Stone Cold

by Andrew Lane

  Back at his lodgings, Sherlock had time for a quick wash and a change of clothes before dinner. Three of the other lodgers were absent – probably eating in college – and Sherlock shared a quiet meal with the theologian, Thomas Millard, and the mathematician, Mathukumal Vijayaraghavan. Nobody had very much to say, and Sherlock went straight to bed afterwards.

  Coming out of his bedroom the next morning, he bumped into the lanky Paul Chippenham coming down the stairs.

  ‘Got anything on today?’ Chippenham asked, pulling on his jacket as he passed Sherlock.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘I thought about taking a look around Oxford – maybe going out on the river. What about you?’

  ‘Lectures,’ Chippenham called over his shoulder. ‘We’re doing gross anatomy – the structure of the skeleton and the arrangement of the internal organs.’

  ‘I thought you were studying natural science?’

  ‘Biology is part of that, and anatomy is part of biology. We’re running a book on which of the students gets sick first and has to leave.’

  Sherlock’s brain spun for a few moments. Lectures in anatomy? That sounded fascinating.

  ‘Could I come along?’ he called after the student. The sound of the words coming out of his mouth surprised him, but a moment’s thought confirmed his split-second decision. Why limit his subjects just to logic and mathematics, and why limit his teachers just to Charles Dodgson? Why not take advantage of all the teaching that Oxford had to offer?

  Chippenham looked back up the stairs, frowning. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said finally. ‘There’s usually spaces at the back. Just don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t ask any questions and don’t, really don’t, be sick.’

  ‘I promise,’ Sherlock replied.

  ‘We need to get a move on though. I’m late as it is.’

  Sherlock followed Chippenham down the stairs and out of the house. The older student ran down the street, round the corner and towards the imposing facade of the college, with Sherlock doing his best to keep up. He waved at the Head Porter, Mutchinson, as he passed, and the man saluted smartly back. Chippenham ran around the edge of the lawn and ducked through a side-arch, with Sherlock on his heels. They were both panting by this time. Sherlock glanced up to where he remembered Dodgson’s rooms as being, but there was no sign of the man at his window. Another two archways, and diagonally across a paved quadrangle, and then Chippenham was rushing into a narrow doorway and up some stairs.

  At the top of the stairway, a door opened on to a lecture theatre. Sherlock had been expecting something like one of the classrooms back at Deepdene School for Boys, where he had initially been educated – desks lined up in rows with a teacher in front at a blackboard – but the room he found himself in was more like the theatre where he had seen the violinist, Pablo Sarasate, a few weeks before. The stage was smaller, and the slope downward from the top row of the audience to the bottom was much steeper, but the general feeling was similar. Except, he noticed, that there were no seats. Instead, the students were lined up – in some places crowded up – against a series of railings that ran around the edge of their balconies.

  The noise was very much the same as in the theatre, with all of the students apparently talking at once to their neighbours, or yelling across from one side of the lecture theatre to the other.

  Sherlock and Chippenham had come out on the top balcony. Chippenham quickly wriggled through the crowd, moving down the nearest set of steps to where a group of his friends were based. Sherlock stayed on the top row and found himself a gap in the crowd where he could stand against the railing and look downward.

  They were just in time. The lecture hadn’t started yet, but the lecturer himself was in position. Beside him was a table, covered with a white cloth. On the table, covered by the cloth, was a lumpy object that Sherlock, with a slight chill, realized was probably a dead body.

  The lecturer was a tall man with bushy eyebrows and a bald spot on top of his head that shone in the glare of the flickering gaslights that were placed around the lecture theatre. Sherlock could smell the press of all of the students’ bodies, as well as their various shaving lotions and hair tonics. Beneath that smell was the smell of the burning gas, and beneath that was a sharp smell, like disinfectant.

  The lecturer stepped forward. Immediate silence fell. He was obviously highly respected, or a strict disciplinarian, or both.

