The Wages of Sin

by Kaite Welsh

  “You must be mistaken, sir,” I said, infusing my words with all the ice I could muster. I prayed he would be too drunk to recall our encounter.

  “No,” he insisted, “I do. Gilchrist. Competent, know your poisons. No friends.”

  His words stung me. I hadn’t realized that my solitary state was quite so obvious.

  Before I could protest, he heaved again. Once he had emptied the remaining contents of his stomach on the already foul cobbles, he took a tentative step around it. Before he had taken three paces, he swayed and collapsed onto the ground.

  Reluctant as I was to linger in the dark wynd with my inebriated professor, I knew I couldn’t leave him like that and I crouched down next to him. He was unhurt, although there would be a nasty bump on his forehead to match the black eye, and a shard of broken glass had gouged itself into his cheek. Shaking him to something resembling consciousness, I gingerly removed the glass and pressed my mercifully clean handkerchief against his skin to staunch the trickle of blood.

  Somehow he managed to stagger to his feet, looking about him uncertainly.

  “If we walk a littler farther, we can hail you a cab,” I reassured him. The two of us must have made a pretty picture, stumbling through the slums. He, a tall man of nearly six foot and reeking of alcohol, leaning on a slight young woman who looked more like a governess than a prostitute.

  I helped the professor into the carriage and sat opposite him warily. He slumped against the door, eyes fluttering shut. It occurred to me, most inappropriately, that he had extremely thick eyelashes for a man.

  “Where to, lassie?”

  I realized that I had no idea where Merchiston lived. To return him to the university would result in instant dismissal for him, and probably expulsion and a room in a nearby convent for me.

  “Professor,” I said, shaking him gingerly. “I cannot take you home unless you tell me where you live.”

  He slurred an address in a reasonably smart area of town, and I relayed it back to the driver. At least it wouldn’t take long to get there, I thought, and I could be back at my aunt’s house in time for dinner.

  We hadn’t gone ten yards before Professor Merchiston was snoring loudly. His black eye had begun to fade a little, and his split lip was almost healed. His injuries lent him a somewhat sinister air, and I began to doubt my wisdom in traveling alone with an inebriated man I barely knew.

  We drew up outside a modest but well-kept house and I realized with a sinking feeling that the driver had no intention of helping his passenger out of the vehicle. I prodded the professor tentatively in the shoulder and he awoke with a start.

  “We’re here, Professor.”

  He stared at me in blank confusion, clearly wondering what on earth he was doing in a hansom cab with one of his female students. Evidently deciding that he was too drunk to care, he opened the carriage door and promptly fell out onto the pavement.

  I turned to ask the driver to wait while I maneuvered him into the house, but he was already driving away.

  Together, we staggered to the front door, which was opened by a mildly scandalized woman with graying red hair barely concealed by her bob cap.

  “What on earth is going on here? Professor, what’s the matter wi’ ye? No, dinnae answer that,” she said without pausing for breath. “I can smell ye from here. And me having taken the pledge!” Shifting her attention from her recalcitrant employer, she fixed her gimlet gaze on me. “And just who might you be, lassie?”

  “Miss Gilchrist,” Professor Merchiston mumbled. “Saw her coming out of a brothel.”

  “I was only visiting,” I explained hastily. “I’m a student of Professor Merchiston’s, and I do some philanthropic work at Saint Giles’s Infirmary. I was inquiring after a patient.” Well, that was only a partial lie. No need to mention that the patient in question was beyond medical help.

  “Hmm. Well, you can help me carry the lummox in then.”

  Between the two of us, we managed to drag the lummox in question into the house and up the stairs. At the bedroom door, we paused awkwardly.

  “I think it’s better if I do this last bit alone, dearie,” she said, not unkindly. “Wait in the parlor and I’ll bring you a pot of tea and get you cleaned up. Oh, Professor”—she tutted. Something in her motherly manner soothed my jangled nerves. “What on earth have you been doing?”

  He slurred something that made my blood run cold. One word, but that was enough.

