“As does Bart’s, for that matter,” Sherlock said.
“But I thought the wretched Resurrectionists were finished. Isn’t that why Parliament passed the Anatomy Act years ago? To prevent body-snatching for payment?”
“Yes, but Mycroft says that because the schools do not have enough cadavers for pupils and surgeons to dissect, there are rumours that even the Royal London Hospital has resorted to obtaining specimens from the hospital’s own burial grounds - in other words, former patients. I’d wager that if an investigation were undertaken, we’d find that some coffins have more than one occupant, and there would be fewer bodies than heads. Think about it. If, during the winter, the medical professors and surgeons keep all who die under their care, then in the summer they have enough and some to spare. But during the summer months, it is difficult to preserve subjects. They inject a solution of arsenic and chloride of zinc or glycerin, but now, under the law, bodies can only be kept for eight weeks.”
“This is a gruesome situation,” I said. “Oxford is full of medical scandals, it would seem. The coroner there, Mr. Hussy, acts like an old woman. He didn’t call in the House Surgeon when someone died at the infirmary a few weeks ago; he called a visiting surgeon who refused to come. Hussy does this every time there is a fatality - probably because the House Surgeon thinks half the time Hussy cannot do his job. But robbing graves?”
“Actually, I think Hussy is trying to do his job. It is not just unclaimed bodies that are used for anatomical research and to train medical students. People prey on the poor, Poppy.”
“What do you mean?”
“They talk guardians into contracting for the bodies of loved ones - people in workhouses and the like,” he explained. “The staff at Radcliffe Infirmary have a particularly disdainful attitude toward the poor. Just this year, there was a terrible scandal about the dissection of pauper corpses and contracts with relatives. There has been a tug-of-war over which bodies end up in the Dead House and how they get there, who pays for the coffin, and so on. There’s all sorts of back-door trading at the infirmary. Medical students, professors and researchers are definitely involved in the body-buying trade. And it is a covert trade, Poppy, a despicable one in which many are involved. The deceased, the relatives, the railway, with tips to porters who look the other way when hearse drivers deliver cadavers. Do you realize we are in a recession and that a deceased infant’s body can earn poor relatives a year’s wage and save the cost of a funeral?”
I felt overwhelmed with it all. Finally I said, “But this body, Sherlock. This body was found in a London church cemetery”. I thought for a moment. “Sherlock, is there anyone connected to Oxford who is missing? Someone who may have found out that Wiggins was sending bodies there and wanted it ceased? Was Wiggins confronted with anyone or - ?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Poppy.”
“Does Wiggins know the name of his benefactor? The person paying him for the bodies?”
“No. He went to the Fortune of War public house in Smithfield on Pie Corner every Friday night to wait for instructions.”
“I don’t understand, Sherlock.”
“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a room in the back of the public house with benches with the grave robbers’ names. They waited there with specimens, and surgeons at St. Bart’s came there to appraise the cadavers. Despite the change in the law regarding grave-robbing, it is a practice that continues. But here’s the thing. I don’t believe that a true anatomist would engage in this particular type of supply. Mycroft did say that Oxford and Cambridge coordinate activities. Usually, they buy from the poorest areas of the city and apparently they also walk the streets to establish body-buying networks. From what I understand, body parts are thrown into the river or a clinical waste bin. But this enterprise seems different. Wiggins has robbed criminal graves and hospital graves, but never from a place such as St. Marylebone. He did mention that the note sent to him to dig up this particular grave and await further instructions was written in a different hand. He was not sure it came from his usual benefactor. I must speak to him again about that.”
My uncle had, for many years, kept a running diary of events and staff at the hospital - a venerable history of the place. I wondered if he had noted these enterprises anywhere in his writings.
“I am in the process of getting more information,” Sherlock said. “Inspector Hopkins is the one who asked me to look into this. You remember Hopkins?”
“Of course.” Stanley Hopkins, Sr. was with the Yard, a dedicated man who had assisted us in obtaining the evidence to send the British Museum murderer to the gallows.
“You recall his keen interest in Phrenology?”
“Yes.”
It was Hopkins’ one peculiar trait. Those who promulgated phrenology believed that by examining the shape and unevenness of a head or skull, one could discover the development of the particular cerebral “organs” responsible for different intellectual aptitudes and character traits. For example, a prominent protuberance in the forehead at the position attributed to the organ of Benevolence indicates the individual has a “well developed” organ of Benevolence and would therefore be expected to exhibit benevolent behaviour.
“According to Hopkins,” Sherlock continued, “there are still people trying to prove that theory. Hopkins thinks there could be some relationship to such a person. Have you heard of Lombroso? He says criminals are evolutionary throwbacks that we can recognize by the shape of their jaws or cheekbones or the length of their arms. He argues that these individual’s physical traits come with some intrinsic
