Murdoch had been sitting in Humphrey’s embalming room for at least half an hour. Daniel Cooke was lying on his back on the gurney in the centre of the room. His skin was fishbelly grey and he was already beginning to smell. The only sound that disturbed the thick silence of death was the buzzing of two or three elusive flies. They were hovering around the corpse and had so far managed to evade Murdoch’s attempts to get rid of them. The door swung open and Professor Broske and Dr. Ogden bustled in.
“I do apologize for keeping you waiting, Mr. Murdoch,” said Dr. Ogden. “Professor Broske was showing me some utterly fascinating photographs he took recently of a young patient who had broken his elbow. It fixed in place, alas, and had to be straightened. The doctor used his camera to record the young boy’s expressions throughout the entire procedure. Quite amazing.”
“That must have been painful for the boy,” said Murdoch.
“Dreadfully so,” answered Broske. “He was a brave young lad, but his face revealed everything. It was extremely distressing to witness.”
Not to mention experience, thought Murdoch.
Broske slipped on one of the holland aprons hanging on hooks by the door. Dr. Ogden did likewise.
“Miss Julia has invited me to do the examination,” he said. “I am so happy to be given this opportunity.”
Why the man had taken to calling her that, Murdoch didn’t know, but she seemed to like it and smiled prettily.
“I will be writing down the notes,” she said.
“Before we start, Dr. Ogden, I have a request. One of my constables found some objects in the stable that I’d like to have examined more closely. They’re over on the shelf wrapped in newspaper. I also found what is very likely the horsewhip that was used on Cooke. I’ve put that there also.”
“I’ll look at them afterwards. Professor Broske can corroborate my findings for me.”
“Delighted to.”
That little preamble taken care of, the professor got to work. The first part of the post-mortem he conducted in the conventional way, leaving the corpse clothed and simply dictating notes as to what he observed as he walked around the gurney.
“Daniel Cooke was well nourished, almost too much so. His height is five feet, ten and one-quarter inches. At time of death, he was dressed in a pair of plaid trousers, brown socks, and boots, no shirt or undergarment. All garments are of good quality. Mr. Murdoch, I will leave it to you to write out the report concerning his other apparel.”
While he was waiting for them to arrive, Murdoch had done just that. Nothing new had been revealed.
Broske called over to him, “Mr. Murdoch? Help me turn him over, will you?”
Together they rolled over the body. “We have already remarked on the nature of the wounds to his back, but perhaps you could note down our observations now, Miss Julia? He has been struck many times. I will endeavour to make a more precise count, but as they overlap we might not be able to be completely exact. The marks appear to be slightly deeper on his left side and more concentrated on the lower end of the torso.” Broske smiled at Murdoch. “What would you say that indicates?”
“His assailant was short. Or certainly shorter than Mr. Cooke. Even allowing for the fact that he had been hoisted up, the strikes of the whip didn’t reach up any farther than his shoulder blades. And the assailant was right-handed.”
“Very good, very good. I agree with that, don’t you, Miss Julia?”
“I do.”
Together they examined Cooke’s back, disputing in a friendly way whether that stripe or this was an overlay or not. Finally, Broske straightened up.
“I would say he was struck between thirty-seven and thirty-nine times, but some of the blows were done after death.”
“And I agree with that assessment,” added Dr. Ogden. “The lashes as they cross here and here have broken the skin, which to me indicates that the perpetrator was becoming more ferocious as he continued.”
The professor nodded. “That happens. When I was serving in the army, I saw men completely lose their tempers over the most trivial incident, but once they had embarked, the rage seemed to overtake them and they would have killed if not separated. Dogs are the same.”
He began to undo Cooke’s trouser buttons. “If you’ll remove the boots, Murdoch, it will be easier to take off his trolleywags, if I may use such an expression.”
They worked together while Dr. Ogden watched. Underneath his trousers, Cooke was wearing flannel underwear, which Broske pulled off.
“Ah look at that.” He poked at the flaccid penis. “I’d say the man had at least one bout with venereal disease, wouldn’t you, Miss Julia?”
She leaned forward to take a look, and Broske cradled Cooke’s member in his hand.
“Yes, indeed. That’s quite a scar. A large chancre.”
“He must have contracted it some time ago, it’s not recent. So far, I don’t see any other signs of syphilis, but we’ll see more when we open up his brain. Mr. Murdoch, will you be so good as to wheel over the instrument trolley. I’ll need the scalpel first.”
He proceeded to make an incision across the top of Cooke’s head from ear to ear. He pulled back the scalp.
“Pass me the saw, if you please, Mr. Murdoch.”
Murdoch thought he would rather prefer to take notes than be the assistant, but it was too late now. Broske sawed through the skull, removed the dome, put it in a dish, severed the nerves, then lifted out the brain, which was the size of his fist.
