The Lazarus Curse (Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery) Read online

  Thomas flung the snake to the ground and it slithered off into the shadows, sending the chickens squawking and flapping into a frenzy.

  “So tell us, old man, what do you do with the slaves who come to you looking for freedom?” asked Thomas. He was advancing on the priest so that he was forced to slump onto his chair.

  Narrowing his eyes, he seemed confused by the question. He shook his head. “I no kill slaves,” he protested. “They go sleep, then wake up free.” His tongue flapped inside his mouth and a spool of saliva hung down.

  Sharp frowned crossly. “He talks gibberish, Silkstone.”

  Thomas raised a hand. “Perhaps not,” he replied calmly.

  Bending down so that he faced the man in all his hideousness, he said, “Where do they wake up free?”

  The obeah-man tittered. “In Africa, of course,” he said, nodding his head.

  “What? The man’s a demented idiot!” cried Sharp, but Thomas silenced him.

  “It may not be as mad a notion as it sounds,” he told him, wagging his finger. “The Quakers talk of freedom and to many of the slaves that is synonymous with their homeland.” He looked about the cobweb-covered shelves. “What do you give them, old man, these slaves who would be free?”

  The obeah-man hobbled over to the large glass jar that took pride of place on his shelf and heaved it down. Thomas moved forward and prized off the lid. Bending over the jar’s neck, he sniffed at the contents, then delved into it, pulling out a handful of leaves. Holding them to the light, he inspected them closely, then began to shake his head. The distinctive leaves were familiar to him.

  “What is it, Silkstone?” asked Sharp anxiously.

  “If I am not very much mistaken, sir, these are from the branched calalue, a poisonous plant that seems to kill anyone who drinks it. In reality, however, it only slows down all the vital organs so that those who drink it have the appearance of being dead.”

  A look of concern scudded across Sharp’s face. “And then?”

  “And then they are given an antidote that seemingly brings them back to life.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “This is the physic that Dr. Welton called the Lazarus potion. It can raise the dead.” He turned to the obeah-man. “Is that not right, my friend?”

  The old man lifted his half-chewed lip into a smile.

  “Yeah. Yeah!” He nodded.

  “Only in these cases, I am afraid no antidote is ever administered and the victims are dispatched, still alive, to be cut up on the dissecting table for profit.”

  “No!” shouted the old man, shaking his head vigorously. “No true!”

  “I am afraid it is,” came a voice in the doorway.

  “Venus?” called Thomas, squinting into the darkness on the other side of the room.

  “Yes, Dr. Silkstone. It is me,” she replied, gliding into the pool of candlelight.

  “You know this woman?” asked Sharp.

  “She is a slave and housekeeper to a plantation owner,” Thomas explained. He turned back to Venus and fixed her with a stare. “So you are the one.”

  “I do not understand!” snapped Sharp.

  Thomas, keeping his eyes on Venus, began to enlighten his friend. “I knew in all of this there had to be someone the slaves would trust; a go-between who would convince them that the obeah-man’s potion could somehow liberate them; that if they drank it they would wake up free.”

  Venus stepped forward, her composure suddenly deserting her. “I had no choice. I was forced.”

  “Who forced you, Venus? Who is behind all of this? Samuel Carfax, is it not?” He had seen master and housekeeper exchange furtive looks in the bedchamber when they thought he was not looking. He was certain she was his mistress as well as his slave.

  Venus shook her head. “It is my missa.”

  Thomas frowned. “Mistress Carfax?” He found the thought so shocking that he let out an involuntary laugh. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he recalled Jeremiah’s account of the man and woman in the boot room. Izzard and Cordelia Carfax were lovers? If that was the case, it was all beginning to make sense, although he still could not fathom the housekeeper’s role in all this. “So you would betray your own kind for her?” he pressed.

  She shook her head despondently. “She promised me my freedom if I helped her.”

  “So you began where the Quakers left off, dangling liberty in front of any slave willing to listen?” Thomas brought a handbill from his pocket. “You knew that some of them would fall into the trap. That they would think they would escape to freedom, when all the while you knew they were going to their deaths?” As his anger mounted, so his voice grew louder. “How many died? Three, four, half a dozen?”