  “Lucy.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Faced with a looming chemistry practical, I pushed all thoughts of Merchiston and his possible links to Lucy to the back of my mind—in the cold light of day, the idea did seem a little fantastical. He might be charmless and sarcastic, he might frequent brothels, but did that really make him a murderer? There was no reason, I told myself sternly, to be discomfited by his disheveled appearance this week, or for catching him going into Ruby’s. After all, what had I seen? A single gentleman of a certain age outside a house of ill repute wasn’t unusual. And if Lucy had been his particular favorite—well, it was hardly unheard of for gentlemen to develop a tendresse for ladies of pleasure. The only person besides him who could shed some light onto his association with Lucy—assuming there even was one—was Ruby.

  But the thought refused to leave me.

  He may have been an admirable physician and a good lecturer, but he was still flesh and blood with all the desires that that implied. Better, surely, that he slake his lust with a woman he had paid for the privilege than to take advantage of the vulnerable creatures he came into contact with as a doctor—or worse, his female students. Even as I thought that, I knew there was no real difference. Lucy and her sisters were no more complicit in their degradation than I had been in mine—where force and sheer terror had subdued me, so poverty and the threat of the workhouse trapped them.

  If the object of his affections had not now been a battered corpse, I could have dismissed it as eccentricity. As it was . . . I shivered, gulping down the last of the hot, sweet coffee, and gathered my things. My uncle’s carriage would take me to the university—from there, I was on my own.

  I pulled my coat tighter around myself, longing for the comparative warmth of the trams that crisscrossed the city. As I shivered, my uncle glared at me, clearly resenting having to share his morning journey every day with a girl he though so little of. I wished violently that my relatives would trust me to make my own way to the university. Many of my peers cycled, and I felt a pang of envy every time I saw a woman swish past on her bicycle as I was passed from uncle to driver to chaperone like a parcel. It would have warmed me up too, I thought bitterly as I tried to stop my teeth from chattering.

  The fact that I was even allowed out of the house surprised me somewhat—I knew that if Aunt Emily had her way, I wouldn’t move from her watchful gaze in the parlor from sun up to sun down, in an attempt to protect the tattered remains of my virtue.

  We crested the hill of Hanover Street and I couldn’t suppress a sigh of pleasure as I saw the city sprawling out beneath me. Beyond the commerce and bustle of Princes Street lay the pleasure gardens, green and lush even as winter crept in. Looming above that were the craggy gray outlines of Castle Rock, with the building itself nestled on top. It was hardly the gothic ruin of my imagination, but its proximity to the modern city was atmospheric, especially shrouded in mist as it was this early in the morning. Nothing more than an attraction for curious visitors these days, its vaults had once been used as a prison, and it was all that separated the wealthy New Town from the poverty and dirt of the Grassmarket and Cowgate.

  The horses slowed their pace as they began the ascent of the Mound, the first trains of the day rumbling beneath us through tunnels hewn out of rock. The last bastion of wealth and privilege before we entered the slums of the Royal Mile, the Bank of Scotland was at the top of the hill, and as we passed it and entered the shabbier Old Town, my uncle lowered his paper and fixed me with a stony glare.

  “This is no s
uitable place for a lady to visit,” he warned me. “If I hear of you stepping foot outside of the university buildings unaccompanied, you can say good-bye to your studies.”

  I felt my cheeks burn, and prayed that my countenance looked innocent. I wondered if he had truly been fooled by the clumsy excuses for my lateness the previous night.

  “I promise, Uncle,” I said as meekly as I could. It was not a promise I intended to honor.

  “And don’t make Calhoun wait for you this evening. We have dinner guests, and I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

  I forced my mouth into some approximation of a smile. My relatives had attempted on numerous occasions to reintroduce me into polite society, and each time I had committed some faux pas by mentioning my studies or simply expressing an opinion stronger than complimenting the fish course.

