Sawbones Page 7

  Ezra drained his coffee cup and stood up. “I was just going out, as a matter of fact.” He would not let her have it all her way.

  Toms jumped up. “I don’t mind showing you round, Miss.”

  “That’s so kind of you.” She paused; threw Ezra another look. “Henry.”

  Toms blushed. She was playing with him. Ezra almost felt sorry for the man.

  “He doesn’t know one end of the human body from another,” Ezra said.

  “I think,” Toms retorted, “I know a good deal more about living bodies than ever you do.”

  “That is not what I meant.”

  “Boys!” Mrs Boscaven shook her head. “I think you should both escort Miss Finch around the museum.” She looked hard at Toms. “You know how particular the master is about his objects. Although I warn you, Miss Finch, it is not for the fainthearted. And boys, if she so much as blanches, you bring her back down here, quick sharp. Is that clear?”

  They answered together, like chastened schoolboys, “Yes, Mrs Boscaven.”

  “Mr McAdam’s museum is spoken of all across town,” Miss Finch said, following Toms and Ezra upstairs.

  “He could make a deal of cash selling tickets,” Toms muttered. “I would. I’d spend it on a matching pair of black prancers.”

  “Toms, this is not a side show,” Ezra said, opening the door. “The museum is a tool for science. We are endeavouring to make the world a better place. To cure illness, to know how disease works.”

  “But mostly you cut up dead folk,” Toms said, smirking. Ezra wished that he could knock the smile clear off Toms’ face.

  The low afternoon sun slanted into the room through floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows. On the far wall were shelf upon shelf of jars, each containing a specimen. The preserving fluid in which they floated shone like gold in the sunlight, like so much treasure. In the centre of the room stood three glass cases containing larger specimens.

  “That’s the Irish Giant,” Toms said, pointing to the skeleton in the largest case.

  Miss Finch gasped, but she was not looking at the skeleton. She had seen the child-sized shape made of veins and arteries. It was like a ghost child, or a human leaf skeleton: no bones, just blood vessels fanning out from the heart. After her initial shock, Ezra could see, Miss Finch was quite fascinated.

  “It’s a circulatory map,” he explained.

  “Are those real arteries?” she gasped. “From a real child?”

  “I’m afraid so. We spent days heating and colouring the wax, feeding it through the blood vessels so that there could be an accurate representation of how blood flows.”

  “How on earth do you remove them from the body?” She took a step closer.

  Ezra opened his mouth to explain.

  “You don’t want to know,” Toms cut in. Ezra glared at the back of his head.

  “But that is truly astounding!” Miss Finch shook her head, wide-eyed, and Ezra allowed himself a little smile.

  “That’s nothing,” Toms told her. “You should see bone boy’s tumour.”

  “Tumour?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Toms grinned. “Haven’t you noticed that great scar down his mug?”

  “Oh! I thought it was won at a duel or fight,” Miss Finch said. She looked at Ezra and his hand went up to the scar.

  Toms laughed. “Him, with a sword! Tell me you never thought old bookworm Ezra here a fighter!”

  Miss Finch flushed red.

  Toms scanned the jars. “Here’s old Ez’s tumour, fresh as the day the master sliced it off.”

  The jar was a big one, almost a foot tall. Toms took it in two hands and presented it to her. Inside, floating in preserving fluid, was a large fleshy mass about eight inches long and four inches in circumference. Miss Finch’s mouth had dropped open.

  “Awful, isn’t it? Must’ve been bigger than Ez’s head. Although I don’t think his looks have been much improved by its removal, eh, Miss Finch? The master bought him because he thought this lump made him interesting. How much did you cost, Ezra? Tuppence in Spanish Town? Or did the master get you free with a sugar loaf?”

  Ezra took the jar from Loveday Finch and set it firmly back upon the shelf.

  “You were a slave?” she asked him.

  “Still is, officially, I reckon,” Toms put in. “Rightly, I reckon as the master should sell him back to some sugar plantation.”

  “I am not a slave, Miss Finch. The master freed me, and you know that, Toms,” Ezra snapped. “I am his apprentice. And you’re an idiot, a fart catcher, a bully with fists instead of a brain.”