  She shook her head. “I did not want to . . . I . . .” Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “You were trapped.” Thomas made her excuse for her. “Is that it?” He recalled their conversation on the stairway a few weeks back and he realized he had no right to judge a woman in her position. He neither wanted nor needed a response. Instead he changed tack. “But your master knew nothing of this?”

  She choked back her tears and straightened her long neck. “I hate my master as much as I hate her,” she hissed.

  Her logic made sense to Thomas. Hatred was an understandable reaction to her treatment. She had allowed herself to be used by Cordelia Carfax, although it did not excuse her actions. Thomas thought of the little Negro child.

  “You killed Ebele?”

  Venus shook her head. “I tried to save him, Dr. Silkstone, but he was weak.”

  Thomas held her gaze for a moment. “So you dispatched his body for dissection anyway?” He shook his head as he spoke. How sad it was, he thought, that those who were abused in life so often repeated the crimes that had been committed against their own person. She herself had been treated as less than human and that was how, given authority, she treated others.

  She shrugged. “What should a white man care about one black child slave?” she asked.

  “There are those of us who care most deeply,” replied Thomas, resenting her remark and throwing a glance at Sharp.

  He saw her mouth tighten as she lifted her head. “I care, too, Dr. Silkstone. That is why I am here. I care about Phibbah.”

  “Phibbah?” echoed Thomas. He thought of the girl whose simmering resentment had led her to try and poison her mistress. “What of her?”

  “She dead, Dr. Silkstone,” she told him, as calmly as if she were telling the time.

  “How?” Thomas flashed a look of horror at the housekeeper. “You killed her?”

  Venus’s jaw worked uncomfortably. “She was a fool, believing in all this, thinking that obeah could kill the missa,” she said, opening her arms and looking about her at the obeah-man’s paraphernalia. “She was carrying the massa’s child and the missa made her lose it.”

  “And now she lies dead by your hand?” Thomas asked incredulously.

  The housekeeper lifted her gaze. “She no dead, Dr. Silkstone.”

  “What?”

  “She only seem dead. The poison I gave her did not kill her.”

  “She remains alive?”

  “That is why I am here. The obeah-man say he can raise her with the antidote. I want to save her from the knife man, otherwise she will be cut at first light tomorrow morning.”

  “The Lazarus potion,” murmured Thomas.

  “What?” snapped Sharp.

  “The potion I was telling you about, that seems to have the power to raise the dead.” He flashed a look back at Venus. “Where have they taken Phibbah?”

  “To Mr. Izzard’s anatomy school.”

  “I knew it!” Thomas shot a glance at Sharp. “This is how Izzard gets his corpses.”

  Chapter 51

  Phibbah did not know if she was alive or dead. All she sensed was confusion and fear. A strange fog had settled in her head, dulling all her senses. There had been no vision, no dream, no encounter with her ancestors as she ha
d imagined in death. There was no color, no music. Only darkness and silence. Then it occurred to her. What if she was dead and had been buried? Buried alongside the white people in the graveyard where she had collected her grave dirt. Sealed in their coffins and watched over by the women with wings, there was no escape for them. Perhaps she was now trapped, too.

  A terror took hold of her guts and churned them about at the very thought. A pounding thumped inside her head, setting her teeth on edge. And now the fog was lifting. The blackness shifted and shapes began to appear in her head. At first she did not dare open her eyes. She was terrified that all she would see would be the blackness of the earth, that she would be lying entombed. She shivered. It was cold, as cold as the grave. Yet upon her forehead she could feel pricks of sweat. There was the coarseness of the hessian against her skin, too. She inhaled. The air was sharp, but not earthy. It whiffed of something strange and pungent like the missa’s smelling salts. Trying to fill her lungs, she felt them tighten, as if an iron brace had been clamped around her ribs. She sniffed the air and thought she caught the scent of blood, a faint note of it that underlay everything else. It left a sickly taste in her gullet that unnerved her.

  As the fog dispersed it drifted from her ears. Sounds were no longer muffled, but clear—strange creaks, as if from timber. From somewhere nearby came a sudden clank, followed by footsteps, then voices.

