brain was of great importance, it held the key to the future of medicine. Charles was thrilled just by looking at the specimen of the brain in his possession. Though he had been practicing medicine and dissecting bodies for more than half a decade, it still never seized to surprise him when he opened a new body and observed it. He felt a childlike intrigue and curiosity on each occasion. Like he was opening a chest of pirate gold. The head was the most beautiful part, and the most intriguing. More secrets lingered inside the bony skull than in any other part of the human body, and Charles Melcrose was sure that one day he could decipher it all, how the brain worked, how it had allowed humans to rule over the world. Such a breakthrough would make waves all over the world. He would be famous, all those years of effort would culminate in a final crowning glory. The doctor grinned at his imagination.
But the happiness was short-lived. His glance wandered to the open drawer of his table. It was filled with a bunch of paper notes, held together by a clip. The doctor shuddered at their sight, 4 small bits of paper. So harmless in shape and form and yet each held a power to destroy him forever, tear down the career he had established by years of practice and which had only just started to blossom.
The doctor absently moved his head in disbelief, he could not fathom how he had allowed the situation to come to this point. It had been a great error in keeping these notes secret and not doing anything about them. Even now, he had not told anyone the full extent of the trouble that he was in, not his wife, not his friends nor even the woman he had hired to find out about Bernard Knowles. In some ways, he felt responsible for Bernard’s death as well. If he had acted when the first note had come, perhaps the supplier wouldn’t be dead, perhaps his career might not have felt threatened either.
Charles Melcrose sighed, picking up the first note from the desk. He remembered clearly the morning, one month ago, when he had received it. It was tucked in his morning newspaper, and as soon as Charles had picked the paper from the table of his living room, the note had fluttered down, almost nonchalantly, like it had no idea of the turmoil it was about to cause in his life. Initially, the doctor had thought that the paper was an advertisement bill, but when he had picked it up it was blank, save for a brief single line which advertised quite clearly that someone knew his secret.
“Go away from Cardim or I know what you do in your crypt…”
The doctor was shocked to see the note. He had never let anyone inside the crypt in the basement, not even his most trusted servant Rattan Singh. Who could possibly know what he kept under his house? The doctor had dropped his morning paper and rushed off to his basement office to hide the note, away from the eyes of all others. He was so troubled by the single sentence that he did not even bother to think about its author. He wanted to get it out of his mind. Perhaps, if he could just manage to forget it everything would be fine.
He was wrong.
A week later he had found a note more. This time in a post addressed to him.
“I know your secret doctor and if you don’t leave Cardim soon, it would no longer be a secret”
The note had gone once again in his basement office. Safe from the eyes from everybody, safe even from his own eyes. The notes would end, the doctor had assured himself, someone was playing a prank, there was no way anyone could know his secret.
The third note arrived at his university. This time it was more public. It was stuck on his cabin door, for everyone to see.
“I know you get your bodies from graves, doctor…”
Charles Melcrose had looked around, scared and shivering to see if anyone else had read the note, but it seemed not. He had taken that and piled it in his desk as well.
Then the final note came. He had been expecting it, to be frank. But he did not expect it to accompany a body. Bernard had been killed, all because of him.
But there was a greater problem now. He could no longer keep the notes a secret. The last two notes had questioned the source of his bodies. If Bernard was indeed a grave robber and the bodies that he had supplied to him were stolen from graves, then he was in great trouble. Greater still than the secret in his crypt.
So, he had hired that lady to find out more about him. But he had not told her the complete truth either. She did not know that Bernard was dead. She knew only about the last note and that too only half. She had no clue about the other notes and his secret. How could he tell her? There was no way anyone would find that. Ever.
The doctor shut the drawer. He did not want to brood too much over what he did not have control over. He was, after all, jumping to conclusions. Perhaps Bernard was actually a licensed supplier and merely happened to have enmity with a neighbor who decided to end his life. He had no explanation for the notes but he was sure there could be some other harmless explanation for those as well.
His eyes went to the table overflowing with the fluid from the dissected brain. The doctor collected as much fluid as he could into a glass vial to study it later. He then placed the cap of the skull back upon the brainless head and picked up his notebook and pen, ready to sketch the organ.
He had drawn only a few lines when his pen slipped out of his and dropped onto the stone floor. An unexpected sound had suddenly rung clear in the basement. A sound of feet shuffling on the floor. It was close. The doctor heard carefully. Was the sound coming from the crypt? But that was not possible.
No one was allowed inside.
The basement of Charles Melcrose’s bungalow was divided into two parts. The western portion was his working space where he usually spent most of his time dissecting bodies and researching about them. The eastern section of the crypt occupied a bigger portion of the basement. While the whole basement office was out of bounds for anyone but the doctor, Charles Melcrose kept the crypt especially secure of intruders. He cleaned it himself once a month and kept it locked at all times.
Now though, as the doctor stood straight craning his ears he heard the shuffling of feet once more. And the sound was definitely coming from the eastern part. Charles Melcrose picked up a candle in one hand and his medical shears in the other and moved towards the door. He stopped at the door, kept his ear upon the wood, and listened quietly. The sound was still ringing, as if someone was trying to rub leather shoes on stone. The doctor kept the candle down and fumbled in his pocket for the key to the door. He found it promptly, and slowly, making as little sound as he possibly could, opened the lock. The click of the lock rose uncharacteristically loud in the silent basement. The doctor softly undid the latch and opened the door. Picking up the candle, he took a step inside the hall and a cold breeze ruffled the flame of the candle casting maleficent shadows on the wall. The doctor shivered with lingering fear. It was a new feeling, he had never felt fear before, not in his crypt. He held the candle in front of his face and moved ahead. The shuffling of feet had stopped now, it had gone eerily quiet, he stepped forward slowly till he was level with a stone basin filled with brine. The doctor ruffl
ed the surface of the saltwater with his fingers to send ripples riding to the edge of the basin. He would have looked at the water some moments longer but he heard the shuffling of feet again. This time it came from behind him.
The doctor turned to find a figure on the door to the crypt.
19
The Trip Back
“Excuse me, madam,” asked the guard of Charles Melcrose’s house as Maya disembarked from the carriage and walked towards the open gate, “where are you going?”
“To meet Dr. Melcrose,” said Maya confidently. She held a bundle of papers in her hand, the summary of her findings about Bernard Knowles along with detailed proofs.
“Do you have an appointment?” the man asked, now moving in front of Maya as if to stop her if she made a dash for the house.
“No,” said Maya slightly surprised by the guard’s conduct, “But he has asked me to meet him anytime I want. You must’ve seen me enter this building a couple of days ago, I am on the same errand.”
“I am sorry,” said the man not feeling sorry at all, “But I don’t recognize you and I have directions to not let anyone in without an appointment.”
Maya felt anger rise in her belly. She remembered distinctly that this was the same person who had saluted her when she had been here the last time, and yet he refused to recognize her now. What had happened to him? Such unexpected obstruction to work always upset her. She felt like punching the man in the face and carrying on but she took a deep breath and tried to maintain tranquility.
“Why don’t you call Dr. Melcrose and ask him if he wants to meet me,” she said in a terse tone.
“I am sorry but I don’t have permission to do that.”
“This is ridiculous,” barked Maya, “You are trying to stop me from doing Dr. Melcrose’s work, I am sure he’d be upset at you.”
“I am sorry madam but I cannot let you in.”
The Anatomist (Maya Mystery Book 2) Page 9