  “You hear that, Miss Finch?” Toms faced Ezra. He was taller by a few inches and broader in the shoulder. “I’ll give you a slap if I have to.”

  “You don’t dare!” Ezra didn’t move away.

  “Stop it!” Loveday Finch stepped between them. “I wish to look around this museum, not watch two idiots pick a squabble.”

  “I am not the idiot,” Ezra muttered.

  “Nor me,” Toms added.

  Miss Finch walked smartly away from them down the length of the room, taking time over the tapeworm coiled inside one jar and the stillborn baby attached to a placenta in another. She didn’t shrink or show disgust at all. Ezra couldn’t help but admire that.

  “She’s a cracker, that one, no mistake,” Toms said to him, and Ezra swallowed, for he was thinking the exact same thought.

  “You’re making a fool of yourself, Toms.” Ezra said it quietly so Miss Finch wouldn’t hear. “She’s not interested in you.”

  “And you think you have a chance with her, do you?” Toms said. “Can’t stay true to your Anna for five minutes. What were you thinking when you were sewing up her leg, eh?”

  Ezra felt the anger rising up again. “I am not interested in Miss Finch.”

  “Then let me have her,” Toms whispered back.

  “What’s this?” Loveday Finch called from the far end of the room. She had pushed open the door to the laboratory. Toms ran after her, ready to help.

  “It’s the laboratory, Miss. Where they get stuff ready, I think.” Ezra shook his head and followed. What had he ever done to deserve Toms?

  “Mr McAdam! What is this? Where did you get this?” Loveday Finch’s voice was raised.

  Ezra ran down the length of the museum. Perhaps she had found the heart… But no, she wasn’t looking at that. Not even at the drawing labelled FINCH, pinned up on the wall. She was examining the piece of skin with the tattoo.

  “You know what it says? Is it Arabic?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I have seen it before – well, I have seen people with this mark before,” she went on. “At the Ottoman court in Constantinople.”

  “And?” Ezra asked. “Can you read it?”

  She shook her head regretfully. “No, but whoever had this mark was of the harem, in the royal service.”

  “The harem, eh?” Toms said, interested.

  Loveday Finch sat down and moved the magnifying lens across the piece of skin.

  Toms peered over her shoulder at the skin and made a face.

  “Look, Miss Finch,” Ezra said, “I should like to talk to you about your father.”

  “Good.” She was still looking at the skin. “Have you found something?”

  Ezra paused. He looked at Toms. “Are you still here?”

  “I am, and I think I could help Miss Finch a deal more than you when it comes to the mystery of her father’s death!”

  Ezra sighed. “Miss Finch, I think it is important that you don’t go blabbing your business all around town.”

  “I do not!”

  “See, bone boy, she does not.” Toms leant against the table and faced Ezra, arms folded.

  This was no good. “I’m going out,” Ezra said. “Toms can show you anything else you want to see.” He turned to Toms and added, “Provided you put it back.”

  Toms grinned. “I’m more than happy, Miss Finch, to show you everything.”

  Ezra almost groaned
out loud. He left them to it, fetched his good coat and his notebook and went out into the bone-cold blue-grey streets.

  As he left the house Ezra barely took in the man leaning on the railings of Mrs Perino’s. He saw him but dismissed him: he looked like a drover up from town in a sheepskin jacket and a pair of long boots. Ezra did not see the man empty his pipe onto the ground and follow him down to the cloth warehouse.

  Ezra did not want to think of intrigue and murder and magicians; he wanted to talk to Anna. There was no response when he knocked on the door to the kitchen, and Ezra was about to give up and leave when it finally drew open and Betsey was there, hand to her lips.

  “Don’t you say a word, Ezra McAdam,” she whispered. “If Mr David finds you he’ll tan your hide and make a waistcoat out of you!”

  “Don’t worry, Betsey.” He spoke softly too. “I just want to see Anna one last time, if you could take a message for me.”

  Betsey said nothing. She didn’t move.

