Sherlock gave Jonathan a stern look and said, “Please, Dr. Younger, spare us the details. Dr. Stamford has herself rendered care to railway and other disaster victims. As has her brother Michael, which I would think you would know if you were truly his friend. Have we all not had enough during this most unfortunate period of gloomy death and disease and war and trouble? Must you bring forth more dread tidings?”
I touched Sherlock’s arm. “It’s all right, Sherlock.”
He offered his elbow and abruptly turned about, dragging me with him. “Excuse us, gentlemen. We have an appointment with a corpse.”
Chapter 10
Once we were in the lab, Sherlock loosened his tie and tossed his coat and waistcoat over a chair. “Younger is impertinent.”
“No, he isn’t,” I protested, as I removed my cape, scarf, gloves and bonnet. “I’ve known him for years. He’s very sweet and quite gregarious.”
“I must disagree. There is compelling evidence to the contrary. He is obnoxious and condescending and you should have nothing more to do with him.”
I had had enough of Sherlock’s possessive nature, I truly had. Though he refused to give into his affection for me, he was ever-so covetous of my time. I’d finally grown tired of languishing in self-pity and sick of trying to convince him that we were right for each other. I did still love him, but I had shed an ocean full of tears. I had spent endless nights mourning our summer tryst, and I was desperately trying to move on.
“Sherlock! What is wrong with you? Has your brain been suddenly inundated by a feast of toxic particles of the fog? Do dispatch a regiment of gluttonous warriors from that cold heart of yours to gobble the poisons and recapture your senses. Jealousy does not suit you.”
“What?”
“If you allow your heart to feel, I fear that your other organs, including your brain, may soon deteriorate and stop functioning,” I snarled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I simply meant that he offended you.”
“You have no right to decide if I am offended.”
“He belittled you,” he bellowed. “Taunting you with posts to which your application would be futile and disparaging your now flourishing practice.”
“Flourishing for the time being, but only because of the fog and because people cannot afford to go elsewhere. My practice may not survive, Sherlock. I must concede that.”
“Concede nothing!” he shouted. “You are a brilliant woman. I would not keep you in my company were that not the case.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated. “Now let’s have a look at our unnamed corpse, shall we?”
As I viewed the unattached parts of the poor soul, Sherlock read to me an advertisement that had appeared in a recent edition of The Students Journal and Hospital Gazette.
Fresh botanical specimens and other seasonable plants, including Aconite, Belladonna, Conium, etc. (likely to be seen at examinations during the summer months) Carriage paid. 5s. per set; singly, 8d each - Saunders, Private Tutor, 79, Gaisford Street, N.W.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
“I think it’s clear that anyone with a few shillings can get his hands on deadly nightshade, even if none is growing in the area.”
“Precisely. Poison with which to kill the swans. Perhaps I should answer this advertisement to see how easily one might acquire the poison. Now do see what you can tell me about this body.”
I looked at the body parts and clothing laid out before me. The deceased had been found dressed in top hat and tails and none of it had disintegrated. The gentleman had not been dead long; there was little evidence of decomposition of the remains. The head had been severed from the torso, as had the legs and arms. The man was in his early forties, white, and well-nourished.
“This was not done with a hatchet or saw, Sherlock. Whoever cut up this body has surgical training. Where was the body found?”
“St. Marylebone Cemetery in East Finchley. This grave was very near the grave of Sir George Hayter, Her Majesty’s principal painter in ordinary. He was buried there just a few years ago.”
“I know of it. My Aunt Susan’s grandparents are buried there. The parish boundary stone is in Regent’s Park.”
“Did you know that The Non-Conformist Chapel was opened there in 1854, the year of my birth, as a Dissenter’s mortuary chapel? I find that appropriate.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I was bewildered at times at how such a focused mind could wander into totally unrelated discourse. Sensing my impatience, he said, “At any rate, this is not where Wiggins was customarily sent to exhume bodies. He generally went to pauper’s fields and hospital cemeteries. He had an arrangement to get the bodies to Oxford by train, but this time he was apprehended by a constable.”
“Sherlock, they don’t even have a proper medical school at Oxford yet. On the grounds, I mean. There is an infirmary, which Michael says is well-arranged and equipped, and there are instructors, like the Regius Professor of Medicine, but the students have to go off campus. They cannot even spend much time at the Radcliffe Library because at the same time they are prosecuting their studies elsewhere.”
“True. There were some twenty-five hundred undergraduates last year, but only sixty have graduated in medicine thus far,” he said. “Dr. Ackland was always lobbying for more money for the school. He said that in the absence of a true medical school, there is a blight on the University’s reputation and he sought to restore the ancient prestige of Oxford.”
“Michael told me that he resigned his
