Tarnished Knight - By Bec McMaster Page 0,8
were you and your lads just gettin’ set to ‘ead out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wouldn’t do to ‘ave some of me boys come around diggin’,” Rip said deliberately, knowing full well what the disgraced doctor paid some of the local grave-robbers for. Creavey’s obsession with death was so far harmless; as long as it stayed that way Blade intended to leave him alone. He had his uses.
Creavey paled. “I suppose I can spare you a few minutes. Through here, if you will.”
The small set of rooms Creavey let were above a shop. They consisted of two separate rooms for his bedchambers and a small sitting room, connected to his surgery by a long, glass-roofed hallway that served as his laboratory. Chemical smells permeated the air. Rip took a sniff but it wasn’t quite the same scent as had been used at Liza Kent’s. That had seemed to burn in his nostrils and obliterate any chance of smelling anything else for hours – this was a combination that reminded him of the dizzying rush when they’d taken the mangled remains of his arm off after the accident and grafted the steel socket straight into his shoulder joint. Creavey’s rooms always made him feel uneasy, his head spinning. Best to get this over with quickly.
He strode through into the laboratory and dumped Flash Jacky on the long bench that lined the wall. Pots and burners slid out of the way of the body, a variety of metal implements scattered on every possible inch of bench. A dead rat was pinned to the timber, its intestines spread as if someone had been examining it in delicate curiosity. Rip’s lip curled. Bloody dead things. Place always gave him a shiver.
“Not there.” Creavey sighed in exasperation. “The surgery.”
With a grunt Rip hauled the body up and followed Creavey into the small room. Two sheets were draped over a pair of still forms on the steel examination tables. Creavey directed him toward the last table and then dragged his stained apron off its hook. It strained over his rounded belly.
Rip stared at one of the other bodies beneath the sheet, smelling the stale hint of graveside dirt and rot. “What ‘ave you got ‘ere?”
“Arsenic poisoning,” Creavey replied in a distracted voice. “A long, slow case of it, by the look of the white lines on his fingernails and his thinning hair. The wife, I suspect. Barely any mystery at all. So what have you bought me?” Creavey tugged a pair of goggles over his head.
“You tell me,” Rip replied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the doorjamb. The scent was different here, reminding him somewhat of what had been dropped at Liza Kent’s place. “What’s that smell?”
“Formaldehyde,” Creavey replied, gesturing toward the shelves and the glass jars with their gruesome displays.
“Many people get their ‘ands on it?”
“It’s not difficult to buy. Most doctors or surgeons will have it. Some chemists.”
Rip paced the far end of the room, tempted to scrub at the tiny erect hairs on his arm. An unnaturally pale hand hung out from under the far examination table, a puckered red line across the wrist. Not difficult to guess what the cause of death there was. Rip turned around, unnerved by how white the woman’s skin was. Drained by her own hand.
Hanging a lantern high against a mirrored backdrop that reflected the light down onto the body, Creavey cut the blanket off Flash Jacky and leaned closer. Dragging the amplifying goggles down over his eyes, he peered through them, using a pair of long metal forceps to tug the scraps of fabric out of the way. “Hmm.”
Creavey measured the length of the cut. “This was an upward slash,” he muttered. “Left handed, by the look of the angle.” Leaning closer, he hooked the tip of his forceps inside the ragged top edge of the wound and peered inside. “Jaysus.”
“What is it?” Rip asked, striding closer.
The good doctor had paled; whatever it was, it had to be dire. “I’m not sure yet… Here, hand me that scalpel.”
Rip paced the concrete floor near the drain as the doctor sliced Flash Jacky open from throat to pelvis to examine the internal damage. Using shears and a saw, Creavey snipped through the rib cage until Rip had to turn away and stare at the wall. He was no stranger to violence but this… this was somehow impersonal. Cold and calculating.
“Here,” Creavey called and pointed. “The weapon came up beneath the sternum – an upward thrust