  “Betsey, please! I’ll get some more of that rubbing preparation for your joints – you said as it did you the world of good.”

  Betsey pulled the kitchen door closed behind her and stepped out into the mews, casting a quick wary look up at the house. “I can’t, Ezra.”

  “For me, Betsey. For Anna.”

  Betsey sighed. “She’s gone, isn’t she. They packed her off to Holland like she told you.”

  “What? Already?” Ezra knew organs did not shift in the body, but he swore he felt his heart sink. “Is there an address? Can I write to her, Betsey?”

  “Oh, Ez, lad. It’s best you don’t. You’re only young. There’ll be so many more girls, I swear, for a good-looking young man like yourself. Why, if I were ten years younger…”

  Ezra couldn’t smile.

  There was the sound of a door slamming somewhere up in the St John house, and Betsey told him to get off home, out of the cold, before he froze.

  Chapter Six

  St Anne’s Churchyard

  Princes Street

  London

  November 1792

  The clear sky had begun to cloud over; a few tiny dry flakes of snow drifted down. Ezra stuck his hands deep in his pockets. Perhaps he would not go as far as St James’s Park. He went to the parish house and left a message about the break-in for the watch, and then to the churchyard of St Anne’s, to the spot where he would often meet with Anna.

  They would sit on the bench, a wooden plank hard against the west wall of the church, facing the gravestones lined up in rows waiting for the last trump. He brushed the snowflakes aside and sat down.

  What would the end be like? Ezra wondered. Would the ground crack open? Would the dead rise up? How could that be when flesh rotted and even bones turned to ash eventually? He and Anna talked about this often; she was a literalist while he would argue that the Bible must be interpreted for the modern world. Ezra would have liked to talk to her now. About the tongueless cadaver and the break-in, as well as Mr Finch’s heart. She would have an idea worth hearing even if he did not agree with it.

  She would tell him, sharply and to the point, that he should leave the Finch girl and her silly ideas well alone. Even if the facts concerning the death of Mr Finch and the tongueless man seemed to have something in common, what could he do about any of it?

  He stamped his feet and blew into his hands to keep warm. If he wanted to earn those two guineas, he had better have some ideas. He needed to know not just why the heart was so deformed, but – perhaps more importantly – if there was anyone who would benefit from Mr Charles Finch’s sudden demise. He could only find that out by talking to the girl again, speaking to those her father worked with, perhaps going through his personal effects, the props they used for shows. Would Mr Falcon earn more working solo? Did Mrs Gurney have something to gain? He smiled to himself. The yellow paint in her drawing room might have been criminal, but he couldn’t really see the landlady committing murder.

  Ezra looked up and noticed a large man sharpening his knife against the stone wall of the graveyard, watching him. It was the same man he’d glimpsed outside the house, the one he’d thought a drover, tall and broad. Ezra frowned. Had the chap followed him? The man did not look away, and as he stared he spat onto the ground. There was something deeply unsettling about him, and it was not simply the way he held his knife, pausing to check the blade, running it between forefinger and thumb, all the while never taking his eyes from Ezra. There was also a fierce coldness about his eyes.

  The snow became heavier. Ezra heard the man hawk up a great gobbet of phlegm and saw him aim it out across the graves in his direction. Ezra stood up. He would not be intimidated. The master always said it was better to ask a question than to wait and speculate unnecessarily.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “You, sir! If you want something you would do as well to ask!”

  The man looked behind him, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. He didn’t pocket the knife but kept hold of it, blade out, and walked towards him. Ezra swallowed. He looked around for a weapon – a stone, anything. If only he carried a scalpel! But he could not imagine using it on a living person, even the lumbering shape that approached through the snow, which was now falling more heavily.

  “Ezra! Ezra McAdam!” He heard a voice calling him from the other side of the churchyard, over towards Rupert Street. A girl’s voice – for a moment he imagined Anna come to tell him she was not travelling after all. But what about the rogue lumbering towards him with a knife?

  “Anna!” He should warn her she needed to run.

  He looked back towards the man. There was nobody there. No one at all. Even through the blur of snowflakes he could tell the drover had gone. He leant against the wall of the church, his heart pounding ten to the dozen. Had he really been so scared? Not for himself, of course.

