A Matter of Grave Concern (2 page)

Those short, clipped sentences bore no Cockney accent and revealed a definite culture to his voice, causing Abigail to wonder if she had been dealing with the wrong man all along. She couldn’t imagine this stranger taking orders from anyone, much less the likes of Jack Hurtsill.

“Blimey, Max,” one of the other men muttered.

Drawing herself up to her fullest height, which was at least ten inches shy of this Max’s six feet something, Abigail clung tenaciously to her composure. “At this point, I would rather you take your ‘large’ and go.” Surely, there had to be other resurrection men she could contact; she hadn’t gone through
all
the names she heard muttered about the halls of the college and St. Bart’s Hospital next door. “I have seen naught but the head, and that small sample revealed a nasty wound.”

“There’s not a mark on the rest of him,” Max responded coolly. “We offered to show you, but you refused.”

Abigail had no intention of letting this body snatcher tempt her into dumping the body out onto the rug as she had almost let them do before. “Mr. Hurtsill—I mean, Big Jack, here, was about to say ten guineas. I will go that high.”

“I’m afraid it’s not high enough,” Max countered.

“You’re a fast study, mate.” Jack slapped him on the back but didn’t interfere. Instead, he turned a challenging smile on Abigail and waited for her response.

“Then go,” she said, shooing them away. “Take Mr. Whoever He Is and leave. I will not let you rob me. Not if I can help it.”

“And what if you can’t?” Insolence lit the eyes of the man identified as Max. “Perhaps we should wait here for your father. No doubt he will have better sense of what a corpse is worth at the present time, although I doubt he would want us loitering about the place. What’s it been . . . eighteen months or so since those two surgeons were prosecuted for receiving and dissecting stolen bodies? With a possible knighthood on the horizon, and such a close tie to Sir Astley Cooper—the sergeant-surgeon of the late king himself, no less—it would be quite unfortunate if your father were to be found dealing with the likes of us, wouldn’t you say?”

Abigail’s jaw dropped at the not-so-subtle threat. These were not learned men but, evidently, they had heard of her father’s many accomplishments even before she had mentioned his involvement with Cooper. She hadn’t said a thing about the crown’s probable recognition.

Perhaps she had underestimated these sack ’em up men.
This
man, anyway. “If what you have brought is worth so much Mr. . . Max, is it?”

He gave her a mocking bow and added his last name, as if to prove he feared nothing from her. “Wilder. Maximillian Wilder, at your service, Miss.”

“Mr. Wilder, then. Take it elsewhere to claim your fifteen guineas. Take it to Guy’s or . . . or the Webb Street School!”

His chin rasped as he rubbed it. “We could do that, Miss Hale. But you said yourself that time is money, and we don’t have all night. You wrote us to request an adult specimen and we brought a large. Now it’s time to pay up.”

“And if I send someone for the police instead?”

He clucked his tongue. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

Three long strides brought him to the edge of her desk, where he toyed with the ivory elephant her mother had bestowed on her following their last trip to India, only two months before she died. “It’s too risky,” he said.

Abigail plucked the elephant from his grasp. She wasn’t sure she could rely on the new police, anyway. Sir Robert Peel had only recently established the metropolitan force. Like many others, she regarded it with a certain amount of skepticism. “It’s the sensible thing to do,” she said. “After how you have behaved, I am not opposed to seeing the five of you spend considerable time in gaol.” Hoping the weight of her own threat would give him and his companions reason to squirm, she smiled, but Maximillian Wilder merely shrugged.

“You do what you feel you must, Miss Hale, but you should be aware that Bill over there has a wife and children. You will not want his dependents looking to the college for support while he is imprisoned, now would you?”

“Looking to the college for support?” she echoed. “Why, you have some nerve, sir. Perhaps there have been faculty members blackmailed into such an arrangement in the past, but don’t expect
me
to be so accommodating. I wouldn’t allow you to—”

“I recently heard of an anatomy teacher at Great Marlborough Street School of Anatomy who refused to pay a fair price to men such as ourselves,” he interrupted, turning casually to one of his cohorts. “Did you hear about that, Emmett?”

A man with shaggy blond hair, who looked more like a boy, nodded. “Aye. He found a stinkin’ corpse at each end of his street every day for more’n a week as retribution. ’Twas a shame, really. Terribly bad for business. That’s what I heard.”

Impotent rage warmed Abigail’s blood as the import of their words struck her. For a brief moment, she flirted with the temptation of calling Bransby in to force them out at gunpoint. She even imagined handling the pistol herself, pressing the barrel of it into the solid chest of the man named Wilder and watching his arrogance crumble into fear.

