Sawbones Page 6

  “I am endeavouring to keep an open mind,” he cut in. “Now, Miss Finch, the facts!”

  “We had tea, sandwiches and seed cake and then took a cab to St James’s Square. It was a private performance at the offices of the Ottoman ambassador, Ali Pasha. You should see the size of the place! I swear only Devonshire House is larger.”

  Ezra wrote it all down.

  “The performance was a success. I didn’t see much of Pa afterwards, as he was talking to Mr Falcon and the envoy in the reception room. I was engaged in packing up our props. When I think of it now, Pa was already quite pale when we got in the cab to go home. I thought he was tired.”

  “And the vomiting began then?” Ezra prompted.

  “Yes. He swore blind he was simply tired. He said he’d eaten too many of those pastries – baklava, they’re called. We ate them in Constantinople all the time. Pa loved them. Pistachio nuts and honey.”

  “Pistachio nuts,” Ezra said thoughtfully. “Are those the green ones? Did you eat any?”

  “They had all gone by the time I came out of the dressing room.” She gasped. “Was it the baklava?”

  “I can’t know yet. Please, tell me what happened next.”

  “We arrived home after midnight and Pa needed a bucket because of the sickness. I woke Mrs Gurney, who wasn’t pleased. I fetched him some water from the kitchen and he told me to go to bed, said he would be all right.” She sighed.

  “And in the morning?”

  “We often woke late, but when Pa wasn’t up by ten I knocked on his door…” Her voice trailed off. “That was when I took him to hospital.”

  “What was his condition, exactly?” Ezra asked. “Skin tone? Eyes, were they clear? Any difficulty breathing?”

  “He was my father, not some kind of specimen!” Loveday Finch’s voice was cracking. She looked at Ezra. “He was ill – very, very ill.”

  “I am sorry, Miss Finch, I need to know.”

  She said nothing, but stared out of the window for a long time. The sound of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to cut the silence into bars.

  “I suppose you do,” she said after a long while. “Do you think it might have been the Turkish pastries?”

  “Is there anyone at the Ottoman Embassy…?”

  “Not at all. They love Falcon and Finch. In Constantinople we are favourites in the palace, especially with the ladies of the harem. They—”

  “But I thought men were not allowed in the harem?” Ezra interrupted.

  “Well, it was very strange. We played in a room that was quite empty save for some official. We could hear them – the ladies – but we weren’t allowed to see them. They watched through a screen. They live entirely separate lives, you know, along with the children. In fact, Pa told me the male children, the heirs, have it especially hard. They are shut away in their own part of the palace – they call it the Cage. I know, so dramatic – and then when the old sultan pops it they pluck a new boy out. But sometimes these poor lads have spent so long alone they turn out quite mad.”

  “That’s inhuman!” Ezra cried.

  “It might just be rumour. Pa said there was so much intrigue at court, but the Turks I met were all as nice as pie. Nicer, indeed.”

  “In my experience, if someone is murdered, the murderer is usually someone from their own family.”

  Loveday got up. “I find it rather offensive that you assume his family – by which you mean me – has anything to do with Pa’s death.” She was glaring at him now. He stood up too. Perhaps he wouldn’t ask for payment just yet.

  “Miss Finch, that is not what I meant, not at all. I’m merely stating the truth, I didn’t mean…”

  Loveday glared at him. “Good.”

  “We must remember that your father’s death may have been due to an existing illness. A weakness of the heart—”

  “I doubt that,” Miss Finch interrupted. “I would put money on it being murder. I feel it in my bones.”

  Ezra hid a smile. “I doubt that your bones are capable of such emotion, Miss Finch. Now, if we could see your father’s bedroom.”

  “I don’t know how helpful that will be,” Loveday said. “Mrs Gurney has been in there with Gwen, the maid.” But she led the way all the same.

  Ezra followed her upstairs. She was so different from any girl he had spoken with – although apart from Anna, that list was not long. He thought that if he was ever murdered he would want someone as bold and tenacious as Miss Finch to make certain justice was done.