  “Anna! Where are you?”

  “Anna? I am not Anna!” Miss Finch was everywhere. “I have been all over, around Leicester Square and back along Lisle Street – Mr Toms said— Are you quite well?”

  “Yes, of course.” Ezra straightened up, shrugged the snow off his jacket. He did not want Miss Finch to see how scared he had been. “Please do not tell me what Mr Toms said. I have had quite enough of him for one day.”

  Miss Finch wore a black fur hat. Snowflakes attached themselves to it and she shook them off.

  “I ought to apologize,” she said, “for turning up unannounced.”

  “It is done,” Ezra said, tipping his cap at her. “I am on my way home.” He looked around again – there was no sign of the man.

  “No! Mr McAdam, I do need to talk to you, and you are right, I did not want your Mr Toms to know everything.” She sighed. “I had to get out. Mrs Gurney’s house is so quiet. It is all ticking-clock silence, and now that Pa is in the front parlour in his box it is only worse. It seems to have unsettled Mrs Gurney no end. She stalks the house like a spooked cat.”

  “I am sorry for you. But the weather is turning, I should get home – as should you.”

  “I wanted to say thank you, for finding Pa.”

  “Well, that was what you engaged me for.”

  “I know, and I am grateful.” She put her hand on Ezra’s arm and smiled. “Honestly I am.”

  “Do not flutter your eyelashes at me, Miss Finch. I am a different kettle of fish from Mr Toms.”

  Miss Finch was indignant. “I was not fluttering my eyelashes at Mr Toms. I was merely interested in the museum. And I am not fluttering them at you!”

  “You could lower your voice, Miss Finch.”

  “I would remind you I am your employer! I take it you still want to earn your two guineas?”

  “I do,” Ezra said. He should not let irritation get in the way of his investigation.

  “Well then,” Miss Finch said. “I wish to talk with you. Now.”

  Ezra led her towards a tea shop in Panton Square. Inside, there was a good fire, and the windows were fogged with condensation. Ezra ordered hot chocolate
and they sat down.

  “Miss Finch,” he began, “when I saw your father’s body, it was clear someone had already…”

  “Already what?”

  Ezra shifted in his seat. “Taken something. Taken parts out of his body – namely, the stomach. I think whoever did it was trying to conceal proof of poisoning.”

  Loveday Finch sat back, satisfied. “There. I knew it.”

  “Please, there is a long way to go before we reach any conclusion.” He took out his notebook. “I need to know if anyone hated your father, or wanted him dead. Perhaps I could speak with Mr Falcon?”

  She almost laughed. “Mr Edward Falcon would never have killed Pa. He is bereft! He has had to change the act all about.” She shook her head. “It has caused him far too much trouble.”

  Ezra sipped his chocolate. “Still, it would be most useful if you could arrange a meeting. So I can see for myself.”

  “I will, although I do not think it will lead to anything. He is so desperate he has asked me to perform. But I am still in mourning.”

  “I should have thought that would pose you no problem,” Ezra said.

  “I would not do it,” she said. “Mrs Gurney would throw me out.” She was quiet a moment. “But I am sure Pa would not mind; performing is our livelihood. In one way or another. And I have been doing our accounts. Pa said we would be living high off the hog once we returned from Constantinople, but I suppose he had not reckoned on his own death.” Miss Finch sighed and Ezra felt uncomfortable thinking about his payment.

  “Oh, I can see what you are thinking. Your two guineas are safe. My father has provided me enough.” Miss Finch shrugged. “I can stay at Mrs Gurney’s as long as I wish. She has been kind, in her own way.”

  Ezra could see from her face that Miss Finch did not regard an indefinite stay at Mrs Gurney’s to be the perfect legacy. However, she was not one to dwell on the unknown. She shook back her red curls, took a piece of paper out of her bag and began to unfold it. “Take a look at this. I thought it might be interesting.” She slid the paper across the table. “Mr Falcon has another performance at the embassy, a seasonal reception, it says, three weeks from now.”