The anatomists, p.4
The Anatomists, page 4
For a moment, I felt that perhaps Jean-Claude’s question had been too abrupt, and might strike our guide as somehow irreverent, but my fears were quickly dispelled. The man’s demeanor certainly altered in response to the question, but rather than taking on a wounded or an indignant air, he became newly animated in a way that could most accurately be described as conspiratorial. Shifting his eyes back and forth, as if to see if anyone were nearby who might listen in, and lowering his tone to what, for him, must have been intended to pass for a whisper, he said, “That’s right. Two nights ago, it was. Thieves came in here and snatched her right out of her grave! My brother nearly caught the devils, too—he sometimes keeps watch over the graves, of a night. He heard voices, and the distinct sound of shovels, which, in a graveyard after dark, can only mean one thing.” I kept my eyes locked on our host, fearing that an exchanged glance between Jean-Claude and me would have the undoubted appearance of guilt about it. “Oh, we’ve been hit before, but usually you find the evidence in the morning, after the thieves are long gone. There’ll be some disturbed earth, sometimes several paces away from a grave, where the devils have tunneled their way in, so as not to be too obvious. Other times, it’s dirt that’s been piled just a little too high over a new grave, or sunk a little too low, or maybe a shovel that’s been left behind. Once”—he leaned closer to us, making a couple of exaggerated sidelong glances—“we found a small portion of a broken coffin lid, where they had dug just enough to get to the head of the coffin, snapped the lid in half, and dragged the poor fellow out by a rope around the neck. Dreadful!” he said, pausing briefly to permit us to appreciate the depravity of the scenario. “But never,” he continued, “until two nights ago, have we actually caught them in the act!”
“So your brother actually saw the…” For a rare moment, the appropriate word eluded Jean-Claude. “…the perpetrators,” he finally said, trying to keep our host’s story from wandering, while at the same time not appearing unduly interested in it. “What exactly did he see?”
“There were three of them standing beside the grave, although he thinks there must have been one or two that got away, since the men he saw were not carrying the body. Well, two of them appeared to be ‘gentlemen,’ if you can call people gentlemen who make a practice of digging up respectable people’s graves, and hauling off the dear departed for heaven knows what purposes. The third was a young lad—a swain, from the looks of his clothes. He appeared to do the lion’s share of the manual labor, while the others stood by and looked on.” At this remark, I could sense Jean-Claude’s neck stiffening with indignation as he recalled the many shovelfuls of earth he had personally removed from the grave.
“And how is it that these scoundrels were able to get away from your brother?” he said, in a less-than-civil tone, to which our host seemed completely oblivious. “Was he not armed in some way?”
“Oh, he had a rifle, but for all the firing it was capable of, it might has well have been a walking stick. It belonged to my father, from when he did his national duty in the Irish Revolt. And even if the gun were functional, the thieves overpowered him before he could so much as pull the trigger.”
“They what?!” I found myself saying, with entirely inappropriate heat, angered at the insinuation that I would ever resort to “overpowering” anyone. But then, reining in my choler, I added, “Good heavens, I hope he wasn’t injured.”
“Oh, just a few bumps and bruises,” he replied. “He’s quite a rugged old fellow. But these three ruffians assaulted him, leaving him stunned for a few moments, while they managed to escape the church grounds.”
“And then he went to the authorities to report the ‘attack,’” Jean-Claude said, once again involuntarily rubbing a fingertip over his bruised forehead.
“Why, of course. It isn’t just every day that someone of Abigail Darcy’s social stature is buried here at All Souls, and to have her body snatched, quite literally under our noses…Well, it just doesn’t look good. The church and its grounds are sacred property, and anything committed to its premises is a sacred trust. That’s why my brother takes his watching so seriously. He considers it a sacred duty.” I couldn’t help thinking of the low wages such a “job” must bring, and wondering if the man performed this “sacred duty” because he wasn’t fit for anything else.