But Bransby couldn’t shoot them all. Truth be told, he would be hard-pressed to shoot
one
. And she sensed this Max made no idle threat when he hinted at how the gang would respond should she put up a fight. She couldn’t risk the public uproar of having some stranger stumble upon a rotting carcass outside the college doors. Not only would her father lose any chance of a knighthood, he would be prosecuted like those other poor surgeons.

Clenching her teeth, she reined in her temper. “I see your point.” She retrieved a purple pouch from her desk and began counting out the necessary remuneration. “Eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . Here we have it. Fifteen guineas. Take it and go.”

Max looked at the money but made no move to accept it. “Actually, your haughty attitude should cost you a little more. That was entirely too easy.”

“
Easy
?
” She would have had to alter the books just to hide the loss of the eight or nine guineas she had been planning to pay. She had no idea how she would cover any more.

“I think perhaps . . . twenty guineas should relieve your debt,” he said.

Someone coughed and the men began to murmur amongst themselves.

Abigail curled the nails of her free hand into her palm. “Twenty, indeed! You great lout—”

The rest of her words stuck in her throat as Maximillian’s dirty hand shot across the desk and caught her own, sandwiching the money in her fist.

“You have already run up a
sizable
bill, Miss Hale. Are you sure you can afford to make me angry?” He quirked an eyebrow at her, and Abigail once again noticed his striking, blue-green eyes. An aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a strong jaw combined to create an arresting face, not quite handsome but striking. His features were too stark to be handsome in the conventional sense, although they were certainly . . . memorable.

“Come on, fifteen’s well an’ good, Max.” The way Jack shifted on his feet made him appear anxious. “She is the surgeon’s daughter, after all. And he bein’ a friend of Cooper’s, a fair deal’s good for business, eh?”

Much to Abigail’s dismay, Max ignored his leader, if Jack really was the leader, and continued to glare at her. “You have gotten involved in something you are incapable of navigating,” he continued, his voice softening just enough to make him sound as if he might be addressing a child. “I suggest you let this go, and take it as a well-deserved lesson.”

His fingers tightened, but Abigail refused to admit that his grip was beginning to hurt. “You are every bit a louse,” she said, “and I think we both know I could call you much worse.”

His laugh, deep and rich, seemed to flow out of his mouth as naturally as his threats. “Perhaps,” he agreed, and wrested the money from her grasp.

Without those funds, Abigail couldn’t continue to stock the kitchen with foodstuffs, purchase candles and coal, or pay the help. Desperate to salvage what she could, she grabbed for the pouch, but Max used his height to keep it well out of reach.

“There is far more in there than what you have demanded!” she cried.

Jack was no longer laughing. “How much more?”

“Two or three times as much!” She didn’t know, exactly. She hadn’t bothered to count it. She had been too confident that she had all contingencies covered, with Bran and that firearm in the hallway. She had also been preoccupied with making sure her actions went beneath the notice of the college housekeeper, who would tell her father exactly what was going on if she found out.

“I’m depending on it,” Wilder said.

“But—”

“I doubt you can spare any more coin,” he broke in, “so I suggest you cease flinging insults, while you still have the dress on your back.” His meaningful grin sent fear of another kind coursing through her. It was that look, and the sure knowledge that she could never overpower him, that stopped her from rounding her desk.

She glanced at the door that hid Bransby, even opened her mouth to call out to him. But Wilder silenced her with a quick shake of his head.

“I wouldn’t, Miss Hale,” he said. “Whoever you have tucked in that hall probably doesn’t have the nerve he would need, and your pride is hardly worth his life.”

“My
pride
? That money belongs to the school—”

“Also far less of a consideration, I’m sure.”

Never had Abigail wanted to strike a leveling blow at anyone more. The arrogance of this body snatcher! His blatant greed! Since his intervention, she had lost the small amount of power she had initially possessed, and he had laughed in her face while stripping it from her. None of last year’s encounters had prepared her for this. She had felt so confident coming into this deal—confident enough to carry her entire purse.

She sorely regretted that now. “You know me well enough that you can predict my next move, Mr. Wilder?”

“I could always know you better.”

A half smile curved lips that looked soft and foreign to the hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes darkened to a glittering blue and appraised her with such boldness that Abigail folded her arms across her breasts in a rather primitive move to defend herself against his piercing gaze. Dear God . . . what had she done?

