‘Can I see them?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Their faces, I mean.’
Reynell regarded him oddly. ‘What for? I assure you Webb is not here. I was told he was interred with great pomp in St Paul’s Cathedral.’
‘Then you will not mind humouring me,’ said Chaloner, indicating the nearest body.
The clerk shrugged. ‘I suppose it is all right, although it is not a very nice thing to ask.’
He lifted the cover, and Chaloner was hard-pressed to prevent himself from recoiling. The face had not been immune from the anatomists’ knives, and had been peeled away to reveal the skull underneath. The torso had been crudely stitched back together, but the single rapier hole in the skin of the chest was still identifiable, and so were the grazes on the knees. Webb was still above ground, and Reynell was wrong in declaring otherwise.
‘Do you have a name for this man?’ Chaloner asked.
Reynell consulted a ledger. ‘Martin Webster from Ludgate Gaol – brained by a fellow inmate while awaiting trial for burglary. You can check with the warden, if you do not believe me.’
Martin Webster, Matthew Webb. Chaloner supposed a clerical error might have seen the wrong man delivered to Chyrurgeons’ Hall. Webb would have been kept in his house from his death to his burial, so the hiccup must have occurred after the funeraclass="underline" the vergers had allowed the mourners to leave before tipping Webb from his casket and squashing him inside the bishop’s sarcophagus. Ludgate was close to St Paul’s, so it was possible that Martin Webster had been granted a religious ceremony in the cathedral before being shipped off to the surgeons – and the bodies had been confused at that point. But surely the vergers could tell the difference between a plump merchant and an emaciated prisoner? Or had they just thought that Webster would be an easier fit in a small space, and had made a decision based on the fact that no one was ever likely to know?
Reynell covered the body. ‘You see? Just a felon.’
‘Yes,’ said Chaloner, keeping his conclusions to himself. He lifted the sheet from the next corpse – because Reynell did not know he had already identified Webb, he was obliged to inspect the rest for appearance’s sake – but the subject had been dissected so thoroughly that there was nothing left but bones and a mess of pale organs. The same was true of the next two, but when Chaloner moved towards the last one, the clerk turned away.
It was Fitz-Simons, complete with a hole in his chest that had been made by the ball from a gun. Chaloner glanced him over briefly, but could see no other marks, and he knew from the wars that such a large wound so near the heart would have been instantly fatal. So, Fitz-Simons had not disappeared after all, but had died when May had shot him.
‘Richard Fitz-Simons was a good friend,’ said Reynell softly. ‘And a member of the Company.’
‘How does he come to be here?’
Reynell’s face was a mask of anguish. ‘Because Wiseman managed to inspect the body of the “beggar” everyone was calling an assassin, and recognised it as Fitz-Simons’s. We were terrified that someone would identify him, and that his actions – whatever they were – would reflect badly on the whole Company. So we spirited him away without anyone knowing. Will you tell May?’
Chaloner shook his head. ‘Why is he not buried? Surely it is safer to put him in the ground?’
‘Because his last will and testament specified that his cadaver was to be used for education.’ Reynell’s voice cracked; he grieved for the man. ‘We plan to hold a special dissection next week. Lisle will give a new lecture on the lungs, Wiseman will expound on the bladder, and Johnson will take the musculature. They have vowed to lay their differences aside and do justice to Fitz-Simons’s generous spirit. We shall revere his memory, and our apprentices will never forget him.’
Chaloner was sure he was right. ‘Wiseman told me surgeons do not dissect their colleagues.’
Reynell gave a humourless smile. ‘What would you expect him to say? That any dead medicus who wills us his corpse is eagerly received? We would lose our royal charter!’
It all sounded very gruesome to Chaloner. He walked back up the stairs and into the daylight with considerable relief, Reynell following. ‘Did you ever meet Webb?’
Reynell nodded. ‘Several times, all when he was threatening members of the Company with legal action. He was an odious man. Wiseman in particular despised him, and they had a blazing row on the night Webb was killed.’
‘Did they?’ asked Chaloner encouragingly. He wondered whether there was anyone in London who had not argued with the merchant that fateful night.
Reynell nodded again. ‘At the Guinea Company dinner. I was invited because my brother is a member, and Webb and Wiseman had some sort of disagreement over the morality of slavery.’
‘Wiseman was at the dinner? He told me he was not.’
Reynell became flustered. ‘Did he? Perhaps I am mistaken, then. Yes! It must have been another evening, and not the day Webb died. I am always getting confused. Please ignore what I just said, and put it down to fatigue. I have been working my fingers to the bone in readiness for Saturday. You do believe, me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ hedged Chaloner, supposing he had better tackle Wiseman himself, although it would not be a comfortable discussion – the surgeon would not take kindly to being called a liar.
The Anatomical Theatre was almost full, and the dissection was about to begin. The body to be anatomised lay naked except for a cloth across its face, and Reynell was telling porters where to put the ones that were to be used for comparative purposes. Wiseman was already looming over a podium, while Lisle stood ready to begin cutting on his command. Chaloner loitered in the doorway, watching the surgeons and their audience. He was startled to recognise Behn in the front row, sitting next to Johnson, who looked as though he was giving the merchant a lecture on the theatre’s architecture. Behn looked bored, and handed him something from a bag, clearly as a way to stem the tide of unwanted information. It was a pair of silver spoons.
Wiseman cleared his throat, and an expectant hush fell over the gathering. ‘Today, I shall share with you the mysteries of the bladder,’ he declared. ‘Master Lisle will make the first incision, revealing the distinct layers of the abdominal cavity.’
Chaloner winced as Lisle began to wield a sharp knife, making clean, practised cuts to reveal a layer of pale-yellow fat below the white skin. A film of connective tissue proved difficult to incise, and Lisle was obliged to exert more force. As he did so, the cloth fell away from the corpse’s face and Chaloner gazed in shock when he recognised the small, pinched features of Thomas Sarsfeild the confectioner. There was a red ring around his neck. Like Fanning, he had been strangled.
Chapter 10
There was something about the cool precision with which the surgeons treated the hapless Sarsfeild that disconcerted Chaloner. He had seen wounds and deaths aplenty, but it was not the same as watching a corpse methodically stripped of skin, muscles and whatever lay beneath, and he found he did not like it at all. He left abruptly, and when Reynell reminded him that he was expected at the Public Anatomy in two days’ time, Chaloner only just resisted the urge to tell him to go to Hell.
It was a long way from Chyrurgeons’ Hall to Lincoln’s Inn, and by the time he reached Thurloe’s chambers, having taken a tortuous route to ensure he was not followed, the spy was tired, hot and thirsty. There was no reason to suppose anyone was watching him, but it had been a difficult few days – he had been knocked to the ground, poisoned, attacked with swords, subjected to improper surgical procedures and shot at – and his instincts warned him to take more than his usual care. He tapped softly on Thurloe’s door, which was opened by Leybourn.