  Mr Finch’s room was on the floor above. It had been tidied into submission, and not a trace of the man, of any man, remained. Only a good jacket, a couple of hats and a beautifully embroidered cloak, all tulips and roses and blue and red silk, hung up on the hook behind the door.

  Miss Finch must have seen him looking. “It was a gift, from the valide sultan in Constantinople. She adored the act.”

  “Valide?”

  “It’s the title of the queen mother – well, the sultan’s mother. She is French, you know. Stolen off a boat in the Atlantic by corsairs.”

  Ezra looked at her.

  “I am not making up tales! I heard her speak of it. She spoke better French than the boys who rig the Alhambra in Paris.” Loveday sighed. “Pa loved Constantinople.” Her shoulders drooped a little. Ezra shut his notebook and went to put it in his bag – but it wasn’t there.

  At that moment there was a scream, loud and angry, from the floor below.

  They raced downstairs. Mrs Gurney was standing at the far end of the yellow drawing room. Ezra’s bag was open on the floor, and the jar with Mr Finch’s heart had rolled along the floor and up to the landlady, pinning her against the fireplace. In the reflected yellow glow of the drawing-room walls it looked unearthly.

  “Get it away!” Mrs Gurney squealed. “Get the thing away!”

  Ezra quickly scooped it up. She must have opened his bag and gone through his things.

  “What on earth is that?” asked Miss Finch.

  Ezra looked at her. He was in the girl’s drawing room holding her dead father’s heart. His mouth felt like ashes. He couldn’t speak.

  Miss Finch moved closer.

  “Is it a heart?” she said. Her voice wavered between repulsion and interest. “Is it a human heart?”

  Mrs Gurney screamed again. “He is from hell!” She pulled Miss Finch away. “Get out!” she shouted at Ezra. “Get out, now! If I see you again I shall call the watch!”

  Ezra had picked up his bag and run down the stairs and out into the street before he realized his good worsted jacket was still hanging in the hall. He would freeze before he got as far as High Holborn. His arms already tingling with cold, he set off down the road at quite a pace. Had the master said the Negro could have been a servant to some Eastern court? And now, here, was it more than a coincidence that Mr Finch had worked at the Ottoman Embassy?

  The master would discount coincidence. Facts and science were all that could be relied upon, he would say. But these coincidences could not be ignored! The man without a tongue might be more important than they knew. Ezra should ask her about it now – after all, he would have to go back to fetch his jacket. As he turned back he saw the door of the house open and Miss Finch run out holding his coat.

  “You forgot this!”

  “Thank you, Miss Finch. Please, let me apologize. I never meant…”

  “Do not worry, Mrs Gurney is afraid of her own shadow.”

  Ezra put his coat on. “Miss Finch, I must ask you—”

  “Was that really a heart?” Miss Finch cut in, awestruck.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Whose was it? Did you cut it out?” She held her hands over where her own heart beat and lived. It made Ezra uncomfortable.

  “It’s my work, Miss Finch. I am sorry if I scared Mrs Gurney, but I need to ask you something, something important concerning your father’s death.”

  “It was murder, no doubt at all, Mr McAdam.”

  Ezra had to admit he
agreed, but the girl was so volatile, he must proceed carefully. If there were a suspect, he was sure she would take her blade and hobble off to avenge her father’s death in an instant.

  “Your father, you said he did a lot of work for the Ottoman court?”

  “Yes. As I said, he was a favourite of the valide sultan – the sultan’s mother. And in London we often worked at the embassy, at least once or twice a year when they had receptions for other ambassadors – important people. You know.”

  Ezra did not know, but he was not going to say. He cleared his throat.

  “And in the Ottoman Embassy, was there anyone in particular your father corresponded with about work and such? A Negro, perhaps?”

  Loveday shook her head. “Not a Negro, a Mr Ali Pasha. But there were servants about the place – some of them were Negroes. Why, what is it?”

  “Nothing.” Ezra sighed. He must not allow himself to jump to rash conclusions. “I must get back to work. I will inform you of my findings as soon as I am ready. Goodbye, Miss Finch.” He bowed slightly and began to walk away.

  “I say, Mr McAdam. Here’s an idea: couldn’t I come with you? I might be of use. I could help you solve all riddles, find all facts.” There was an excited gleam in her eyes. “I am quite thorough.”