“Please, don’t go!” she whispered. “Let’s . . . let’s work out some sort of . . . arrangement.” Her father was due to arrive home at any moment, but she had to detain these men, regardless. “You will get no more business from me if you do this. Wouldn’t it be . . . wouldn’t it be preferable to . . . to agree to an ongoing contract? Other gangs have offered to do that with my father, with . . . with start-up money for . . . for all the bribes you must pay and . . . and finishing money when the school year is over. If you give me back my purse, I could possibly . . . get more for you later.”

“You mean you will turn us in,” Wilder said. “But remember, we have your letter, which we can show, if necessary. And now, we really should be going.”

“No!” She grabbed hold of him, but he easily shook her off and followed the others outside.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “That’s it?” she cried. “That’s all?”

“That’s all,” Wilder repeated.

Abigail gripped the doorframe so she wouldn’t launch herself at him in a fit of temper. “I hope one day you and I will meet again, Mr. Wilder, under very different circumstances.”

His smile broadened as his gaze settled on her mouth. “Is that an invitation, Miss Hale? Because meeting you, under any circumstances, would be my pleasure. There is much I would like to teach you yet.”

“You have already taught me a great deal, sir. Rest assured, I will never call upon you again.”

Max threw the pouch in the air and caught it with a jingle. “More’s the pity, pretty lady. More’s the pity.” He tilted his head toward the sack they had left in the middle of the floor. “Enjoy your time alone together, and give my regards to your father,” he said. Then he followed Jack and the others down the alley, but his voice, raised in recital, carried back to her:

“
Bury me in my brother’s church,

For that will safer be,

And I implore, lock the church door,

And pray take care of the key
.”

Chapter 2

When silence descended, Abigail locked the door, stumbled to her chair and, completely shaken, sank into its firm, tufted leather. What was she going to do? All the scenarios she had played out in her mind, for days, had done nothing to prepare her for the London Supply Company. Maybe Jack and the others were men she could have negotiated with. They would have taken her for nine or ten guineas. But Maximillian Wilder was something else entirely. He had managed to bilk her out of a fortune! And it wasn’t her money, which made it that much worse.

Not only would she have to figure out a way to hide the loss, she would have to come up with what the college needed as far as supplies—

“Miss Hale?” Bransby poked his head inside the room. “Are you all right, Miss?”

Flushing at the reminder that she’d had a witness to her humiliation, Abigail shoved back the stray wisps of hair that had fallen from her practical topknot. It had been a long, difficult day; even her hair wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m fine,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from cracking.

He eyed the sack with the body but kept his distance. “Will there be anything else you’ll be needing?”

Abigail shook her head, as eager to release him from further duty as he was to go. “Seek your bed, Bran. I am sorry I kept you up so late.”

“Yes, Miss. And where would you like me to put this?” He held the pistol she had given him pinched between two fingers, like a baby’s soiled wrappings. The metal barrel glinted in the lamplight below his aging, narrow face.

How she wished she’d had the nerve to call him in! But as impulsive as she could be—always her father’s greatest lament—Wilder had been right. She and Bran would have been too easily overpowered. A woman and an old man taking on five body snatchers was not an option.

“Hand it to me,” she said. “It goes in the bottom drawer of my father’s desk.”

The taciturn servant gave the corpse a wide berth, and came to set the pistol in front of her. “Good night, Miss,” he said with a slight bow.

“Good night, Bransby.”

He shuffled across the carpet to double-check that she had locked the door leading to the alley. Then he made another big arc around the body, and soon she was alone. Or almost alone. She stared, heartsick, at the sack the resurrection men had brought. She had acquired a damned expensive cadaver. How would she ever cover the expense?

She had no answers. Nor did she have time to sit around, stewing over the problem. She had to do something with her prize, or her father would arrive and the corpse would still be in his office.

After putting the pistol back in his drawer, she hurried to the door through which Bransby had left and called after him. At first, she wasn’t sure her whisper had carried as far as his stooped, retreating figure. But then he stopped and turned.

“Yes, Miss?”

She waved him back, waiting to speak until they were safely ensconced in the office once again. The housekeeper, Mrs. Fitzgerald, had a light burning down the hall. The last thing Abigail needed was to rouse her. “I don’t know what I was thinking, Bran. I need your help to move the body.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Around to the
cellar
, Miss? I don’t think you and I could carry it so far.”

He was right. That was why she usually had the resurrectionists do it; most arrived with a cart. And this was a particularly big corpse, which meant it would be heavier than usual.

“Just into the operating theatre, then,” she said. “We will let Mr. Holthouse or whoever is lecturing tomorrow discover it in the morning.”