  The noises made her stir. One by one she began trying to move her fingers, trying to coax her sluggish blood back to life. But she could not. Next she tried twitching her toes, but they refused her bidding. She tried to gulp down another lungful of air, but found that her chest still resisted her, as if there were hard, flat stones pressing down on her breasts. She was alive, yet she could barely move.

  Slowly, fearfully, she tried raising her lids, as if they were windows opening onto a day that promised either death or deliverance. They unlatched themselves and she blinked. There was daylight, a checkered pattern that imprinted itself on wooden boards through a large pane up high. Light, not earth. She willed her drunken eyes to still in their sockets. Through a blurry haze she could make out rows of wooden benches. Perhaps she was on board a ship. Perhaps Cato had come and rescued her from her sickbed and she was bound for Africa. The sounds she had heard were the familiar creak of the mast and the feet of sailors on the upper decks as they made the vessel ready to cast off and set sail. That was what the obeah-man had tried to tell her. He had said she would know in her heart what path she should take and now she was on her way. That was it! They would leave the freezing, gray waters of England and make for the clear warm seas that washed the white beaches of Africa and all the stories she had heard and all the dreams she had dreamed would be real.

  Phibbah’s heart leapt at the very thought of it and she felt a great surge of joy pulse through her body, making her try and lift her head for the first time. But she could not. Instead she heard a voice, followed by another, oddly familiar, and then she felt a great tug across her torso that robbed her of her breath, followed by a stab of pain. A sharp cry escaped from her lips and she tried to bring her arms up, but they would not move. She tried lifting her legs, but they refused to obey.

  Gasping for breath, she gulped the metallic air that now flooded her nostrils and mouth and terror seized her. She began trying to lash out. But she could not. There was a hurricane in the back of her throat that came rushing forth in a deafening torrent before another stab of pain silenced her.

  They waited, all four of them, in the obeah-man’s room for the rest of the night. The old man had given Thomas a phial that, he swore, contained the antidote for the poison. According to the old man, if its entire contents were poured into Phibbah’s mouth, she would, within the hour, come alive again. Thomas recalled Sir Joseph Banks’s account of the potion. He had shown faith in it and now so must he, despite his misgivings.

  Time had hung slow and heavy and had given Thomas space to reflect. He mused on the small glass bottle he cradled in his hands. The amber liquid held therein looked so innocuous, yet it was so powerful. Could it be that Matthew Bartlett was murdered for its formula when this ugly old toad of a man knew it all along? Surely Cordelia Carfax’s hand was not behind the brutal killing of the artist, too? The more he thought about it, the more disturbed he became and the more convinced he was that he was no nearer to finding out who killed Matthew Bartlett, or, for that matter, why.

  Finally the night watchman called seven o’clock. It was still dark, but it was imperative that Thomas, Sharp, and Venus reach the anatomy school as soon as it opened if they were to save Phibbah.

  The streets of London were waking to another cold day as the coach made its way to Brewer Street. They arrived just in time to find the night porter unlocking the door of the anatomy school for the beadle. Thomas accosted him.

  “Sir, my name is Dr. Silkstone and this is my associate, Mr. Sharp. We would speak with Mr. Izzard on a most urgent matter. May we come in?”

  The beadle, hunched and advancing in years, glanced beyond them to Venus, who waited in silence behind. He eyed both men suspiciously.

  “A physician, you say?”

  “Yes, and a fellow anatomist.”

  The beadle sighed heavily. “Very well,” he conceded, gesturing the three of them inside. “Up the stairs,” he told them. “Mr. Izzard will be in before eight o’clock.”

  It was a relief to hear that the anatomist had not yet arrived. It was so cold that Phibbah’s body would no doubt have been stored upstairs overnight in readiness for the morning lecture. They waited on the landing so that the beadle could open the appropriate door for them. Choosing a key from his belt, he inserted it in the lock and pushed. The door opened onto the lecture theatre and there, to everyone’s surprise, was Hubert Izzard. Seated on the front row, he cut a solitary figure, his head in his hands. He glanced up at the sound of footsteps, then shuddered as he took a deep breath.