  ‘A word before we start, gentlemen,’ he said in a deep voice that carried to every nook and cranny of the tall room. ‘Shortly you will watch me as I take a body apart, piece by piece, demonstrating to you at every stage what the various bits do and how they are connected to the rest. Next year you will, if you are allowed to return to this college, take a body apart yourselves. These are important – even vital – parts of your education. If we go back in history, people have believed all kinds of odd things about the human body that have turned out not to be true, and that have only been proved false by direct observation of the insides.’ He paused, gazing around with his penetrating eyes. ‘Please remember two things, however. Firstly, bear in mind that students in your situation are fortunate enough to be living in an enlightened time, when students who wish to become doctors or surgeons are able to see how the human body works by examining an actual human body. There have been times, not that many years ago, when such things were forbidden, for religious or for ethical reasons. Secondly, these bodies, which we so casually dismember, were once living people, and that they have donated their body voluntarily for your education. Treat them with the respect they deserve.’ He placed his hand on the sheeted body beside him. ‘This is Mr Adam Bagshawe, lately of this parish. We are indebted to Mrs Rachel Bagshawe for donating her husband’s body for the purposes of medical research, as per the wishes expressed in his will. I may inadvertently refer to Mr Bagshawe’s body as “it” later, as if I was referring to a piece of machinery, or a block of wood, but try to keep in mind, as I will try, that there was once a man’s soul inhabiting this machine, this block, and that he had loves and hates and desires similar to yours.’

  The students were mesmerized by this introduction. Glancing around, Sherlock could see that the lecturer’s words had hit home. A few of the students were swallowing nervously, presumably imagining that one day it might be them lying on a table in a lecture theatre, rather than the unfortunate Mr Bagshawe.

  The lecturer plucked at the sheet covering Mr Bagshawe’s body, bunching the material up, and then paused. He glanced around the lecture theatre again, frowning.

  ‘You may have heard talk around the town,’ he added, ‘or perhaps seen reports in the local newspapers, that parts of human bodies have been stolen from the local mortuary in recent months. It may have occurred to you that these thefts have been, in some way, connected to this course of lectures – either to obtain fresh specimens for us to use here in front of you or, perhaps, by more mature students undertaking some form of grotesque homework. I can assure you that the former is not true – every body that we dissect here has been provided whole, by the family of the unfortunate deceased. I can also assure you that if any students were found to be obtaining body parts illegally, by theft or other means, so that they can conduct their own research after hours, they would be immediately dismissed from the college, and prosecuted to the full extent that the law allows. We do not – I repeat, do not – countenance that sort of activity. Do I make myself clear?’

  He was silent then, staring around and meeting every set of eyes that was fixed on him, until a murmur of assent rippled around the room.

  ‘Very well,’ he continued eventually. ‘Now, let us meet Mr Adam Bagshawe.’

  He pulled the sheet off the body. A hushed silence fell around the room. Sherlock found himself thinking, bizarrely, of the deaths he had witnessed. He had probably seen more death than anybody else in that room, save the lecturer, but he still leaned forward, hushed in reverence, as the lecture continued.

  After the body of the l
ate, unfortunate Mr Bagshawe had been comprehensively sliced up and his various internal organs displayed for public appreciation, and after no less than five of the students in the audience had been suddenly taken ill and had to run for the door, the lecture finished. As the remaining students clapped politely the lecturer covered the remains of Mr Bagshawe with a sheet – which immediately began to stain with the seepage of blood from the corpse – and two assistants wheeled it away. Sherlock stood there for a while, as the students filed past him, thinking about what he had seen. Thinking about the fact that the miracles of the human body could be treated in much the same way as the cogs, wheels and springs within a clock – disassembled and laid out on a table for inspection. The difference being, of course, that the various components of the body couldn’t be reassembled, whereas a clock could. Life, once gone, could not be regained. So what, he thought to himself, did that make life? Was it the same as the soul? Was it the same as consciousness? What exactly was it?

  Big questions. Perhaps that was what University was for, in the end. Not answering the big questions, necessarily, but asking them.

