by Emily Organ
“Yes,” I lied, following in the direction he had indicated.
The lobby of the medical school was quiet. Ahead of me was a staircase and to my left was a set of double doors marked Dissecting Room. I climbed the staircase and found myself in a corridor with a polished wooden floor and numerous portraits of medical gentlemen adorning the walls. I walked through a set of doors, passing one room marked Medical Officer and another which said Laboratory. A group of animated young men in stiff white collars and bowler hats passed me. I guessed that they were medical students.
“Excuse me, can you please tell me where the museum is?” I asked.
My question was met with silence, no doubt prompted by the recent tragedy which had occurred there.
“It’s on the next storey, madam,” one of the students eventually replied.
I thanked him and walked on ahead to find a flight of stairs.
I eventually found the door to the museum and peered inside to discover a large, bright room with sunshine pouring in through the glass roof. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with cases and shelves. Two galleries ran around the perimeter of the room, one above the other. Both could be reached by means of an elegant spiral staircase.
There seemed to be no one else there.
I slowly walked into the silent room, captivated by the countless jars and display cases. To my right was a skeleton with bowed legs. Next to it was another skeleton with one pair of legs but two ribcages and two heads. I gasped as I tried to comprehend what poor unfortunate being had once inhabited that body.
I was startled by a jar of eyeballs and befuddled at the sight of a skull with an extreme deformity. I quickly looked away, my eyes falling on a row of jars containing human brains floating in a clear liquid. I recalled reading a description of the brain, but never before had I seen one. Its deep wrinkles and folds were surprising, yet strangely beautiful. Some of the brains had been sliced in half to reveal still more surprising structures. The organ appeared almost plantlike. So spellbound was I by the sights before me that I almost forgot why I was there.
“Can I help you?” a sharp voice asked.
I was jolted back to my senses and turned to see a pale-faced chap with dark hair. He looked about twenty-five years of age. The man had a thin moustache and wore a dark suit.
His face grew stern as I explained who I was.
“I thought we’d seen the last of the reporters,” he said with a sigh. Then he looked me up and down. “None of them have been ladies, however. Until now.”
“Did you know Richard Geller?”
“Of course I did. He was my colleague. My name is Mr Kurtz, and I’m the curator of this museum.”
“I’m sorry. This must be an extremely difficult time for you.”
“It is.”
“Can I ask when and where Mr Geller was found?”
“I suppose you intend to bother me until I reply, don’t you? That’s the nature of news reporters. However, I don’t consider it such a terrible hardship to be bothered by a well-favoured lady such as yourself.”
A smile played on his pale lips and I felt a bitter taste in my mouth.
“I have no wish to bother you,” I said. “If you’d rather I left I should be happy to do so. I can speak to the police instead if you prefer.”
“There’s no need. As your manner is quite affable for a news reporter I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” He walked toward a table on the other side of the room, upon which three skulls had been placed. Next to them I saw a pile of papers, a pen and a pot of ink.
“Everything has been kept as Richard left it. He was carrying out some classification work here when he was attacked.”
I removed my notebook from my carpet bag and glanced at what appeared to be a log sheet next to the skulls. My eyes skimmed over the handwriting and I shivered as I considered that this must have been the last duty poor Richard Geller had performed just before he was killed.
“This skull here belonged to the murderer John Bellingham,” said Mr Kurtz.
“His name is familiar to me, but I cannot recall why.”
“He assassinated Prime Minister Perceval in 1812. Shot him through the heart with a duelling pistol.” His eyes lingered on my face, as if to assess my reaction.
“Goodness.”
“It was in the lobby of the House of Commons. ‘I am murdered, I am murdered,’ cried the prime minister, and then he collapsed to the floor, quite dead.”
“How terribly sad.” I kept my eyes fixed on the skull and avoided Mr Kurtz’s gaze. His presence made me feel uncomfortable. “But why is Bellingham’s skull here?” I asked.
“He was dissected at the Royal College of Surgeons after he was hanged. In those days the bodies of criminals who had been sentenced to death were used for the purpose of medical teaching. How else could students learn?”
“Indeed. Those were the days of the body-snatchers as well, I suppose.”
“The likes of Burke and Hare, and the London Burkers, you mean?” He chuckled. “They came a little later. In the year 1823 it was decided that fewer offences should carry the mandatory sentence of death. It was good news for criminals but bad news for medical students. We had a shortage of cadavers.”
I nodded, wishing I hadn’t mentioned body-snatching.
“There was good money to be made from it,” he continued. “The London Burkers charged twelve guineas per corpse. Matters worsened when they murdered to order, however, and they were caught before too long. In a strange twist of fate, their own bodies were used for medical teaching after they were hanged!”
The air in the room was warm and I began to feel nauseous. I didn’t like the way John Bellingham’s skull appeared to be grinning at me.
Mr Kurtz chuckled again. “It is unusual to find a woman who doesn’t fall into a swoon at the mention of something so macabre.”
