A Matter of Grave Concern

by Novak, Brenda

  How had she not noticed him before?

  She’d been doing her best to block him and the others from her consciousness, she reminded herself.

  Her gaze locked with an intense pair of sea-green eyes. “Why, that’s highway robbery! My father has never paid a resurrectionist more than nine guineas, six shillings. I’ve got it all in a book, right here.” She tapped the top of the desk to convince him.

  When he smiled, his teeth looked clean and mostly straight, another detail that set him apart from his companions. “Evidently, you’re not a pupil of economics, or not a very good one, Miss Hale. Short supply, high demand, prices go up. Sometimes significantly. Fifteen guineas. No less.”

  Those short, clipped sentences bore no Cockney accent and revealed a definite culture to his voice, causing Abigail to wonder if she had been dealing with the wrong man all along. She couldn’t imagine this stranger taking orders from anyone, much less the likes of Jack Hurtsill.

  “Blimey, Max,” one of the other men muttered.

  Drawing herself up to her fullest height, which was at least ten inches shy of this Max’s six feet something, Abigail clung tenaciously to her composure. “At this point, I would rather you take your ‘large’ and go.” Surely, there had to be other resurrection men she could contact; she hadn’t gone through all the names she heard muttered about the halls of the college and St. Bart’s Hospital next door. “I have seen naught but the head, and that small sample revealed a nasty wound.”

  “There’s not a mark on the rest of him,” Max responded coolly. “We offered to show you, but you refused.”

  Abigail had no intention of letting this body snatcher tempt her into dumping the body out onto the rug as she had almost let them do before. “Mr. Hurtsill—I mean, Big Jack, here, was about to say ten guineas. I will go that high.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not high enough,” Max countered.

  “You’re a fast study, mate.” Jack slapped him on the back but didn’t interfere. Instead, he turned a challenging smile on Abigail and waited for her response.

  “Then go,” she said, shooing them away. “Take Mr. Whoever He Is and leave. I will not let you rob me. Not if I can help it.”

  “And what if you can’t?” Insolence lit the eyes of the man identified as Max. “Perhaps we should wait here for your father. No doubt he will have better sense of what a corpse is worth at the present time, although I doubt he would want us loitering about the place. What’s it been . . . eighteen months or so since those two surgeons were prosecuted for receiving and dissecting stolen bodies? With a possible knighthood on the horizon, and such a close tie to Sir Astley Cooper—the sergeant-surgeon of the late king himself, no less—it would be quite unfortunate if your father were to be found dealing with the likes of us, wouldn’t you say?”

  Abigail’s jaw dropped at the not-so-subtle threat. These were not learned men but, evidently, they had heard of her father’s many accomplishments even before she had mentioned his involvement with Cooper. She hadn’t said a thing about the crown’s probable recognition.

  Perhaps she had underestimated these sack ’em up men. This man, anyway. “If what you have brought is worth so much Mr. . . Max, is it?”

  He gave her a mocking bow and added his last name, as if to prove he feared nothing from her. “Wilder. Maximillian Wilder, at your service, Miss.”

  “Mr. Wilder, then. Take it elsewhere to claim your fifteen guineas. Take it to Guy’s or . . . or the Webb Street School!”

  His chin rasped as he rubbed it. “We could do that, Miss Hale. But you said yourself that time is money, and we don’t have all night. You wrote us to request an adult specimen and we brought a large. Now it’s time to pay up.”

  “And if I send someone for the police instead?”

  He clucked his tongue. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Three long strides brought him to the edge of her desk, where he toyed with the ivory elephant her mother had bestowed on her following their last trip to India, only two months before she died. “It’s too risky,” he said.

  Abigail plucked the elephant from his grasp. She wasn’t sure she could rely on the new police, anyway. Sir Robert Peel had only recently established the metropolitan force. Like many others, she regarded it with a certain amount of skepticism. “It’s the sensible thing to do,” she said. “After how you have behaved, I am not opposed to seeing the five of you spend considerable time in gaol.” Hoping the weight of her own threat would give him and his companions reason to squirm, she smiled, but Maximillian Wilder merely shrugged.

  “You do what you feel you must, Miss Hale, but you should be aware that Bill over there has a wife and children. You will not want his dependents looking to the college for support while he is imprisoned, now would you?”

  “Looking to the college for support?” she echoed. “Why, you have some nerve, sir. Perhaps there have been faculty members blackmailed into such an arrangement in the past, but don’t expect me to be so accommodating. I wouldn’t allow you to—”

  “I recently heard of an anatomy teacher at Great Marlborough Street School of Anatomy who refused to pay a fair price to men such as ourselves,” he interrupted, turning casually to one of his cohorts. “Did you hear about that, Emmett?”

  A man with shaggy blond hair, who looked more like a boy, nodded. “Aye. He found a stinkin’ corpse at each end of his street every day for more’n a week as retribution. ’Twas a shame, really. Terribly bad for business. That’s what I heard.”