The porter’s already ashen face turned a shade paler than moonlight. “You’re going to . . . to
leave
it there, Miss?”

“Why not?”

“The maids will discover it first. You will frighten them to death!”

“Fine, we will put it in the large hamper I have been using to save cast-off clothing for the rag-and-bone man. Run and grab it from the attic.”

“Yes, mum.”

She frowned at the filthy sack while she waited and was relieved when he returned right away. “You didn’t see Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

“She is snoring with her chin on her chest and her needlework in her lap.”

“Good.” Their work was almost done. Once one of the faculty took charge of the cadaver, he would pack it in salt to preserve it for as long as possible. Even with salt, most of its parts wouldn’t last more than a couple of months. And then she would be faced with the daunting task of purchasing
another
cadaver.

But not from the London Supply Company. She would steer clear of them at all costs.

“Won’t your father and the others wonder how a body got in the rag hamper?” Bransby asked.

“They might wonder, but I doubt they will seek the answer with any diligence. They never said a word about the three I put in the cellar last year, did they?”

“I wouldn’t know, miss.”

“I’m telling you they didn’t. There are four anatomists at this school, every one of them in desperate need of a specimen. They will each assume it was one of the others and be grateful. In any case, being a woman and my father’s daughter, I am the last person anyone would suspect.”

“Evidently they don’t know you the way I do.”

Hearing his sarcasm, Abigail nudged him. “Few people know me as well as you do,” she said. “So come on. This should only take a minute, but it will be heavy.”

Reluctantly, Bransby situated himself beside her and they each took hold of the sack.

“On the count of three,” Abigail said, ignoring his pained expression. “One, two,
three
.” By some miracle, they managed to heave the corpse into the hamper, but just as they lifted that, her father’s voice sounded outside in the corridor.

“How nice of you to wait up for me, Mrs. Fitzgerald.”

With a worried mewl, Bransby nearly let go. Only a fierce scowl from Abigail kept him on task. “Steady,” she advised as they staggered toward their goal.

“I wait up for you every time you go out, Mr. Hale.” Mrs. Fitzgerald seemed to be following him down the hall. “You should be used to it by now. I can’t sleep till you’re safe in bed; that’s a fact. Shall I make some tea?”

“Take the tea,” Abigail muttered. Exhausted, she and Bransby were forced to lower the hamper. They could no longer carry it, but they couldn’t leave it where it was, either. So they started bumping it and scooting it across the floor.

“No, no, it’s much too late for that,” her father said. “I’ll just retrieve the journal I was reading and take it with me to my chambers.”

“I noticed the latest issue of
The Lancet
has arrived.”

“I will have a look tomorrow. Is Abby asleep?”

“Aye. She went up over two hours ago.”

Bransby stiffened as her father’s footsteps drew near. Abigail nearly had to drag the corpse herself. “Don’t give up on me,” she whispered harshly. “When I open the door, you swing your end around and pull while I push. Got it? We’re almost there—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fitzgerald.” Her father’s voice filtered into the room again. “I don’t know what Abby and I would do without you. Please, get some rest.”

Bransby jerked the hamper around as her father, presumably, turned the knob. Strengthened by her alarm, Abigail gave her new acquisition a final shove, unwittingly causing the porter to fall and the hamper to go down with him. The sack containing the corpse must have caught on the wicker sides when the body tumbled out because Abigail caught sight of a man’s hairy arse as the corpse landed on top of the poor servant. She knew Bran had to be horrified, but there was no time to help him.

She closed the theatre door as her father walked into the office.

“Abby, my love.” He blinked at her in surprise. “What are you doing here? Mrs. Fitzgerald said you went to bed hours ago.”

Abigail leaned against the door that hid Bransby and the cadaver and tried to speak above the pounding of her heart. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to . . . to get a book.”

Her voice sounded too high-pitched, even to her own ears. But, by some miracle, Edwin Hale didn’t seem to notice.

“What am I going to do with you, my girl?” He crossed to his desk and began thumbing through papers. Although he was nearing sixty, he had aged well. Thanks to a full head of white hair, a tall physique and a rather austere presence, he looked every bit the distinguished surgeon. He could easily have remarried had he wished to do so, but ever since they lost her mother, medicine had become the sole love of his life. He didn’t even socialize much. The opera, where he had spent the evening, remained one of his few indulgences.

“Why do you need to do anything with me?” Abigail asked.

His attention fixed on some medical document, he said, “You have studied almost every anatomy book I possess. You pore over the latest
Lancet
before I can even get to it. And you beg me constantly to admit you to the college. Your Aunt Emily says it’s not natural.”