  “I am sure you are.” Ezra imagined dissecting the heart with Loveday Finch peering over his shoulder. He backed away, holding the bag tight across his body. “But no, Miss, I do not need your help.”

  “Mr McAdam, are you afraid of me?” Loveday said.

  Ezra thought of the men in the Fortune of War. “Absolutely not.”

  “Well then.” She picked up her walking stick. “I have just had an idea – the very best. We should work together, as a team. I should have something to do and perhaps we might earn some money.” She was grinning. Ezra tried to speak but failed. “We could discover truths and right wrongs.”

  “I don’t think so, Miss Finch.” He shook his head. “This is the stuff of children’s play.”

  “No, I am quite serious. It would be perfect. Falcon and Finch may be no more, but Finch and McAdam are just beginning!”

  Chapter Five

  Mr William McAdam’s Anatomy School and Museum of Curiosities

  Great Windmill Street

  Soho

  London

  November 1792

  The master had been called away to a private patient in the village of Hampstead and would have to stay over. Consequently Ezra had so much work to do that it wasn’t until the following day that he could get a good look at the heart. Alone in the laboratory, he took the jar down off the shelf. He had added preserving fluid and the heart bobbed and floated in its jar like an oversized pickled walnut.

  He was glad to be free of Miss Loveday Finch, her yellow house and her cracked ideas. He was not, and would not be, a part of some theatrical double act or wild thief-taking partnership. He imagined she must have read about such things in one of those ladies’ novels, or perhaps because she worked on the stage her imagination was overly stimulated. Ezra sighed. The heart sat on the wooden table dead and cold. He moved the magnifying lens into place and reminded himself that he was doing this for two guineas and for his future. With Anna or not.

  But he could not help becoming interested. What had caused these unnatural effects? It seemed undersized, as if it had been squeezed. He smelt it, touched it – the smell was not unusual but the texture and weight was. No wonder the man had died. How could this tiny shrivelled thing pump enough blood around a grown man’s body? But what could have caused it? Some kind of disease? Some kind of drug?

  Ezra took his scalpel and sliced the organ, as neatly as he could, in two. It fell open like some outlandish but rotten fruit, dark and already beginning to smell. The four chambers were clear enough; there was nothing obvious impeding its action – only its withered size and thickened walls.

  Ezra sat back and pushed the lens out of the way. He took out his notebook to see if he had written anything down during the lecture, and that was when he came across the oblong of skin he had excised the night before last. He had forgotten all about it after everything that had happened – the attempted break-in, and Miss Loveday Finch.

  Ezra retrieved it, sponged it and pinned it out on a flat wax-covered tray. He could see the mark clearly now, a definite letter in tattoo-ink blue, curved and swirling like a wave. The master would know where he could find an Arabic dictionary.

  He needed help with the heart as well. Mr McAdam would know exactly what had happened to it, or at least point him on the correct path. The shelf above the desk groaned with books, rows and rows stretching up to the ceiling: anatomy, the mysteries of circulation, the weight of the brain. Any one of them might have the answer, but where to start?

  Perhaps he should take a walk, clear his mind in the fresh air. That was, after all, one of the recommendations the master usually made. Ezra made a thorough sketch of the heart as it was now and pinned it up above the table next to a drawing of a healthy organ to remind him of the differences. Then he put the heart back into a jar, untied his laboratory apron and went downstairs. He would take a cup of coffee and walk as far as St James’s Park. The cold frost might order his thoughts.

  Ezra heard voices before he reached the kitchen – Mrs Boscaven was laughing. He pushed open the door … and there, in his own kitchen, sitting around the big fire taking coffee with Mrs Boscaven, Ellen and Toms as cosy as if she’d sat there a thousand times before, was Miss Loveday Finch producing a scarlet handkerchief from the sleeve of her mourning gown. No one bothered to look up as he entered; they were all transfixed, Ellen and Mrs B clapping, even Toms smiling and saying, “Well done, Miss!” as though he’d never seen a conjuring trick in his life.