  We arrived at the medical school, the gray stone building surrounding a small courtyard of cobbles lit up by the first rays of silvery morning light, and I dutifully bid my uncle good-bye. Fellow early risers had started to drift in, ready to begin the day’s work, although as yet I was the only woman. None of the chaperones had arrived, and I was hesitant to push my luck by demanding entry, but it was too cold for protocol. Burying my freezing hands even farther into my fur muff, I shot the porter my most charming smile. He frowned.

  “Madam, I’m not sure—”

  “Oh, leave her alone, Donaldson. She’s as much right to be here as the rest of them. More, if her last essay was anything to go by.”

  I turned, startled to hear Merchiston rising to my defense. Was he hoping to buy my silence with flattery? It stung that he thought so little of me as to assume that would work. But there was no trace of shame or embarrassment in his eyes, just a deep weariness that I recognized. Had he slept as poorly as I had done? Which was he suffering from, I wondered, the aftereffects of too much strong drink, or a guilty conscience? He gave me a neutral nod, and ushered me in ahead of him, much to Donaldson’s grumbling dismay.

  “If they’re going to protest that you’re too delicate to study medicine, then you’re certainly too delicate to stand outside in weather that’s a gnat’s wing away from freezing,” he commented drily. “And you can’t get into much trouble in the hallway.”

  Though I had thought him angular, standing so close to him I realized that he was sinewy, and stronger than he appeared. I thought back to his tight grip on my arm, and wondered anew if those strong hands with their long, slender fingers had been the ones to leave bruises on Lucy’s body.

  He shifted, looking awkward. “I believe that I have cause to thank you, Miss Gilchrist.”

  “It was nothing, Professor, I assure you.”

  “I am curious as to one thing though,” he said in a low voice. “What in the blazes were you doing in a place like that?”

  “Delivering some blankets and food from my aunt,” I said, hoping my lie was a convincing one. “One of the workers at my uncle’s brewery is ill, and my aunt wanted to send him some broth.”

  He frowned. “I find it hard to believe that your aunt sent you to the slums unchaperoned.”

  “I was supposed to be accompanied by Fiona Leadbetter, but the infirmary was so busy that I went alone.”

  “Dr. Leadbetter should take better care of her girls,” he said, and I felt a twinge of guilt at my lie. “You were lucky you were accosted by me, instead of some drunk who might have . . .” He trailed off. “If you wish to play lady bountiful to Edinburgh’s deserving poor, Miss Gilchrist, I suggest you choose your location more wisely. There’s nothing deserving about those wretches. Pickpockets, pimps, and houses of ill-repute, there’s not a Christian soul among them.” He lapsed into silence and I wondered if that was meant to be a warning—or a threat.

  There was no escaping the fact that not only was Professor Merchiston on first-name terms with a whore called Lucy, but also he had not been five yards from her former establishment when I met him. What else on earth could have brought him to that part of the city?

  It was plausible—more than plausible—that Professor Merchiston had simply been on some errand of mercy, plying his trade in one of the cities most deprived areas. Had I been any less cynical, I would have privately congratulated him on his philanthropy and banished the event from my mind. But I knew what men were really like. A well-cut suit, a good reputation, even a title—those were no safeguard against immorality. Yes, Professor Merchiston had seemed kind in his dour way. But then so had Paul. A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold. I turned my head toward the corridor and saw that he was watching me. He caught my eye, tipped his hat to me, and vanished into the lecture hall. I pulled my coat tighter around me and watched as the mist of my breath lingered in the air.

  Alison Thornhill was the first to arrive, much to my relief.

  “Morning, Gilchrist,” she greeted me cheerfully. “Rotten weather. It’s all right for the Scots—they’re used to it—but some of us came from warmer climes.”

  I smiled. Out of the dozen students, all but three of us were Scottish—myself, Alison, and the hated Julia Latymer. Our dislike of the intemperate weather was the source of much amusement to the others, but I couldn’t help noticing that they had still chosen to stay a little longer abed this morning.

  Eventually, however, they all drifted in and we were admitted to Professor Merchiston’s lecture. He glanced up as we entered, frowning as though he had been lost in thought and forgotten where he was.

