The Edinburgh Dead

“Seen all you need, no doubt, when you found him in… where was he found?”

“Cowgate, sir. Foot of Borthwick’s Close.”

“Yes.”

Christison made to pull the sheet that covered the dead man’s legs up over his head, but paused, and glanced at Quire with raised eyebrows.

“Did you smell him, though?”

“Sir?”

Christison bent over the corpse, and gave a long sniff at the horrible wound in its neck. It was an unnerving sight and sound.

“The nose is an undervalued tool in scientific endeavour,” the professor said as he laid the sheet down, shrouding that dead face. “I’ve found it so in my study of poisons, in any case.”

“He was poisoned?” asked Quire.

“It would take a particularly confused or intemperate kind of murderer to poison a man and then decide to tear his throat out as well, don’t you think? Gilding the lily somewhat. No, his end was just as it appears. But there’s an odd smell about him. Faded now, but it was strong when he arrived here.”

Quire’s mind went back to the dawn in which he had first encountered the body, curled there in cold solitude. Stinking, he recalled.

“Yes, sir. I noticed the same thing. Some of it I could recognise. Not all.”

“Quite. Excrement and whisky. But something else too. Put me in mind of wet fur. An animal aroma.”

Christison took up a selection of the instruments resting on the trolley and carried them to a sink in the corner. He spoke to Quire over his shoulder as he washed them.

“There’s nothing more he has to tell me. Or, more accurately, nothing further of what he might say that I have the wit to hear. Every victim of fatal misadventure has a tale to recount—so I would contend, at any rate—but it is a new and imperfect science I pursue here. If it was a poisoning then I might be of more assistance, but this… a butcher could likely tell you as much as I.”

Quire nodded mutely, though Christison was not looking at him. He had not truly expected any great revelation; hoped for it, perhaps, but not expected. The savagery of the man’s death had seemed to call for the effort nevertheless, and for all Christison’s brisk manner, he was known to be one who treated all who came under his knife, whatever their former standing, with the same disinterested, precise attention.

“There’s a certain amount more we might deduce, I suppose,” the professor was saying. “His hands, for example: this was a man who worked with them, but not by way of heavy labour. A craftsman, perhaps. Something along those lines.”

Christison glanced at Quire, who was nodding.

“You had already arrived at a similar conclusion, I see,” Christison said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. I am delighted that the application of logic and observation is not a habit entirely absent amongst the guardians of our safety. What else? I can tell you he was but a recent convert to the pleasures of the bottle, for all that its scent has attached itself to him. His stomach was awash with alcohol—whisky, I would say—when I opened it up, so there can be little doubt that he was intoxicated when he died, but his skin and his organs show none of the signs we might expect in an habitual drinker. Only recently fallen upon hard times, perhaps.”

Christison shook the excess water from his hands, then took up a towel and rubbed them vigorously.

“As to the cause of his death, I have nothing to offer beyond the obvious. In my experience, God did not see fit to furnish we humans with the natural equipment to inflict this kind of damage, and we must therefore suspect an animal of some sort. The marks on the arm in particular are clear. There are indentations on the cervical vertebrae that I would take for the results of teeth as well. Muscles, larynx, trachea all torn or displaced. Blood vessels severed. This was brutal, brutal work. Quite horrible. Quite remarkable.”

For a moment, his detachment faltered, as he cast a somewhat uneasy glance towards the covered body.

“I’d say it was the work of a wolf, if we’d not rid ourselves of such vermin two centuries gone. And they were never what you might call frequent in the streets of Edinburgh, to the best of my knowledge.”

“Not a blade, then, or an axe?”

“Certainly not. This unfortunate had his flesh torn, not cut. Do we have a wild beast of some sort loose in the Old Town, Sergeant?”

“I don’t know, sir. Of some sort, perhaps.”

“I’ve never seen a dog running about the streets that looked a likely perpetrator of a crime such as this.”

“No. Nor I,” Quire said quietly.

The professor carried the tools of his trade with all the care of a minister of the Kirk bearing the paraphernalia of communion. He laid them out once more on the trolley, and then began to place them one by one into a polished wooden box.

“Well, I do hope you resolve this conundrum,” he said. “I’d not want to be looking fearfully over my shoulder the next time I’m on the Old Town’s streets after dark. Though if a beast is responsible, perhaps we must call this poor man’s end misadventure rather than crime, eh? Not a matter for the police, some might say.”

“Some might,” shrugged Quire. “Still, he’s likely got a family, wondering what’s become of him. They deserve to know. And those still alive deserve protection, if it’s a thing that might happen again unless prevented. Seems to me that’s what the police are for.”

“Laudable,” Christison said. “Have you a name for him, then?”

“I’m not sure of that yet. It might be he’s John Ruthven. That was the matter that kept me busy earlier: consulting the roll of electors. There’s a John Ruthven at an address in the New Town.”

Christison cocked a sceptical eyebrow.

“I’d not have taken him for a householder with such a distinguished abode. Not with those hands, or with the apparel in which he was found.”

“No. Nor I.”

“Well, let us hope the truth will out. It does on occasion.”

Christison closed the box in which his implements were now once more safely nestled. It clicked solidly shut and he turned a tiny golden catch to secure it.

“Tell me, did you see a porter loitering out there in the corridor when you arrived?” he asked Quire.

“No one, sir.”

Christison gave an irritated grunt.

“Would you care to walk with me, then? I must find one of my assistants to close this poor fellow up, make him fit for the grave. And a porter to take him on his way.”

Quire fell into step at the professor’s side. He was not sorry to leave that place.

“At least if I put a name and a family to him, he’ll not find his way on to a slab in a lecture theatre,” Quire said.

“My anatomical colleagues would have little use for such a damaged cadaver, in truth. But you would be surprised, I suspect, at how many families are willing to sell the deceased for that very purpose.”

“Not those as have a house in the New Town, though. Takes a deal more poverty than that, I should think.”

“No doubt.”

Christison glanced sideways at Quire, and read something there in his face.

“You disapprove, Sergeant. Surely you would rather the schools find their supplies through such legitimate channels, rather than line the pockets of the resurrectionists?”

“It’s none of it legitimate, to my way of thinking. Any man would hope for a bit more dignity in his ending,” Quire muttered, and at once regretted his gruff candour.

“Ah,” said Christison, pressing his box of instruments a little more firmly into the crook of his arm. “Well, we can agree upon the distastefulness of the enterprise, if not on the question of its necessity. We live in enlightened times, with the inquisitive intellect as our guide. That its discoveries come at a price is undeniable. Neither the city fathers nor my anatomical colleagues are quite so sentimental, however. To learn the secrets of the human body— and our city’s fine reputation was built in part upon the excavation of such secrets, let us not forget—a man must