  “Sir, you are early. These gentlemen asked to wait for you,” the beadle called across the room, shuffling toward the anatomist.

  The old man’s remarks seemed not to register. As Thomas drew nearer he could see there was a strange expression on Izzard’s face, a wild, haunted look. His eyes were wide but unseeing and his lips were loose and pale. What was more, his skin was deathly white against the dried red blood on his yellow jacket.

  Thomas glanced over to the dissecting table in the centre of the floor. There was a body on it, covered with blood-stained sacking. A sticky puddle of blood had congealed on the floor. A look of horror crossed Thomas’s face and his eyes met with Izzard’s.

  From near the table came a cry. Venus had just thrown back the cover.

  “Phibbah!” she gasped, her eyes wide with terror.

  Granville Sharp had rushed over to her. Now he turned away to retch.

  “She was alive, was she not?” said Thomas, drawing beside Izzard.

  He returned his gaze and nodded slowly. “She asked . . .”

  Thomas broke in. “You mean Cordelia Carfax?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “She asked me to cut the body in front of her. I had no intention of doing so. I wanted to save the girl for my students. But she said she admired my skill and wanted to watch.” His eyes began to fill with tears. “I told her it was no sight for a lady.”

  “So you refused?”

  “Of course, but she insisted and when I declined, she took the scalpel from me and made the first cut herself.”

  A terrible sound flew from Venus’s mouth and she tugged at her hair.

  “Tell me what happened.” Thomas remained outwardly calm, despite a knot tightening in his stomach.

  “She plunged the blade into the heart and the girl’s eyes shot open.” Izzard’s body began to shake. “I begged her to stop. I tried to take the knife from her but she kept stabbing her, screaming all the time, until the girl was dead.” His trembling turned to sobs and he dropped his head into his hands once more. “Oh god, Silkstone!” he wailed.r />
  Granville Sharp could not hide his revulsion. “We must find this woman, immediately,” he said, his face drained white. “Where is she now?”

  Izzard shook his head. “You need look no further,” he said, his voice juddering. “She is over there.” He pointed to the far row of the lecture theatre, to what looked like a crumpled heap of rags. It was only when Thomas moved closer that he could see a syrupy pool of blood on the floor. But it was only when he was nearer still that he saw the familiar face of Cordelia Carfax, as she lay on her back, sprawled across a bench, a long blade embedded in her own heart. He shot a questioning look back at Izzard, whose watery eyes were now fixed on him.

  “I tried to stop her,” he muttered, shaking his head. “She killed herself.”

  Chapter 52

  Sir Stephen Gandy had wasted little time in requesting a postmortem on Cordelia Carfax. Thomas had no choice but to agree, so once again, he was faced with the prospect of performing an autopsy on someone he had known in life.

  In the laboratory, Dr. Carruthers stationed himself by his side, as much for moral support as for professional input. There was important work to be done. Had Cordelia Carfax turned the knife on herself after killing Phibbah, as Izzard testified, or had he, her lover, stabbed her himself? A man’s life hung, almost literally, in the balance. The gallows awaited Hubert Izzard if he had murdered Cordelia Carfax and on Thomas’s shoulders lay the burden of proof.

  Try as he might, however, the anatomist found it almost impossible to look on the corpse without recalling the look on Phibbah’s face when he had found her dead earlier that morning. Her eyes, still open, almost bulged from their sockets, and horror had etched itself on her features.

  Standing over Cordelia Carfax’s naked torso, he was only glad that Dr. Carruthers could not see his hand tremble as he examined the knife wound. The blade remained in her chest—often a sign of a self-inflicted wound, he noted. It had entered between the third and fourth ribs, two inches to the left of the sternum at an acute angle upward from the subcostal region. Again, this was, in his understanding, another indicator of suicide. He shared his thoughts with his mentor from time to time, and received reassuring nods and grunts. There was only one fatal wound, he observed, which had been made when her chest was already exposed and not via her garment. This was often a feature of suicides, in his experience. They would often expose the proposed area of their self-inflicted wound.