Graham’s clammy forehead. “You mustn’t exert yourself. Here.” She poured out a glass of water from the china decanter and held it to his lips.
He drank but a short time and then feebly turned his head away, water dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Then he was trying to speak again.
Tabby leaned down close, trying to catch the broken and raspy words. She had thought he was past the time for speech, but he seemed agitated, desperate to get words out.
“They must not... Do not let them take me...” His glazed eyes were wide with panic, his chest rising and falling much too quickly.
Tabby dabbed at his perspiring temples. It was not uncommon for the dying to express last fears or terror of the unknown. “Let me fetch your son and his wife.”
Even as she made the offer, she knew that it would bring him little comfort; she had seen the way his family disdained him, had no desire to sit with him in his final hours and leaving him in the care of a stranger.
“No,” he rasped. “I have done wicked, wicked things. But I beg of you, do not let them take me when my time is come. Do not let them do to my body what I allowed to happen to so many.”
Something in his tone made Tabby pause and take notice. This was more than just the ordinary regrets of a dying man. “Who?” she asked. “Who would come for you?”
Mr. Graham went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Such terrible, terrible things. For science, yes, but at the cost of morality and God’s will. Oh, just let my aching body rest in peace, even if I prevented others from doing so. God must forgive me.”
The clock ticked away, and Tabby wet her lips. “What terrible things?” she managed to whisper.
Suddenly he was sitting bolt upright in bed, letting out a hair-raising howl as the sheets fell away from him. “Let the dead lie! Let the dead lie! Let the dead lie!”
Tabby stood to try to cajole him back down, but then his eyes went lucid, and he grabbed her by the wrist. She sucked in her breath as he yanked her down close to him. His breath was hot and sour. “The things they do are unnatural, unholy. I am as guilty as the rest, but I repent! I repent now!”
She willed herself not to flinch at his touch. “What do you repent for? Can you tell me?”
He turned his gaze on hers, holding it with startling intensity. “The resurrection men. They have taken to heart the full meaning of their name. At first it was just paupers and criminals, and when it was for the advancement of medicine that would save lives, it seemed a small enough price to pay. But now they go too far, it has all become too terrible.”
He closed his eyes before continuing. “To bring back the dead. Oh, but you have never seen such a ghastly sight as an electric current running through a corpse, making them jerk and dance like puppets. And does it work? Never! The poor souls are no more alive than they were before, and their mangled bodies are fed to the pigs.” His eyes flew open, spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth, “Now do you see? You must swear to me that you will not let them take me. Swear it!”
He broke off in a fit of phlegmy coughing. Tabby pressed him further. “Who are the resurrection men?”
He gasped for breath. “Powerful men, men you wouldn’t want to cross.”
“How am I to stop them from taking you if I don’t know who they are?”
It looked as if he was just about to say something when another coughing fit overtook him. When it had passed, Mr. Graham closed his eyes, his head slumping back against his pillows as he labored to breathe. “Harvard. They hide behind the veneer of learning, but what they do has little to do with education and progress, and everything to do with hubris and the desire to play God.”
Tabby’s mind raced. She grasped his hands in hers and squeezed hard, as if that could wring more information from him. “Who at Harvard? Who else is involved? Did Rose Hammond’s murder have something to do with it?”
But her questions fell on unhearing ears. Mr. Graham gave a rattling breath, and then was still.
The clock ticked on, and, left alone with her roiling thoughts, Tabby sat and watched.