“Well, I hardly think Gladstone is slaughtering swans, Sherlock.”
“I agree.” He paused and sipped some coffee. “There was a boy I spoke with, though, who was able to enlighten me a bit. His name is Thomas Abnett. He’s sixteen or so. He said that they are quite short-handed since the Master and others swanherds have fallen ill.”
“And?”
“He mentioned one young man who was practically raised around the swans. His father had been a Deputy Swankeeper for some time but as he aged, he couldn’t do the work, so he was given some other menial task to make a living. When he died, the son stayed around for a while but then suddenly disappeared.”
“You think this young man might have something to do with all this?”
“Abnett said the boy was very distressed that his father was treated shabbily. But he also thought there was more to it. He’d heard rumours. Something to do with a member of Privy Council and the boy. But he really couldn’t tell me more than that.”
“You should have Mycroft sift around.”
“He is the one who has me sifting around. And I do have another matter to which I must attend.”
“A new case?”
“Quite so. I shouldn’t breathe a word of it, but it will likely be all over the newspapers shortly. It has to do with Wiggins.”
“Archie? What has he done?”
“Wiggins has been doing quite well for himself as an entrepreneur - I am told he robs the graves of the poor and sends the corpses to Oxford where dissection is conducted without permission at the medical school.”
My inclination was to let out with a wail. Then I remembered where we were and who I was with. But I had feared for some time that Wiggins would take a wrong turn. “Sherlock, did I not inquire about this a few months ago? You mentioned then that you thought Wiggins was traveling down this illegal path.”
“Did I?”
“You did. My God, assaults on the privacy of a quiet grave... it’s despicable.”
“Yes. And Wiggins has found himself in quite a quagmire. In the thick of something well beyond his anticipated endeavor. In the process of one of his nighttime ventures, he uncovered a body inside a coffin atop the first tenant. He soon realized that the grave was freshly unearthed and someone had dumped the corpse on top of the original occupant. It seems that someone has committed murder and tried to cover it up by placing body parts in an old grave.”
I swallowed hard. “Body parts?”
“Wiggins said it was a child’s grave, fairly fresh, into which the dismembered adult male was placed.”
“Surely Wiggins is not implicated in the murder, is he, Sherlock? He’s just a boy.”
“He was at first. But I believe I have convinced the authorities that young Wiggins rather did them a favor. Now we just need to find out who the deceased is - which won’t be easy, given he was, not unlike our swans, rather savagely mutilated. And then we need to find out who killed him and why.”
The waiter had just placed our plates before us. I pushed mine away. Suddenly, I had lost my appetite.
Chapter 9
Naturally, Sherlock asked me to accompany him to St. Bart’s to view the gruesome graveyard find, and he said he had someone he wanted me to meet. We walked because he did not trust a hansom cab in this foul weather - his mother had died in a peculiar and freakish cab accident.
According to Uncle Ormond, the number of cab accidents in the Metropolis had increased ten-fold during the never-ending fog. Uncle urged Bart’s to publish the number of injured patients brought to Bart’s door, which he estimated at three hundred each week. Sherlock had often said that cab and van drivers considered the roadway as their own property and the people who cross over it as trespassers. When I walked, it was not unusual for a cab driver to shout a ‘holloa’ at me to get out of the way, never thinking it his duty to avoid hitting a pedestrian by slackening his speed, lest the person be under the horse’s feet. Instead, every walker felt he needed to run in order to save his life. Prosecution of these cabmen for furious and reckless driving never seemed to be enforced.
Because of the fog, it took much longer than it should have, close to an hour, to get to Bart’s. Sherlock often grabbed my hand to be sure I was still next to him. It was an unexpected comfort. When we passed St. Paul’s and finally made our way to Giltspur Street, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Poppy,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you been to the new wing of the hospital?”
“I’ve not had the chance, Sherlock. Uncle was at the opening ceremony in November, though. He said that the Prince and Princess of Wales dedicated the new building. But it isn’t finished yet, is it?”
“Not all of it, but much of the construction is completed and it should be done in time for the opening of the winter session on October 1st. I am looking forward to it - especially the new dissecting room.”
St. Bart’s had been serving the people of London since the twelfth century. It had, of course, changed a great deal over the years. But the new wing was the grandest and loftiest in its evolution.
The new wing would be comprised of a museum; classrooms; a physiological laboratory, a library, anatomical, pathological, and pharmaceutical laboratories, each two or three times larger than the old ones. The students already had been warned that the new library would not be a place for lounging, talking and letter writing. Its purpose was for study. No Punch, Graphic or Field magazines would be permitted within its walls. Strict silence was to be enforced, ‘just like Mycroft’s Diogenes Club,’ Sherlock told me, and only industrious students would be welcomed into its quiet recesses.
The basement floor would house