“You said that people of Mme. Darcy’s ‘social stature’ are not commonly interred at All Soul’s,” Jean-Claude said, trying to divert our host’s narrative into a more productive channel. “What sort of people are typically buried here?”
“Oh, members of the church, almost entirely. And there’s not a whole lot of nobility among our ranks,” he said, chuckling slightly. And then added, as if out of habit, “As precious as they all are in the sight of the Lord.”
“How then did the lady come to be buried here?” Jean-Claude asked.
“Now it’s funny you should ask that,” he replied, conspiratorial once again, “…for a number of us around here asked the same question when we first learned she would be coming to spend eternity in our midst. Everyone knew about the death, of course. It was in all the newspapers. But when my brother told me that All Souls had been contacted by the lady’s family, and that her funeral would be right here, in my church…!
Well, to say I was surprised would be a gross understatement.”
“So the funeral was a large affair?” I asked, trying to keep my hand in the game, but instead of an immediate reply, the only reaction my question elicited from our host was more eye-shifting and a lowered tone of voice.
“For me, that’s the strangest part of this whole thing,” he finally said, leaning in even closer to where we stood. “For all the attention her death received from the papers, the lady’s funeral was performed before a virtually empty church. Aside from a few museum folks, most of whom appeared older than any of the exhibits in their collections, it was mostly church staff in attendance. There were a couple of the Darcys’ servants here, and the lady’s brother, of course. It’s my understanding that it was he who first contacted All Soul’s and made the funeral arrangements.”
“But why here?” I asked. “Surely there was a family vault somewhere.”
“I’m sure there’s a family vault in Mr. Darcy’s family,” he said. “But Mrs. Darcy’s family was not of the same social standing—a tanner, I think her father was. Or is. Who can be sure? The brother was the only representative from her family. Apparently he had some connection with the church, to cause him to make the arrangements here. I don’t really know.”
“Did you not speak with him before you conducted the ceremony?” Jean-Claude asked. “Surely he provided some details about his rationale for bringing his sister here.” For the first time since we began conversing with him, our host suddenly appeared less than cheerful. In fact, to say he appeared “crestfallen” wouldn’t be a bad description of his change in demeanor.
“Well, actually,” he said, looking down toward the ground, “I didn’t preside over the funeral. You see, I’m not the head vicar here. That would be the Reverend Holloway.” He paused, trying to think of what to say next, and then, just as suddenly as it had turned gloomy, his face brightened. “I assisted in the proceedings, though.”
Overlooking the good reverend’s sudden but brief attack of diffidence, Jean-Claude pressed him further for more details about the funeral. “So the only family member present was this brother?”
“Yes, the brother. His name was Worthington.” And then another pause as he searched his bushy eyebrows for the brother’s first name. “Peter, yes. Peter Worthington. And from the looks of things, he must have been very close to her, the poor thing. He seemed to be taking the death very hard. Wouldn’t let the coffin out of his sight, in fact.” I sneaked a quick glance at Jean-Claude, to see if he had registered this interesting detail, but if he noticed anything unusual, he didn’t let on.
“Was he with the coffin when it arrived here?” Jean-Claude asked.
“No. As matter of fact, he arrived alone, just as the service was beginning. It’s really a pity, too, for he would have been quite useful as a pallbearer. As it turned out, the coffin had to be carried into the church by four of those museum folk. It’s no job for the elderly—carrying a coffin,” he observed, reflectively. “Why, they very nearly dropped the thing three or four times on the way to the grave. I must tell you, I breathed a big sigh of relief when she was safely in the ground.” Another small cloud passed briefly over his features, as he recalled what a short time the lady actually remained in the ground, but Jean-Claude quickly set him right by diverting his mind to other matters.
“In my own experience,” he said, “…it has often been the case that loved ones are particularly distraught upon the closing of the coffin—that final moment of separation from the dear familiar face. I have even seen family members physically restrain the undertaker as he attempted to lower the lid. Did Mme. Darcy’s brother have a similarly difficult time with this moment?”