“I’ve experienced quite a bit of unpleasantness in my line of work,” I replied, busying myself with my notebook. I could feel his eyes on me still.
“I should think you have, Miss Green,” he replied. “These days we are quite civilised about the whole affair, and people donate their own corpses to the medical school.”
“Good.”
“And as for Bellingham here, he’s proved useful to generations of medical students. The chap has been far more helpful in death than he ever was in life.”
“If he has helped students become fully fledged doctors that is to be applauded.” I felt keen to find out what I could from Mr Kurtz and leave promptly. “Mr Geller was standing here, where we stand now?”
“Yes. And I found him on the floor just behind you.”
I turned around to look at the shiny parquet floor, where fortunately there was no sign of the terrible incident which had occurred there.
“You found him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Goodness, how dreadful. I’m sorry.”
“I hadn’t been out of the room for long. It was shortly before lunchtime. When I returned, he was dead.”
“And you think someone came in and attacked him while you were out of the room?”
“That’s exactly what happened. He was garrotted with a piece of twine.”
“Ugh.”
“Exactly. It wasn’t pleasant.”
“And no one saw the murderer?”
“No. Or perhaps they saw him without realising that he was the murderer. No one suspicious was seen here that morning.”
I stared down at the floor, finding it difficult to believe that a poor man had been murdered on that very spot.
“Do you know if anyone had a reason to harm him?” I asked.
“Can there ever be a justification for murdering someone?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Whatever the motive, the murderer always has something to gain by the death, doesn’t he? Murder is usually committed in an attempt to either remove a problem or acquire something.”
“Perhaps the motive
was robbery.”
He shrugged. “The only valuable item Richard wore was his pocket watch, and that was left on the body. The police will have a better idea of the motive than I do.”
“What was Richard like?”
“He was a pleasant fellow. He’d studied medicine here and had so enjoyed visiting this museum as part of his studies that he decided to work here rather than becoming a doctor himself. I didn’t know him socially, but he was an outgoing fellow and had plenty of friends. His father is a rabbi at the West London Synagogue. I cannot imagine how his family must be feeling at this present time.”
“Rather devastated, I should imagine. You must find it difficult to remain in this room knowing what has happened here.” I shivered.
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m accustomed to morbidness.”
“I see. Well, thank you for speaking to me, Mr Kurtz. Presumably the City of London police force is dealing with this case.”
“Yes. Chief Inspector Stroud, I believe.”
As I turned to leave the room a small jar caught my eye.
“What on earth is that?” I asked. A tiny white foot floated in the liquid within it.
“The bound foot of a Chinese woman.”
I shuddered. “Where’s the remainder of her?”
“That’s a good question. I’m not entirely sure.”
Chapter 7
The City of London police headquarters were in Old Jewry, which meant a walk along Cheapside from St Bartholomew’s Hospital. I made my way through the bustle of people, many of whom were sheltering themselves from the sun beneath the shade of various shop awnings.
The police station was an attractive red-brick building in a cool, shadowy courtyard. After a conversation with the desk sergeant I was permitted to speak to the investigating detective.
“Do you have any suspects in the Geller case yet, Chief Inspector Stroud?” I asked.
The detective seemed too large for his small, wood-panelled office. Squeezed into a leather chair, he regarded me over steepled fingers. His thick grey whiskers spilled out over his collar.
“None yet,” he replied curtly.
“I spoke to his colleague, Mr Kurtz.”
“Good.”
“Do you consider him a suspect?”
“No.”
“Does he have an alibi for the time at which the murder was committed?”
“Our investigation will explore the matter. You consider yourself a detective, do you, Miss Green?”
“No, sir. I’m perfectly content with being a news reporter. Have you considered the possibility that Mr Kurtz could have done it? He discovered Mr Geller’s body, and presumably you only have his word that he left the room for just a short while before returning to find his colleague dead.”
“Mr Kurtz didn’t commit the crime, Miss Green. There’s no doubt about that. He’s the curator of the medical school’s museum, not a murderer.”
“But there’s something rather odd about him, don’t you think? He displayed little emotion when talking to me about his colleague’s death.”
The inspector replied with a shrug. His manner was so dismissive that I wondered why he had agreed to speak to me in the first place.
“So it’s safe for me to report that you have no idea who carried out Mr Geller’s murder,” I pressed.
“None.”
“Have you found out much about Mr Geller?”
“A reasonable amount. He was a clever, sociable young man who enjoyed his work.”
“A man with enemies?”
“We have found none so far.”
“Was he wealthy? Did he have anything valuable on his person which could have been taken by his murderer?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Mr Kurtz told me a pocket watch was still on the body when he was found.”
“Yes, it was.”
“That would seem to rule out robbery as a motive.”
“It does. Thank you for your assistance in the matter, Miss Green.”
“What about his marital status? Was he a bachelor?”
“Yes he was, and there is no indication of any courtship.”