“What’s so unnatural about an interest in medicine?” Abigail took up their old argument with enough passion to justify raising her voice. Thanks to some shuffling and a few groans emanating from the operating theatre, she feared Bransby would get them caught.

Fortunately, Edwin Hale remained preoccupied with whatever he was reading. “What? Oh yes, well, you know how I feel about that. There is nothing more intriguing than medicine. But you are a woman, after all, and Aunt Emily insists I have ruined you. I received a letter from her just today, scolding me for not sending you to her last summer as I promised. She says you will never marry unless you learn your rightful place in the world.”

Abigail made a face. “And where is that, pray tell? Darning socks in some parlor? Too bad Aunt Emily has nothing better to do than spend her time worrying about me and heckling you.”

“Ah, but I fear she may have a point.”

“What do I care about catching a husband?” She tapped her foot, allowing her pout to linger in case he looked up to see it, which he didn’t. “A man would only try to force me into a similarly dull life. I could never bear it. I don’t wish to leave you—or the college.”

“As much as I would miss you, my dear—”

A loud crash caused Abigail to jump and her father to look up.

“What was that?” he asked with a perplexed frown.

Abigail leaned against the door and thumped the wooden panel with her elbow to warn Bransby to silence. The terror of his situation seemed to be sending the man mad, but Abigail needed a few moments more. “What? Oh, that was me, bumping into the door.”

A gasp, a rattle and another thud called her a liar.

“By Jove, I believe someone’s in the theatre!” After retrieving the pistol she had returned only moments before, he took the lamp from the desk and headed toward her.

Abigail’s hopes of escaping this night without further incidence disappeared. Her prospects would be ruined—and all because of
Wilder
.

“Perhaps I should go stay with Aunt Emily for a brief time, just to appease her,” she said, blocking her father’s path. He wouldn’t hesitate to cart her off to her aunt’s small estate in Herefordshire if he discovered she had involved herself in the purchase of a cadaver. No matter how lofty her intentions, such evidence of unladylike conduct would, no doubt, convince him that his sister had been right all along.

Her capitulation didn’t seem to faze him. The same razor-sharp focus he used in his work was now trained on solving the mystery of what he had heard.

“See that you stay behind me. I will not have you harmed.”

Abigail tried to think of an excuse for what her father was about to see, but her mind went blank. She had gotten herself into scrapes before, many that required quick thinking and a glib tongue, but never had she been caught so red-handed.

Holding his candle aloft, he motioned for her to step aside. The dissection room was quiet, but the silence came far too late to stop him from venturing within.

Resigned to her fate, Abigail finally did as she was told.

Her father cracked open the door and held the lamp high. “Who’s there?”

Her heart heavy in her chest, Abigail followed him inside. He rarely grew angry enough to berate her with any real conviction, but the few times he had lost his temper had left an indelible impression on her mind. She feared this would be one of those occasions.

“I’m sorry, Father. I know I was wrong to—” Her words fell off as she saw that the room was empty. The hamper and Bransby were both gone. So were the cadaver and its sack. Only some dirt remained.

Her father didn’t seem to have heard her. Intent on his purpose, he crossed to a door that stood open on the opposite side and called back. “Look at this! It appears someone tried to break in, although what they would want to steal from in here is a mystery to me.”

Abigail rushed over to see what he had found. The window in the office opposite her father’s was open, letting in a cold breeze—and, sure enough, several marks on the sill indicated a tool had been used to force it open.

“Whoever it was is gone now,” he added.

Abigail didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to think. Where was Bransby? What the devil had happened?

She was contemplating telling her father the truth, in case Bransby needed help, when her father gave a short cry of alarm and stuck his head out the window. “What are you doing in the alley, poor man? Come back inside. Here, I will let you in.”

Abigail’s chest constricted. That had to be Bran. Was the body out there with him?

Hurrying to beat her father to the door, she opened it for their porter. Bran was rumpled and slightly battered, but he didn’t appear seriously injured. Neither did he have her cadaver with him. At least, she saw no hint of it. No hamper. No sack. Nothing. “Are you hurt?”

“What happened?” Her father skirted past her.

The servant sent an accusing glare at Abigail. “I tried to stop them, sir.”

“
Who
?
”

“The thieves, of course.” Abigail ushered the porter inside, giving his arm a meaningful pinch in the process. “Bran was probably banking all the fires when he heard the same noise we did and came to investigate. Isn’t that right, Bran?”