“I couldn’t tell you that,” he said, frowning with disappointment that he couldn’t be more helpful. “We don’t make a practice of putting the dear departed on display like that. Besides, the lid was already nailed down when she arrived here. Closed or not, though, I thought he was going to follow it into the ground. And then he stayed beside the grave during the burial itself. Usually the family leaves while that’s going on, but this fellow stayed until the last shovel of earth was in place, poor chap.” He stared silently at the spot, as if reliving the moment, but then suddenly—almost startlingly—he returned to the present moment. “Just listen to me, going on about that grim business,” he boomed, “when all you gentlemen wanted was to see the church. Do please excuse my lapse of hospitality.”
“No apologies necessary,” Jean-Claude assured him. “You have been a most gracious host, and a most helpful guide. Now, I am afraid, we must be on our way. My friend in Brittany insisted that I see the Tower of London, and there are, after all, only so many hours in a day.”
After exchanging a few rounds of “good day”—our host clearly disappointed that we could not remain longer and see some of the many other “treasures” of All Souls—we made our way back into the church, down the gloomy central aisle, and out onto the front walkway. As we proceeded into the street, I made a casual, final glance back toward the church, and noticed our host still standing on the front steps. Without slackening my pace, lest he should remember “one more thing” he simply had to share with us, I threw up my hand in a wave, and we strolled through the morning sunshine without looking back.
“Nice fellow, that vicar,” I said, involuntarily chuckling at the thought of the good-natured and garrulous parson.
“Assistant vicar,” Jean-Claude corrected, also smiling. “Yes, very pleasant. And more importantly,” he added, “…quite informative.”
“Wasn’t he, though,” I concurred, recalling the torrent of words from which we had just emerged.
“About a good many things, yes. There was certainly plenty of—how do you say—chaff in his talk. But buried in this mountain of chaff, mon ami, we also find some wheat.”
“Come again,” I said, wondering if perhaps one of us was not a little “off the mark” in our use of the English idiom. “Do you mean that bit about the burial.”
“I mean,” he said, suddenly serious, “…that we must pay a visit to Mr. Peter Worthington. And if I am not very much mistaken,” he added, consulting his pocket watch, “a mail coach headed toward Darcy leaves from the White Stag Inn within the hour. That will give us just enough time for an early lunch.”
CHAPTER 4
Our journey to Darcy, or more accurately to an inn just over half a mile from there, lasted barely an hour, during which time we deliberated precisely what it was we intended to do when we finally arrived at the estate. I was for posing as deliverymen of some sort, simply arriving at the front door without any knowledge of the tragic death, and ignominious “theft,” that had befallen the house in recent days. I believed that as ignorant passersby, simply happening upon the house of misfortune, we would arouse less suspicion than we might if we appeared to have some prior knowledge of the events, and thus learn more from the house’s inhabitants, who, eager to talk about the tragedy, as people in such a situation typically are, would completely unburden their souls to strangers whom they had never seen before and would never seen again. As I should have expected, however, Jean-Claude did not see things my way. He observed that, having nothing to deliver, we would make for pretty poor deliverymen and arouse unnecessary suspicion by appearing to have something to hide. The direct approach struck Jean-Claude as the more fruitful, and since he preferred it, the direct approach was the one we adopted (he always seemed so all-fired sure of himself that one found oneself agreeing with him for no other reason than his own belief that an idea or opinion was correct). We would simply call at the front door, and tell whoever answered that we were “investigators” (which, in essence, we were), seeking information regarding the missing body (which is, in fact, what we sought), in order to locate the remains and return them to the bereaved family (which we would certainly do, if we happened to find the body, even if this was not our primary motive).