“So the possibility that he was murdered by a love rival is rather unlikely.”
‘A love rival. Now, I do like that description. Do you read a lot of novels, Miss Green? It sounds like a description from a penny dreadful.”
“No love rival, then?”
“There’s no evidence of such, no.”
“Perhaps he upset someone,” I said.
“Perhaps he did.” The inspector glanced at his watch, which was pocketed to one side of his ample midriff. “Are you finished with your questions now, Miss Green?”
“I suppose I am,” I sighed.
It was disappointing to find that Chief Inspector Stroud wasn’t prepared to tell me anything that might be useful. I wished James was investigating the case instead.
“I can’t be coping with this heat any longer,” said my landlady, Mrs Garnett, when I returned home that evening. “Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve removed my stays. I haven’t done that since the summer of 1872.”
She wiped the beads of perspiration from her brow with her apron. A childless widow of about sixty, she had arrived in London from British West Africa as a child.
“A sensible idea, Mrs Garnett,” I replied. “I’m tempted to do the same. My sister never wears a corset these days.”
“That doesn’t surprise me a bit. Your sister also rides a bicycle and wears men’s breeches beneath her skirts. There has always been something rather unconventional about the woman.”
“She no longer wears the men’s breeches. She has taken to wearing a divided skirt to preserve her modesty when she’s bicycling.”
“But if she didn’t ride a bicycle she wouldn’t have to wear a peculiar skirt, would she?”
“But bicycling is a pleasurable pastime, Mrs Garnett.”
“Pleasurable?” She sucked her lip disapprovingly. “She’ll end up in an accident one of these days.”
“Mrs Garnett! That’s not a nice thing to say!”
“It happens all the time. You see these bicyclists colliding with horses, accidentally travelling down basement steps or being upended in ponds!”
“You’re exaggerating, Mrs Garnett.”
“I am not! There was a man just yesterday who got his wheels stuck in the tram lines on Whitechapel High Street. The horse tram couldn’t get through and there were a lot of angry people shouting at each other, let me tell you.”
“Eliza is a little more sensible than that.”
Mrs Garnett sucked her lip again. “If you say so, Miss Green.”
I sat at the writing desk in my attic room with the sash window open in front of me. My cat Tiger was perched on the roof watching the birds roost on the chimney tops. I worked by the rays of the fading sun, as turning on my paraffin lamp always attracted crowds of troublesome flies.
Spread over the desk were my notes from the inquest into Simon Borthwick’s death. I simply couldn’t comprehend why he had taken his life so publicly.
Surely this meant he had little care for the distress it would cause those around him. Was he selfish in this respect, or had he merely been too distraught to consider other people?
The letter the inventor had written about his suicide was the only form of explanation we had as to why he had chosen to take his life in such a dramatic manner. But although I had read it a number of times I felt frustrated that many questions remained unanswered:
There is so much more for me to do, but I can no longer do it. Instead, I must resort to recognising my accomplishments to date, and I hope that my colleagues will continue my work. I will never experience a world powered by electricity, but I feel proud that I have contributed to the progress of harnessing its power. This invisible, though mighty, energy is day by day becoming more the obedient servant of mankind, whom once it only terrified in the lightning flash.
Although I hold myse
lf responsible for what I have become, I cannot understand why it has become so difficult to live in this world. Everything I held dear has been taken away from me, piece by piece. To Lillian - I am sorry. You no doubt care little for my apology now.
Who was Lillian? I wondered. His wife? His sister? Had she attended the inquest? She hadn’t spoken at it, or I should have remembered her. Was Lillian the cause of his distress? Was there a woman behind his suicide, as Edgar had suggested?
There was, however, another paragraph which made me doubt such a theory:
My persecutors have finally won. I think it best to die by my own hand rather than theirs.
This final sentence worried me the most. It suggested that Borthwick had been in fear of his life. But why? And who had been threatening him?
Although the letter had been read out at the inquest, it frustrated me that nothing had been done to investigate the questions it raised. How did Borthwick’s family and friends feel about it? I knew that if a close friend or relation of mine had written such a despairing letter I would wish to understand what had led to such a drastic course of action.
Chapter 8
“Is this a social meeting?” asked Inspector James Blakely as he removed his jacket in the Museum Tavern. “Or is it work?”
“Work, of course,” I replied. “Otherwise we’d have had to organise a chaperone, wouldn’t we?”
“Oh yes, so we would. Work it is, then.” His blue eyes sparkled as he grinned and took a seat across the table from me. He wore a checked grey waistcoat and a green silk tie. I noticed that the recent spell of sunshine had given his face a warm glow.
I smiled, feeling happy to see him again. A gentle hum of voices and haze of tobacco smoke rose up from the tables around us.
“How are you, Penny?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you since we happened upon each other in Hyde Park a few weeks ago.”
“That’s right.” My toes curled uncomfortably at the memory. “How pleasant it was to finally meet the future Mrs Blakely,” I lied. “And her mother as well.”