  Eventually he left the auditorium. The sun was shining outside, and Matty was waiting for him.

  ‘’Avin’ fun?’ Matty asked.

  ‘I’ve been looking at a dead body,’ Sherlock confided.

  Matty thought for a moment. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’ He looked at Sherlock, then shook his head. ‘Never mind. I’m assumin’ it’s a “yes” in your case. You love all that kind of stuff.’

  Sherlock was about to reply, pointing out that he also liked all kinds of things that people might consider normal, when he saw Chippenham across the other side of the paved area, talking to some friends. He was about to suggest to Matty that they head across to join Chippenham when he saw two men in blue serge uniforms and helmets walking over as well. He held back, watching.

  One of the men took hold of Chippenham’s elbow. ‘Mr Paul Chippenham?’ he asked.

  The student look puzzled, and concerned. ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Sergeant Clitherow, of the Oxford Constabulary. This is my colleague, Constable Harries. We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Oh. All right then – what do you want to know?’

  ‘Not here, sir. Down at the police station, if you’d be so kind.’

  ‘I’ve got a tutorial!’ Chippenham protested.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir – this won’t take long, and there’ll be other tutorials, I’m sure.’

  One of Chippenham’s friends stepped forward. ‘I’m studying law,’ he said, trying to sound officious but just sounding pretentious. ‘I demand that you tell us why you want to talk to Mr Chippenham.’

  ‘Inquiries in connection with a series of recent thefts,’ the sergeant replied.

  ‘Thefts of bodies,’ the constable confided. ‘Well, bits of bodies.’

  The sergeant stared at him, frowning, and the constable subsided.

  ‘Is Mr Chippenham a suspect?’ the law student asked.

  The sergeant shrugged. ‘Let’s say he’s helping us with our inquiries,’ he said. He turned to Chippenham. ‘Aren’t you, sir? Might look suspicious if you refused. Might look like you had something to hide, like.’

  ‘I’ll come along and answer any questions you’ve got,’ Chippenham said firmly, but Sherlock could detect a slight tremor in his voice. Chippenham turned to his friends. ‘Tell my tutor,’ he said. ‘Let him know what’s happened. He might be able to . . . intercede with the police, or something.’

  The policemen guided Chippenham away by the elbow. He cast a last, despairing glance over his shoulder before they vanished around a corner.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not ’im,’ Matty said darkly. ‘The Oxford police have a reputation. They don’t like cheek, or anyone talking back to them. ’E’d better cooperate, otherwise ’e’ll find ’imself trippin’ up every time ’e walks down a flight of stairs. Man could do ’imself some nasty injuries that way.’

  ‘I can’t see him being guilty,’ Sherlock said.

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘He seems too normal, too ordinary. And when he talked about the thefts, the other night at Mrs McCrery’s, he was completely open.’ Sherlock shrugged. ‘I suppose you can’t tell what’s in people’s minds, but I’d like to know if there’s any evidence against him. I’m not convinced that the police actually care that much about evidence, just as long as they have someone in the cells.’

  ‘Surely,’ Matty reasoned, ‘if there keep on bein’ thefts, then they’ll have to let him go.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Sherlock said bleakly. ‘The thief might stop for other reasons. Or, if I were them and someone had been arrested for the crimes I was committing, I might move to a different area, a different mortuary, and start again.’

  ‘You’ve got a cunnin’ mind,’ Matty pointed out. ‘Ever thought of becomin’ a criminal yourself?’

  It was much later in the evening, after dinner, that Paul Chippenham returned to Mrs McCrery’s boarding house. He was pale, and his hands shook as he sipped at the sherry that Reginald Musgrave poured him. There was a fresh bruise on his forehead.

  ‘What happened?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘They asked me a lot of questions about the Oxford hospital mortuary, and why I had been visiting it. I tried to persuade them that it was nothing suspicious, but they were fixated on the idea that I was the one who had stolen those body parts that have been in the newspaper, and that the lecturer mentioned this morning.’ He raised a hand to the bruise on his forehead. ‘Things got a bit . . . physical . . . and the constable belted me across the head when he thought I was being cheeky.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ Thomas Millard wanted to know.