All too quickly, it seemed to me, we found ourselves standing on the front landing of the Darcy House, trying to habituate ourselves to the personas we were about to adopt. As we pulled the bell and waited for someone to arrive, my mind went completely blank as I groped about for something—anything—to say when the door opened. Jean-Claude, however, was completely “in his element.” An experienced amateur actor, having trod the boards of theatres in both England and France, he had arranged his bodily posture and facial expression to conform to his mental image of the role he was about to perform. When the door finally opened, however, he was as dumbstruck as I when he beheld the figure standing before us. For what seemed like a full minute, we both stood there in gape-mouthed silence, as if we’d both suddenly been turned into pillars of salt. Or, to adopt a still-more-appropriate simile, we stood transfixed, as if we’d seen a ghost. For that is precisely the impression we both had as we, quite literally, and quite impolitely I must say, stared at the man who opened the door. The gentleman standing before us looked like a ghost. With his tailored clothes, his dark hair, and his elegant mustache, he was the spitting image of the unfortunate gentleman hidden under a pile of coal in the root cellar back at St. Alban’s.
“May I help you?” he asked, in a voice that sounded reassuringly as if it emanated from the physical rather than the spiritual realm. I soon recovered my senses sufficiently to feel greater discomfort at our prolonged silence than superstitious fear of the “spectral” presence before us, and resolved to speak. Having regained my resolve, alas, I had not yet recovered my wits sufficiently to remember my own role, and when I opened my mouth to speak, what came out was, “Good day. We are here to make a delivery.” The gentleman’s understandable puzzlement was short-lived, because my own faux pas had the effect of cold water in Jean-Claude’s face, bringing him immediately around to the lines his character was supposed to deliver.
“We are here to deliver our deepest condolences over your recent loss,” he said deliberately, casting an unmistakably disapproving glance my way in the process, “…and to offer our assistance in recovering the remains of the deceased lady so that they may be buried with the respect and…permanence…to which they are entitled.”
The gentleman paused momentarily, shifting his gaze back and forth between Jean-Claude’s expectant face and my own. So inscrutable was his visage that I felt it equally likely that he would either invite us in for tea or throw us bodily into the street. Finally, he appeared to arrive at some sort of internal conclusion, and his expression softened into a polite smile. “Won’t you come inside?” he asked, nodding somewhat formally toward the interior of the house.
Soon enough, we found ourselves seated in an elegant parlor, and while not offering us tea, the gentleman conversed more amicably than either Jean-Claude or I had initially expected. “It’s all been a terrible shock to the system, you know,” he began. “First, the sudden unexpected death of my dear sister…I feel as if she could walk into this room at any minute.” Here he paused, and gazed sadly at the doorway leading into the next room. Suddenly, his expression changed, and his eyes flashed as though with fire. “And on the heels of that great loss, to suffer the outrage, the ignominy…There aren’t words strong enough to describe the depravity of such an act. It’s simply barbaric. These hospitals should all be razed to the ground, and their medieval inmates—the ‘surgeons’—should be thrown into a dungeon.”
Throughout this understandable outburst of emotion, I shifted about uncomfortably in my cushioned chair, feeling every stinging word hit home as I recalled my all-too-intimate, albeit indirect, contact with the source of this man’s grief. Sensing my extreme discomfiture, and perhaps concerned that it might in some way lead me to reveal our true purpose here, as well as our actual identities, Jean-Claude attempted to redirect our host’s energies into a more productive channel. “So the deceased was your sister?”
“Why yes,” he replied, regaining control over his turbulent emotions. “I assumed you knew. Abigail is…was…my older sister. Oh, how I shall miss her.”
Sensing another imminent display of emotion, Jean-Claude quickly stepped in. “I must apologize for my lack of manners. We have not formally introduced ourselves. I am Detective Christophe Dubres, and this is my assistant James.” I couldn’t help throwing a quick, withering glance in his direction—“assistant,” indeed. Of course, he pretended not to notice, and continued with his “introductions.”
“I am originally from Paris, but am now an agent with the police of London.”
