“It has to be chemical in nature—if not biological.”
“If not both,” finished Thomas.
“What of Dr. Bellingham? What does Enoch have to say about it all?”
“He’s frightened. So’s the dean. Hell… so’s everyone.”
“The entire surgical faculty is terrified,” added Thomas.
“As they should be,” said Ransom, placing on a shirt to cover his hefty body.
“Sir, they are cowards! They want to burn the bodies at the steel mill as soon as it opens in the morning.”
“Cremation may be the best avenue,” he cautioned.
“All of them—the constable, the dean, Dr. B, in all their combined intellect, they are acting out of fear,” continued Declan.
Ransom held a hand up to the young intern. “To contain any possibility of contagion is a normal response to any outbreak of disease, quite typical.”
“B-But damn it, man, there needs be some analytical examination of the condition of these men.” Declan paced the small room, bumping his head on an overhead beam that evoked a cry from him.
“You live, sir, rather poorly don’t you?” Thomas observed, taking in the flat,” I-I mean for a man with such a reputation, Detective Wyland, this place looks like an artist’s billet.”
“Thomas, have ye no manners?” shouted Declan.
“Oh come now, Declan? It’s just a question.”
“Not a lot of call for a private detective in Belfast, son—especially one who’s caught the eye of the local officials.”
“Constable Reahall thinks you a menace, eh?” asked Thomas.
“I fear, he thinks me some sort of problem, yes.”
“What sort of problem?”
“He has me confused with some… some murderer.”
“Murderer?” gasped Thomas, shaken by the word.
“Damn fool copper has me confused with someone else, I fear. Irritating is what it amounts to.”
“But a murderer?” Declan’s repeating of the word hung in the air, and now both young interns cautiously eyed Ransom. “Of course, Constable Reahall’s dead wrong about Mr. Wyland, Thomas,” insisted Declan, who then spoke to Ransom. “I’ve come to respect you, Mr. Wyland. So now, sir, will you help us or not?”
“Help you do precisely what?”
“Why break into the morgue,” Thomas replied.
“At Mater Infirmorum? Are you mad?”
“It’s off from the hospital, a separate surgery and morgue for us university students.”
“Separate you say?”
“On the grounds but yes, separate from the main hospital.”
“And there is where the bodies lie in state?”
“If you can call it that—yes,” Declan added with a shrug. “We can take you straight to the corpses.”
“To what end?” he asked the young men.
“We are surgeons!” shouted Thomas.
The passion recalled Jane Tewes to Ransom’s mind—how passionate she was about being a surgeon, and the extreme lengths she’d gone to just for that reason, as fat, white-haired old men stood in her way. Now Ransom saw the same thing was happening here to these lads.
Declan came close and near whispered, “We need to know what’s the root cause of the condition of those bodies. And you know as well as we, there is only one sure way to determine actual cause of death, and it isn’t by cremating the evidence.”
“Is that what they want to do? Burn it? Outta sight, outta mind, is it?”
“That’s about it, yes, sir.”
“But you boys… you want to conduct an unauthorized inquest instead?”
“We want to autopsy the dead,” Thomas continued for Declan, going to the window, peeking out. “You aren’t expecting anyone are you, Mr. Wyland, sir?”
“Why? What do you see out there?”
“One of those nasty steam-powered police wagons—a paddy. Coming this way it is.”
Ransom heard the noisy wake-the-dead clatter of this thing racing toward them. In fact, it was growing deafening with each turn of the wheels. “It’s Reahall come for me now! You boys picked a helluva time to pinch me for a job.”
“I thought Reahall respectful of your opinion,” Declan said, looking over his shoulder at the approaching police wagon.
“Oh yeah…” added Thomas. “He likely just wants to confer with you, Mr. Wyland—on the case.”
“Confer with me behind bars. Look here, lads, if we’re to have a proper autopsy, we need to be out the back—now! Hurry!” He ushered them to the rear room, past his untidy bedroom, out the back door, and into a smelly dank alleyway. Earlier a light rain had futilely tried to wipe Belfast clean but had only succeeded in making the cobblestones glisten like rocks in a stream—and just as slick. As Ransom rushed the boys, Thomas slipped and turned an ankle and moaned like a cat in heat.
“Shhhhh… .you’ll give us away!” shouted Declan, completely on board with Ransom’s plan. They heard the wagon pull up to the front door, heard men leaping from the wagon, heard shouting to circle around back. “Is that Reahall’s voice?” asked Declan as Ransom helped Thomas to his feet. With Thomas leaning on Ransom and Declan taking Thomas’ other arm, they rushed off.
“There—the shadows! Quickly!” whispered Ransom.
“Hold on,” said Thomas. “Tell me why’re we running from the constable again?”
“They’ll haul us back to the dormitory for being past curfew, for one,” Declan assured him. “So shhh.”
“Don’t be naive, Declan. Mr. Wyland here’s not hiding beneath this stairwell in a dark alley because we are in trouble. Reahall was asking me all sorts of questions about our hired detective here. He’s come to arrest you, hasn’t he?”
Declan said, “He hasn’t, has he Mr. Wyland. Go on, tell Tommie to push off.”
“Yeah, Mr. Wyland, tell us, if that’s your real name,” said Thomas.
“Thomas, Declan… you help me, lads.” began Ransom, “and I’ll get you boys into that morgue. Deal?”
Declan shook his hand. “Deal.”
“A bargain for sure,” added Thomas.
“Now quiet,” Ransom ordered them where they crouched in a black corner behind trash bins.
Some time had past when from the darkest shadows in the alleyway, Ransom, Declan, and Thomas continued to watch the uniformed officers at rear of the billet come charging round; the Belfast police now surrounded the small house and its street-level apartment—guns drawn. They then listened to the sounds of Constable Reahall’s men break down the front door in dramatic fashion. Reahall then rummaged through the room until he opened the back door and looked down the barrels of six guns trained on him. He uselessly asked, “No one’s come out this way?”
“No one, sir!”
“’Cept that is… you, sir.”
“Find the basement, search the walls! I want that man!”
It was half an hour before Ransom felt it safe enough to slip from the shadows and for the trio to make their way down the alleyway and out onto North Queen Street, heading toward the bottom of Antrim Road, passing a ancient cemetery, the Clifton Street Graveyard with its entry facing them. A sudden noise behind them, a lorry pulled by a horse startled them and made Ransom slip into the cemetery for cover, but it became a moment of mirth for the university boys.
They soon passed Henry Place, continuing onward down Clifton, making their way toward the hospital. In doing so, they must pass the Crumlin Road Gaol, Constable Raehall’s old stone fortress of a prison. There they saw the hub-bub of frustrated men who’d worked late into the night, first at the shipyards and inside
The better part of valor may well have been to back away and go around the cemetery or through it, but