  ‘The truth.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘It was going to be a jape – a joke. A small group of us were going to steal a body from the mortuary, dress it up like a student and prop it up in the lecture theatre for the anatomy lecture. We thought it would be funny, knowing that there was a dead body in the audience as well as on the table.’

  ‘Sacrilege, treating God’s creation like that,’ Millard murmured, shaking his head sadly, but he didn’t sound surprised. Presumably it was the kind of thing that students regularly got up to.

  ‘I’m guessing that you didn’t manage to get hold of a body,’ Sherlock said.

  Chippenham shook his head. ‘The pathologist – Doctor Lukather by name – was too fly. He wouldn’t give me the time of day, let alone a look at a body. I told the police that. They said they’d check with Lukather, but they seemed to believe me. I won’t say they were satisfied, but they let me go.’

  The conversation moved on to famous jokes and japes that had been played by students on each other, and on the lecturers, over the years. Sherlock slipped out after a while and went up to his room. He had a lot to think about.

  The next morning he rose early, had breakfast and went straight out into the town. Something had occurred to him overnight, and he wanted to try it out.

  He went straight to the offices of the Oxford Post. At the reception, he asked to see whichever reporter was on desk duty that day. He knew that most reporters would be out researching stories, but there was always one left behind just in case anyone wandered in with something.

  The one left behind today was Ainsley Dunbard, a man not that much older than Sherlock with a sparse moustache and beard and an expression that suggested he’d seen too much of life and didn’t like what he had seen.

  ‘What can I do for ya?’ he asked when Sherlock was shown to his ‘office’ – actually a room barely larger than a broom cupboard with a desk, a typewriter and no window.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Sherlock started, ‘but I’m interested in becoming a reporter myself when I leave school. I wondered if there are any tips you can give me?’

  ‘Just what I need,’ the man muttered; ‘competition.’ He stared at his desk, then at the wall. ‘There’s only a couple of things you need to kn
ow,’ he said eventually, sighing. ‘First is, always check your facts. Make sure that if you print something, at least two people have told you about it, and check that the first person didn’t tell the second one.’

  Sherlock dutifully wrote this down in a notebook he had bought from a stationer’s just a few minutes before.

  ‘Second thing is, people don’t talk in a way that makes good newspaper reporting, so you got to tidy it up. Take out the “um”s an’ the “ah”s an’ the “oh, I say”s, an’ put the events in the right order, cos people tend to remember things out of order an’ keep correctin’ themselves. When it all gets printed they’ll remember it the way you wrote it, not the way they said it. Third –’ and he glanced sideways at Sherlock through eyes that were bloodshot and tired – ‘remember that if a dog bites a man then it ain’t news, but if a man bites a dog then it is. People want stories that are out of the ordinary, maybe a bit grotesque.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Take this story I worked on last year,’ he continued. ‘Some people wrote to me from one of the local villages. It was like a petition – they all signed the letter. They told me that there’s this creature that lives in the woods near them who’s not actually a real man, with a mother an’ all that, but ’e’s been made by sewing bits of dead bodies together. Now that’s macabre. Would’ve made a great story, except that it sounds just like that book Frankenstein by the poet’s wife – Mary Shelley. I reckon someone’d read the book, or seen the play, an’ ’ad a nightmare about it. Too much cheese for supper, I ’spect.’ He sighed. ‘I did do a bit of digging around, just in case, but I couldn’t find any corroboration. There was nothing to the story.’

  This story sounded like the one he’d heard from the farmer who had given him a lift back to Oxford – about the strange creature living in the woods near that strange house. It suddenly gave Sherlock an opportunity that he had thought he might have to manufacture himself. ‘Talking of bits of bodies,’ he said, deliberately roughening his tone a bit to match the journalist’s, ‘what ’appened at the mortuary then? I hear there was some thefts there. Nothin’ to do with this creature then?’