The Bone Garden: A Novel

Norris looked at his fellow student in surprise. Why offer this man any unnecessary information? It would only feed his suspicions. Indeed, Watchman Pratt now looked like a mustachioed cat at the mouse hole, ready to pounce.

— When were you not in each other's company? — asked Pratt.

— Would you like an account of my visits to the pisspot? Oh, and I do believe I took a crap as well. How about you, Norris? —

— Mr. Holmes, I do not appreciate your foul brand of humor. —

— Humor is the only way to deal with questions as absurd as these. We're the ones who summoned the Night Watch, for God's sake. —

The mustache twitched. The squirrel was now getting agitated. — I see no need for blasphemy, — he said coldly, and slipped his pencil into his pocket. — Now then. Show me the body. —

Dr. Crouch said, — Shouldn't Constable Lyons be present? —

Pratt shot him an irritated look. — He will get my report in the morning. —

— But he should be here. This is serious business. —

— At this moment, I am in authority. Constable Lyons will be advised of the facts at a more reasonable hour. I see no reason to rouse him from his bed. — Pratt pointed to the draped body. — Uncover her, — he ordered.

Pratt had assumed a nonchalant pose, jaw thrust out in the attitude of a man too cocky to be rattled by anything so minor as the sight of a corpse. But when Dr. Crouch pulled off the sheet, Pratt could not suppress a gasp, and he suddenly flinched away from the table. Although Norris had already viewed the corpse and had, in fact, helped carry it into the building, he, too, was shocked yet again by the mutilations performed on Agnes Poole. They had not undressed her; they scarcely needed to. The blade had slashed open the front of her dress, laying bare her injuries, injuries so grotesque that Watchman Pratt remained frozen and unable to utter a sound, his face as pale as curdled milk.

— As you can see, — said Dr. Crouch, — the trauma is horrific. I have waited to complete the examination until an official could be present. But all it takes is a cursory glance to see that the killer has not merely sliced open the torso. He has done far, far more. — Crouch rolled up his sleeves, then glanced at Pratt. — If you wish to see the damage, you'll have to step up to the table. —

Pratt swallowed. — I can?see it well enough from here. —

— I doubt that. But if your stomach is too weak to handle it, there's no sense in your getting sick all over the corpse. — He pulled on an apron and tied the strings behind his back. — Mr. Holmes, Mr. Marshall, I'll need your assistance. It's a good opportunity for you both to get your hands dirty. Not every student is so fortunate this early in his education. —

Fortunate was not the word that came to Norris's mind as he stared into the gaping torso. Growing up on his father's farm, he was no stranger to the smell of blood or the butchering of pigs and cows. He had gotten his hands dirty, all right, helping the farmhands as they scooped out offal and stripped away the hides. He knew what death looked like and smelled like, for he had labored in its presence.

But this was a different view of death, a view that was too intimate and familiar. This was not a pig's heart or a cow's lungs that he stared at. And the slack-jawed face was one that, only hours ago, had been suffused with life. To see Nurse Poole now, to look into her glazed eyes, was to catch a glimpse of his own future. Reluctantly, he took an apron from the wall hooks, tied it on, and took his place at Dr. Crouch's side. Wendell stood on the other side of the table. Despite the bloody corpse that lay between them, Wendell's face revealed no revulsion, only a look of intent curiosity. Am I the only one who remembers who this woman was? Norris wondered. Not a pleasant human being, to be sure, but she was more than a mere carcass, more than an anonymous corpse to be dissected.

Dr. Crouch soaked a cloth in a basin of water and gently sponged blood away from the incised skin. — As you can see here, gentlemen, the blade must have been quite sharp. These are clean cuts, very deep. And the pattern? the pattern is most intriguing. —

— What do you mean? What pattern? — asked Pratt in a strangely muffled and nasal voice.

— If you would approach the table, I could show you. —

— I'm busy taking notes, can't you see? Just describe it for me. —

— Description alone will not do it justice. Perhaps we should send for Constable Lyons? Surely someone in the Watch has the stomach to do his duty? —

Pratt flushed an angry red. Only then did he finally approach the table, to stand beside Wendell. He took one glimpse into the gaping abdomen and quickly averted his gaze. — All right. I've seen it. —

— But do you see the pattern, how bizarre it is? A slice straight across the abdomen, from flank to flank. And then a perpendicular slice, straight up the midline, toward the breastbone, lacerating the liver. They are so deep, either one of these cuts would have caused death. — He reached into the wound with bare hands and lifted out the intestines, painstakingly examining the glistening loops before he let them slide into a bucket at the side of the table. — The blade had to be quite long. It has sliced all the way to the backbone and nicked the top of the left kidney. — He glanced up. — Do you see, Mr. Pratt? —

— Yes. Yes, of course. — Pratt was not even looking at the body; his gaze seemed to be fixed, almost desperately, on Norris's blood-streaked apron.

— And then there is this vertical slice. It, too, is savagely deep. — He lifted up the rest of the small bowel in one mass, and Wendell quickly positioned the bucket to catch it as it came tumbling over the side of the table. Next came other abdominal organs, resected one by one. The liver, the spleen, the pancreas. — The blade incised the descending aorta here, which accounts for the great volume of blood on the steps. — Crouch looked up. — She would have died quickly, from exsanguination. —

— Ex? what? — asked Pratt.

— Quite simply, sir, she bled to death. —

Pratt swallowed hard and finally forced himself to gaze down at the abdomen, now little more than a hollowed-out cavity. — You said it had to be a long blade. How long? —

— To penetrate this deep? Seven, eight inches at the least. —

— A butcher's knife, perhaps. —

— I would certainly classify this as an act of butchery. —

— He could also have used a sword, — said Wendell.

— Rather conspicuous, I would think, — said Dr. Crouch. — To be clattering around town with a bloody sword. —

— What makes you think of a sword? — asked Pratt.

— It's the nature of the wounds. The two perpendicular slashes. In my father's library, there is a book on strange customs of the Far East. I've read of wounds just like these, inflicted in the Japanese act of seppuku. A ritualistic suicide. —

— This is hardly a suicide. —

— I realize that. But the pattern is identical. —

— It is indeed a most curious pattern, — said Dr. Crouch. — Two separate slashes, perpendicular to each other. Almost as if the killer were trying to carve the sign of? —

— The cross? — Pratt looked up with sudden interest. — The victim wasn't Irish, was she? —

— No, — Crouch said. — Most definitely not. —

— But many of the patients in this hospital are? —

— It is the hospital's mission to serve the unfortunate. Many of our patients, if not most, are charity cases. —

— Meaning Irish. Like Miss Connolly. —

— Now, look here, — said Wendell, speaking far more forthrightly than he should have. — Surely you're reading too much into these wounds. Just because it resembles a cross doesn't mean the killer is a papist. —

— You defend them? —

— I'm merely pointing out the defects in your reasoning. One can't possibly draw such a conclusion as you're doing, merely because of the peculiarity of these wounds. I've offered you just as likely an interpretation. —

— That some fellow from Japan has jumped ship with his sword? — Pratt laughed. — There's hardly such a