  “Miss Finch!” Ezra could not keep the surprise from his voice. “What are you doing here? I haven’t had a chance to—”

  “That’s no way to greet lady callers,” Toms said. “You’ll have to excuse Ezra, Miss. He’s no good around ladies – or the living in general.”

  “Pull up a chair, Ez,” Mrs Boscaven said. “Poor Miss Finch has told us how as you’re helping her with her father.”

  “Has she?” He looked at Loveday but she didn’t meet his gaze. How much had she told them? Ezra found that telling the whole world one’s business was never the best way forward.

  “And she’s been entertaining us all with tales of Mr Finch. You never mentioned Miss Finch, Ez,” chastised Mrs Boscaven. “The master’ll be proud of you, offering to help a young lady like that.”

  “Oh yes. I am indeed very grateful,” said Miss Finch, smiling demurely. Ezra gave her a look.

  He didn’t remember her being grateful when he carried her into Bart’s.

  “Who’d have known what would have happened to my leg,” she went on. She sipped her tea. “It’s already much better – and, before you ask, Mr McAdam, yes, I have been using a stick.”

  “And she were conjuring,” Ellen told him. “Doing tricks. Go on, make the hanky disappear again, Miss!”

  “Conjuring? I thought you were in mourning,” said Ezra. He went to find his special coffee cup but she was using it.

  “Oh, don’t be such a gowk!” Toms said. “It’s not your father passed.” He lowered his voice so only Ezra could hear and said, “As if you had one anyway.”

  Ezra ignored him, poured some coffee into another cup and drank it standing up.

  “We had no idea you moved in theatrical circles, Ez. Miss Finch’s life is so interesting. Did you know she and her poor father have lately returned from Vienna and Constantinople? And she has lived in Paris – before the revolution.”

  “A wonderful city, Mrs Boscaven,” Miss Finch said. “Quite beautiful. When Pa and I performed at…” Her voice trailed off and she sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. Toms looked smitten. Ezra sipped his coffee. Was this the same girl who’d happily fought a whole inn of resurrection men?

  Mrs Boscaven nodded. “But we’ve heard the French king has
been arrested! Imagine that! I don’t know what to think. Wasn’t the master planning on taking you, Ez?”

  “Yes, to the Hôtel-Dieu to see M. Desault,” Ezra said. “Mr McAdam says that French surgeons are the very best.”

  “Perhaps when the revolution settles down…” Mrs Boscaven got up.

  “I’m not sure that is what revolutions do, Mrs B.” Ezra smiled.

  “Well, I think the French king had it coming,” Toms said, and reached out for a biscuit. Ezra said nothing. He didn’t want to be seen to agree with Toms.

  “I reckon as the whole world is in turmoil.” Mrs Boscaven prodded at the fire. “The Russians and the Swedes.”

  “And the Ottomans,” Toms added.

  Ezra looked at him. “I didn’t realize you were so interested in foreign news.”

  Toms gave him a filthy look. Ezra thought he saw Miss Finch smile behind her handkerchief.

  “And we had cracksmen trying to smash into the house,” Ellen said, a little bit scared.

  “They didn’t get in, Ellen. It was only a pair of rascals looking for easy pickings.” Ezra tried to reassure her with a smile, but it was a poor smile. He had an idea that whoever those men had been they knew quite well whose house it was. And that they would be back.

  “Oh, this world is a sad and terrible place,” Mrs Boscaven said.

  “Death – if you’ll pardon me, Miss Finch – is all around us,” commented Ezra.

  “Never truer than in this house,” Toms added. “Death is the old man’s trade. All that cutting up, all them things, all those gory whatsits up in your museum.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Toms,” Ezra told him. “It’s not about death. Not at all.”

  “I don’t think I’m wrong, am I, Miss Finch?” Toms smiled at her. “I mean to say, I don’t suppose you hold with any of that business, nice girl like yourself?”

  Miss Finch smiled back. “Of course not, Mr Toms. Naturally I despise resurrectionists and those who encourage them.”

  “Call me Henry,” he said. Ezra rolled his eyes.

  “But I see the value of science, of course.” She looked at Ezra. “And now I am here, I would so love to see the museum.”