lit for the evening or had somehow been extinguished—I was inclined to lean towards the latter. Tall hedges surrounded this side of the building, blocking the view of Swift’s Hospital for Lunatics, but they did not block the screams. They grew louder as we neared the door, as if the residents trapped in Swift’s sensed our presence and called out to us across the dark field. If Thornley heard the outbursts, he did not acknowledge them. He went to the door while glancing back over his shoulder with a wary eye. He twisted the knob and, finding it locked, pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket. “We keep keys to the hospital in our administration office. In return, they retain a set of keys to Swift’s Hospital for us. We have a fairly friendly relationship, sharing supplies and whatnot. In my early days at Swift’s, I was cross-trained on rotation over here and I am familiar with most of the layout. Should I be discovered in the morgue or elsewhere in the hospital, it most likely wouldn’t raise the alarm. But I’m not certain how they would react to the likes of you.”
“If caught, we will just stick to our story,” Matilda replied.
Thornley and I nodded in agreement.
I watched as he tried several keys from the ring before finding the one that fit. He inserted it in the lock.
* * *
? ? ?
10 AUGUST 1868, 11:36 p.m.—The south entrance door opened into a narrow hallway lit by a single lamp at the far end. Judging by the dust raised with our every step, the corridor witnessed scant traffic. We closed the door behind us and followed Thornley. His shadow seemed to stretch out a dozen feet or more, then grew shorter as we neared the other side. Thankfully, we left the screams outside, although they still rang in my head.
At the end of the hallway, we turned a sharp left, nearly running into a stout little man pulling a loaded cart covered with a brown tarp. I dared not think what was under that tarp, and the man’s blank stare offered nothing by way of information. I fully expected him to stop and question our being here, but instead he nodded at Thornley and passed by Matilda and me as if we weren’t there at all. We slowed our pace until he disappeared through double doors halfway down the corridor, then quickened again as Thornley led us in the direction from which the man had come. At first, I didn’t notice the slight decline in the floor, but as we progressed farther down the hall, the angle became more pronounced; we, in fact, were descending. Of course, it made sense that the morgue would be located in the basement, that stairs would prove too difficult to facilitate the rolling in of corpses, so the floor had been angled at an accommodating pitch, with just a single switchback, thus allowing for ease of access to the lower level.
When we reached the door, Thornley motioned for us to stop. “Wait here. I want to check if anyone is inside.” He pushed through the door, closing it behind him.
“It’s cold down here,” Matilda said.
I had to agree. The temperature dropped noticeably as we followed the hallway, so much so my breath was steaming visibly. “We won’t be long.” I could think of nothing else to say. We both should have been sound asleep in our beds at this hour, yet here we were in the basement of the hospital, preparing to identify the body of a man who had died not once but possibly twice, the first time being almost fourteen years prior.
Thornley returned moments later and beckoned us to follow him back inside. He held the door open as we passed.
I was immediately taken by the enormity of the room; I believe it occupied the entire footprint of the hospital. I found it unnervingly quiet, too, only the hiss of a gas lamp intruding on the silence. There was row upon row of tables. The room smelled sickly; a cloud of vinegar hung heavily in the clammy air, so much so that my eyes began to water. It was the underlying scent, though, that gave me pause: a sweet scent with a distinctly