  I chose a seat as far away from him as decently possible, and though I trained my eyes on my paper and pen, I felt his gaze bore into me.

  “We shall begin, ladies, with our study of laudanum.”

  He held in his hand a glass bottle, sloshing the liquid lazily around as he spoke. It was half empty. I shivered. Was this a university prop for lectures, or from his private collection of narcotics? And if the latter, who had taken the rest of it?

  “Who can recite the properties?”

  Edith raised her hand and parroted the textbook’s paragraph on the substance, with one or two errors. As he corrected her, I wrote swiftly, my hands trembling so that my writing was jerky and illegible, slanting across the page. I barely lifted my head from my work the entire hour, unable to meet the professor’s black gaze. It seemed that whenever I looked up, his eyes would be on me.

  And as I feigned concentration, anger coiled inside me—Merchiston had sworn the same oath that I would take when I graduated, and I could not see how he could reconcile purchasing the feigned affections of one of those poor creatures with the promise to restrain himself from indulging in the pleasures of the flesh in any house he entered. The knowledge that one of my professors had the carnal appetites that led to using women like Lucy made me feel ill. I had schooled myself to see them as sexless beings, devoted entirely to their vocation. It was the only way I could feel comfortable with them. Now I was faced with the reality: I could no longer avoid the specter of intimacy I had tried so hard to ignore. I wondered if I would ever feel comfortable in his presence if events conspired to leave us alone together, if I would ever be free of the fear that had haunted me for nearly a year.

  I thought back to the murders that had ravaged London’s East End some years ago. I had heard only whispers, scraps of information gleaned from bits of old newspaper, but when a string of prostitutes were butchered with the most exact precision, the police had thought a doctor responsible. Of course, I didn’t suspect Merchiston of being another Ripper, no matter how much he unsettled me. But was it so hard to believe that a man with the power of life and death at his fingertips would choose to exercise it on a defenseless girl whose only crime lay in her inability to escape poverty?

  As I walked to join the gaggle of female students waiting for the chaperone to escort them to the Playfair Library to study, I recalled my promise to the porter the day before. Reluctantly, I turned away from the courtyard and headed for the stairs that snaked down into the ice-cold cellars of the university buildings. It
was time to visit Lucy again.

  The dissection room was almost deserted. At the far end of the room, a student was elbow-deep in intestines and spared me no more than a cursory glance.

  When I happened upon McVeigh, he glowered at me.

  “The girl I saw yesterday—I’ve spoken to her madam. She says if you release her, I can pay for a burial.” Not entirely true, but who would contradict me?

  “Too late for that,” he informed me curtly. “She’s been taken away.”

  “Taken where?” I asked.

  “I didnae ask and I didnae care.” He shrugged. “Woman came claiming she was her landlady”—the tone he used made it clear what he thought of that—“and said she’d make the arrangements. Name of Ruby McAllister.” He eyed me, smirking. “Seems she decided she didnae need your help after all, miss.”

  He turned on his heel and walked down the corridor, whistling. I stood in the chilly room, looking after him. Had Ruby had a change of heart? Had she informed Lucy’s relatives, or taken it upon herself to arrange a funeral out of some sense of guilt at the end Lucy had met? I couldn’t imagine the surly woman making any kind of effort to commemorate the life of one of her tarts, let alone one that involved putting her hand in her purse. Until I informed her, she had had no idea where Lucy was, nor what had become of her. Certainly no one else could have claimed her.

  McVeigh was lying to me but not, I thought, on his own behalf. Someone had claimed her since she was identified, and from the gleam on his new boots, someone who was generous with their coin. Perhaps the same person who had arranged for her to be sent to the university morgue, lost among dozens of other anonymous corpses whose identifying features had long since been stripped away. And that meant her killer knew the university very well indeed.

  Ignoring all the university regulations about not running in the corridors, I ran after McVeigh as fast as my corset and stays would carry me. He looked unimpressed as I caught up with him.