  Impotent rage warmed Abigail’s blood as the import of their words struck her. For a brief moment, she flirted with the temptation of calling Bransby in to force them out at gunpoint. She even imagined handling the pistol herself, pressing the barrel of it into the solid chest of the man named Wilder and watching his arrogance crumble into fear.

  But Bransby couldn’t shoot them all. Truth be told, he would be hard-pressed to shoot one. And she sensed this Max made no idle threat when he hinted at how the gang would respond should she put up a fight. She couldn’t risk the public uproar of having some stranger stumble upon a rotting carcass outside the college doors. Not only would her father lose any chance of a knighthood, he would be prosecuted like those other poor surgeons.

  Clenching her teeth, she reined in her temper. “I see your point.” She retrieved a purple pouch from her desk and began counting out the necessary remuneration. “Eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . Here we have it. Fifteen guineas. Take it and go.”

  Max looked at the money but made no move to accept it. “Actually, your haughty attitude should cost you a little more. That was entirely too easy.”

  “Easy?” She would have had to alter the books just to hide the loss of the eight or nine guineas she had been planning to pay. She had no idea how she would cover any more.

  “I think perhaps . . . twenty guineas should relieve your debt,” he said.

  Someone coughed and the men began to murmur amongst themselves.

  Abigail curled the nails of her free hand into her palm. “Twenty, indeed! You great lout—”

  The rest of her words stuck in her throat as Maximillian’s dirty hand shot across the desk and caught her own, sandwiching the money in her fist.

  “You have already run up a sizable bill, Miss Hale. Are you sure you can afford to make me angry?” He quirked an eyebrow at her, and Abigail once again noticed his striking, blue-green eyes. An aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a strong jaw combined to create an arresting face, not quite handsome but striking. His features were too stark to be handsome in the conventional sense, although they were certainly . . . memorable.

  “Come on, fifteen’s well an’ good, Max.” The way Jack shifted on his feet made him appear anxious. “She is the surgeon’s daughter, after all. And he bein’ a friend of Cooper’s, a fair deal’s good for business, eh?”

 
Much to Abigail’s dismay, Max ignored his leader, if Jack really was the leader, and continued to glare at her. “You have gotten involved in something you are incapable of navigating,” he continued, his voice softening just enough to make him sound as if he might be addressing a child. “I suggest you let this go, and take it as a well-deserved lesson.”

  His fingers tightened, but Abigail refused to admit that his grip was beginning to hurt. “You are every bit a louse,” she said, “and I think we both know I could call you much worse.”

  His laugh, deep and rich, seemed to flow out of his mouth as naturally as his threats. “Perhaps,” he agreed, and wrested the money from her grasp.

  Without those funds, Abigail couldn’t continue to stock the kitchen with foodstuffs, purchase candles and coal, or pay the help. Desperate to salvage what she could, she grabbed for the pouch, but Max used his height to keep it well out of reach.

  “There is far more in there than what you have demanded!” she cried.

  Jack was no longer laughing. “How much more?”

  “Two or three times as much!” She didn’t know, exactly. She hadn’t bothered to count it. She had been too confident that she had all contingencies covered, with Bran and that firearm in the hallway. She had also been preoccupied with making sure her actions went beneath the notice of the college housekeeper, who would tell her father exactly what was going on if she found out.

  “I’m depending on it,” Wilder said.

  “But—”

  “I doubt you can spare any more coin,” he broke in, “so I suggest you cease flinging insults, while you still have the dress on your back.” His meaningful grin sent fear of another kind coursing through her. It was that look, and the sure knowledge that she could never overpower him, that stopped her from rounding her desk.

  She glanced at the door that hid Bransby, even opened her mouth to call out to him. But Wilder silenced her with a quick shake of his head.

  “I wouldn’t, Miss Hale,” he said. “Whoever you have tucked in that hall probably doesn’t have the nerve he would need, and your pride is hardly worth his life.”

  “My pride? That money belongs to the school—”

  “Also far less of a consideration, I’m sure.”

  Never had Abigail wanted to strike a leveling blow at anyone more. The arrogance of this body snatcher! His blatant greed! Since his intervention, she had lost the small amount of power she had initially possessed, and he had laughed in her face while stripping it from her. None of last year’s encounters had prepared her for this. She had felt so confident coming into this deal—confident enough to carry her entire purse.

  She sorely regretted that now. “You know me well enough that you can predict my next move, Mr. Wilder?”

  “I could always know you better.”

  A half smile curved lips that looked soft and foreign to the hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes darkened to a glittering blue and appraised her with such boldness that Abigail folded her arms across her breasts in a rather primitive move to defend herself against his piercing gaze. Dear God . . . what had she done?

  “Please, don’t go!” she whispered. “Let’s . . . let’s work out some sort of . . . arrangement.” Her father was due to arrive home at any moment, but she had to detain these men, regardless. “You will get no more business from me if you do this. Wouldn’t it be . . . wouldn’t it be preferable to . . . to agree to an ongoing contract? Other gangs have offered to do that with my father, with . . . with start-up money for . . . for all the bribes you must pay and . . . and finishing money when the school year is over. If you give me back my purse, I could possibly . . . get more for you later.”