“Ah good, the brain looks normal, fortunately for his wife. There is no current disease that I can see.”
He held it in his hand for a moment, then lifted it to the light. “Often in contemplating the brain of one of my patients, when it was visible to me, I have pondered over its structure and functions and seeing the blood coursing through it, I have imagined that I might penetrate into the inner life of the brain cells. I have thought I might learn the laws of organic change, the order, the harmony, the most perfect concatenations, but I must admit, I never yet saw anything, not the faintest gleam that gave me hope of penetrating to the source of thought.”
He spoke with such yearning and reverence that Murdoch was astonished. As for Dr. Ogden, she was staring at Broske trans-fixed.
She spoke softly. “I myself have had such similar feelings. We know so little, do we not? I often think it is as if we are at the very base of the mountain that towers above us in all its grandeur and in our lifetime we can expect to climb only a few feet, hoping that the next generation will go on toward the top.”
There was silence while Broske laid Cooke’s brain in the dish. Murdoch didn’t utter his own thoughts, but he didn’t have to. There was an unspoken sympathy among the three of them.
Broske returned to his job. He was meticulous and thorough and moved quickly. He opened up the front of Cooke’s chest and removed his heart.
“My, my, look at that. There is an equal amount of blood in each cavity. I would say that Mr. Cooke died from shock brought about by an intense emotion.” He glanced over at Murdoch and Dr. Ogden. “I have it on the best authority that the human heart is capable of breaking in twain if confronted by grief. A certain captain came home to port expecting to be greeted by ’is beloved wife and children only to be informed that all of them had perished in a fire. He dropped to the ground dead, and when the post-mortem examination was conducted it was discovered his heart had literally burst.”
“Do you think sorrow killed Mr. Cooke?” asked Dr. Ogden.
“Not necessarily. Any of the most powerful emotions can cause such a shock, even joy. But given the lividity in his face when we found him, I would say it more likely that he died from sheer terror. He struggled against his fate. In another man, whatever emotion he went through might not have killed him, but you can observe here that the pulmonary artery is thickened.”
Dr. Ogden leaned forward. “And see the roughness of his liver. I’d say that was early stages of cirrhosis.”
“Quite so. Well, let us continue. I’ll take that knife, please, Mr. Murdoch.”
Murdoch handed him a long knife from the tray. Broske plunged it underneath Cooke’s jaw and thrust upward, then he drew two lines away from the incision on either side. The whole of the lower jaw dropped, revealing the knife sticking up in the mouth.
“Would you be so good as to grasp hold of the tongue, Mr. Murdoch, and pull it forward so I can get to the pharynx.”
Murdoch thought it was possibly the most unpleasant thing he had ever been asked to do, but his pride was involved now and he wasn’t about to back away. He grasped the muscular cold piece of meat that had once served Daniel Cooke to utter words of many hues and tugged it out of the way until the professor had removed the pharynx, larynx, and the upper esophagus and examined them.
“No blockage anywhere. No bruising on the carotid arteries. He wasn’t strangled or suffocated. He did vomit, but it did not get swallowed so his air passages are clear. Oh dear, Mr. Murdoch, you’ve stained your cuff.”
“I’ll replace it later.”
“We’re nearing the end. Let’s take out the bladder and the urethra. They have emptied, which is quite normal with sudden death. I’ll do the stomach next, Miss Julia. A ligature, if you please.”
She handed him a long piece of twine, and he tied off the upper end of the stomach, then knotted two other pieces at the other end. He cut the stomach away and laid it on the tray.
“We’ll put the contents in one of those glass jars, please, Mr. Murdoch. They’ll have to be examined more closely later on.”
Murdoch gave him the jar, and he emptied the contents of the stomach into it, squeezing the organ as if it were a bagpipe.
“He certainly didn’t have time to digest his supper before he died.”
That fit in with what Mrs. Cooke had told Murdoch about Cooke being called from the dinner table before he’d finished eating.
“Now we’ll do the same with the intestines, and, Miss Julia, I’d be grateful if you would take care of labelling the jars.”
“I will indeed.”
Broske stepped away from the gurney and surveyed his handiwork. “I don’t know if I speak for you, Miss Julia, but no matter how many dissections I have performed, I never fail to be in awe of the wondrous workings and mechanics of the human body.”
She beamed. “You do indeed speak for me, doctor.”
Murdoch surveyed the bloody carcass. Broske had a point, but all Murdoch could see was a body that has been cut into pieces and whose various organs were distributed like meat in a market. Then to his surprise, the doctor said, “Poor fellow. I don’t know what his life was like or his character, but it is hard not to feel a twinge of pity for him.” He crossed himself. “May God have mercy on his soul.”
“Amen,” said Murdoch, and he crossed himself likewise.
Dr. Ogden nodded.