  “You mean you will turn us in,” Wilder said. “But remember, we have your letter, which we can show, if necessary. And now, we really should be going.”

  “No!” She grabbed hold of him, but he easily shook her off and followed the others outside.

  Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “That’s it?” she cried. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” Wilder repeated.

  Abigail gripped the doorframe so she wouldn’t launch herself at him in a fit of temper. “I hope one day you and I will meet again, Mr. Wilder, under very different circumstances.”

  His smile broadened as his gaze settled on her mouth. “Is that an invitation, Miss Hale? Because meeting you, under any circumstances, would be my pleasure. There is much I would like to teach you yet.”

  “You have already taught me a great deal, sir. Rest assured, I will never call upon you again.”

  Max threw the pouch in the air and caught it with a jingle. “More’s the pity, pretty lady. More’s the pity.” He tilted his head toward the sack they had left in the middle of the floor. “Enjoy your time alone together, and give my regards to your father,” he said. Then he followed Jack and the others down the alley, but his voice, raised in recital, carried back to her:

  “Bury me in my brother’s church,

  For that will safer be,

  And I implore, lock the church door,

  And pray take care of the key.”

  Chapter 2

  When silence descended, Abigail locked the door, stumbled to her chair and, completely shaken, sank into its firm, tufted leather. What was she going to do? All the scenarios she had played out in her mind, for days, had done nothing to prepare her for the London Supply Company. Maybe Jack and the others were men she could have negotiated with. They would have taken her for nine or ten guineas. But Maximillian Wilder was something else entirely. He had managed to bilk her out of a fortune! And it wasn’t her money, which made it that much worse.

  Not only would she have to figure out a way to hide the loss, she would have to come up with what the college needed as far as supplies—

  “Miss Hale?” Bransby poked his head inside the room. “Are you all right, Miss?”

  Flushing at the reminder that she’d had a witness to her humiliation, Abigail shoved back the stray wisps of hair that had fallen from her practical topknot. It had been a long, difficult day; even her hair wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m fine,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from cracking.

  He eyed the sack with the body but kept his distance. “Will there be anything else you’ll be needing?”

  Abigail shook her head, as eager to release him from further duty as he was to go. “Seek your bed, Bran. I am sorry I kept you up so late.”

  “Yes, Miss. And where would you like me to put this?” He held the pistol she had given him pinched between two fingers, like a baby’s soiled wrappings. The metal barrel glinted in the lamplight below his aging, narrow face.

  How she wished she’d had the nerve to call him in! But as impulsive as she could be—always her father’s greatest lament—Wilder had been right. She and Bran would have been too easily overpowered. A woman and an old man taking on five body snatchers was not an option.

  “Hand it to me,” she said. “It goes in the bottom drawer of my father’s desk.”

  The taciturn servant gave the corpse a wide berth, and came to set the pistol in front of her. “Good night, Miss,” he said with a slight bow.

  “Good night, Bransby.”

  He shuffled across the carpet to double-check that she had locked the door leading to the alley. Then he made another big arc around the body, and soon she was alone. Or almost alone. She stared, heartsick, at the sack the resurrection men had brought. She had acquired a damned expensive cadaver. How would she ever cover the expense?

  She had no answers. Nor did she have time to sit around, stewing over the problem. She had to do something with her prize, or her father would arrive and the corpse would still be in his office.

  After putting the pistol back in his drawer, she hurried to the door through which Bransby had left and called after him. At first, she wasn’t sure her whisper had carried as far a
s his stooped, retreating figure. But then he stopped and turned.

  “Yes, Miss?”

  She waved him back, waiting to speak until they were safely ensconced in the office once again. The housekeeper, Mrs. Fitzgerald, had a light burning down the hall. The last thing Abigail needed was to rouse her. “I don’t know what I was thinking, Bran. I need your help to move the body.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Around to the cellar, Miss? I don’t think you and I could carry it so far.”

  He was right. That was why she usually had the resurrectionists do it; most arrived with a cart. And this was a particularly big corpse, which meant it would be heavier than usual.

  “Just into the operating theatre, then,” she said. “We will let Mr. Holthouse or whoever is lecturing tomorrow discover it in the morning.”

  The porter’s already ashen face turned a shade paler than moonlight. “You’re going to . . . to leave it there, Miss?”

  “Why not?”

  “The maids will discover it first. You will frighten them to death!”

  “Fine, we will put it in the large hamper I have been using to save cast-off clothing for the rag-and-bone man. Run and grab it from the attic.”

  “Yes, mum.”

  She frowned at the filthy sack while she waited and was relieved when he returned right away. “You didn’t see Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

  “She is snoring with her chin on her chest and her needlework in her lap.”

  “Good.” Their work was almost done. Once one of the faculty took charge of the cadaver, he would pack it in salt to preserve it for as long as possible. Even with salt, most of its parts wouldn’t last more than a couple of months. And then she would be faced with the daunting task of purchasing another cadaver.

  But not from the London Supply Company. She would steer clear of them at all costs.

  “Won’t your father and the others wonder how a body got in the rag hamper?” Bransby asked.