The Anatomy of Death Read online

  “I doubt there is a guard to spare on execution day. But as I have also arrived early, I will be happy to oblige.” A number of emotions might explain the look on his face, though none of them suggested happiness. Doubt, sadness, disgust, maybe. He offered his arm with the formality of an undertaker. “Allow me.”

  He must think me a ghoul, thought Dody.

  They walked across the exercise yard towards B Wing, the ripe smell of the nearby cattle yard and slaughterhouse reaching them on the wind.

  “Since the abolition of public hangings,” Pike said, “the law requires executions to be performed in sheds like this.” He pointed to a narrow, roofed structure. “Commonly called the ‘topping shed.’ It’s built over a deep pit into which the body will drop. They store the prison motor wagon in the pit when it’s not being used.”

  How practical, thought Dody. There was nothing sacred about life here.

  Pike held open the door of the shed for her, and she entered the wood-panelled room with a trepidation she was determined not to show.

  Her determination won through even when Pike spoke of long drops and short drops—all dependent on the prisoner’s weight—and the fine line a hangman must walk between decapitation and slow strangulation. Then, before she knew it, he was asking her in a low voice, “How did your experiments go with regards to Lady Catherine’s head wounds?”

  Her heart missed a beat—he must have guessed the reason why she had borrowed the truncheon, and her presence outside the mortuary. Had Alfred spoken after all? Exactly what else did Pike know? She was relieved to see the arrival of two gentleman of the press, who stopped at the wooden rail a short distance away from her and Pike.

  After nodding the men a solemn greeting, Pike repeated his question quietly but this time he added, “You have my word that your research will not be broadcast by me. While I cannot condone your actions, nor act upon any unsolicited findings, I might be able to use them as a discreet guide to aid me in my investigations.” He broke off and nodded to another group of men positioning themselves next to the other spectators.

  An elderly man caught Dody’s eye and approached her, introducing himself as Wilson, the prison doctor. His eyes kept darting away towards the other men at the rail, and as soon as it was decorous to do so, he excused himself and left her.

  Pulling out his watch, Pike said, “Not long now. The execution party will be gathering. Soon they will be arriving at the condemned cell, where they will pinion the prisoner’s arms to a leather belt and march him across the exercise yard to the topping shed. The procedure is performed speedily,” Pike went on, “for the sake of humanitarian principles. The final stage can take less than a minute.”

  Less than a minute once the procedure was under way, but what of all the preceding long days and dark nights, Dody thought. They didn’t bear contemplation.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and firmed her resolve. “The man took a life. It is only right that he should pay for it with his own.”

  When Pike failed to reply, she opted for a return to their previous conversation; while uncomfortable, it was not as distressing. “I will tell you about my experiments on the provision, as you say, that my findings are used with discretion and as a guide only.” With a clunk of wood on wood, the assistant hangman tested the trap door. The sudden noise made them both start. Over the railing she glimpsed the edge of a brick-lined pit before the door was slammed shut once more.

  “Indeed, in legal matters I believe that science should only ever be used as a guide, not a decree,” Pike said. “Science is as fallible as anything else; mistakes can be made—how not?—a scientist is still a human being.”

  “Without a doubt, Chief Inspector”—Dody could not help the smug satisfaction that had crept into her voice—“but science is the proven victor in the Crippen case.”

  Pike turned to Dody. In a voice she had to strain to hear, he said, “Is it?”

  Dody kept her gaze on the trap door. “Explain yourself, sir.”

  Pike paused to consider his answer before saying, “Excuse me for a minute.” He left her side and approached a gentleman wearing a shiny top hat with whom he spoke for a few moments. Upon his return, he said, “I have secured permission with the prison governor for you to remain in attendance for the execution, should you wish it. This might present an even better opportunity for you to, er, further your education.”

  Holding his gaze, she saw the spark of challenge in his deep blue eyes. He was testing her; she couldn’t leave now. She couldn’t afford to keep losing face with this man whose path she would undoubtedly cross again. Just the memory of meeting him outside the mortuary that night made her blanch.

  Her hesitation must have led him to think she did not wish to remain. “Allow me to escort you back to the main building then, Doctor. If we delay it much longer, we may pass the execution party in the exercise yard.”

  Dody took a bolstering breath. “I wish to witness the execution.”

  Pike’s expression told her this was not the answer he had expected. “As you wish, but I warn you, it is not a pleasant experience, especially for a woman.”

  “I am sure it cannot be a pleasant experience for anyone to witness, regardless of sex.” Dody said no more, but continued to look him levelly in the eye until he broke away to nod at the prison governor. The manner in which the governor raised his eyes to the ceiling made Dody wonder if she was the first woman to be granted this dubious honour.

  When the shed door opened a little while later, Dody shivered in the sudden icy draught. Within moments the execution party had mounted the scaffold. What happened next was so swift Dody barely had a chance to take it in. The chief executioner, a man with a squirrel-tail moustache, placed a white hood over the condemned man’s head and guided his feet to chalk markings on the platform. The noose was positioned, the simple slipknot snug against the left side of his neck. For a few seconds Crippen stood trembling in collarless street clothes next to a murmuring Roman Catholic priest. And then with a slam of the lever, he was gone. Dody gave an involuntary gasp, as if her own heart and breath had stopped also.

  A sigh escaped all those present.

  For a long aching moment the swinging rope was the only movement in the shed.

  Dody stepped back from the rail. Pike remained rigid, as if standing to attention. And then she noticed that his eyes were closed—was he praying? Had he watched at all? A shiver rippled through his body and then he, too, stepped back from the rail. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped a sheen of perspi-ration from his face. “There now, Doctor,” he said, his northern accent more pronounced, she noticed. “Are you convinced that you have witnessed the satisfactory implementation of justice?”

  The more she got to know this man, the more he perplexed her. Dody forced her weight into her legs to stop her knees from shaking. “For a policeman, you seem strangely averse to capital punishment,” she said, working to keep her voice steady. The execution had affected her even more than she had imagined it would.

  “Only when there is an element of doubt.”

  Dody let out a breath. “In this case there is no doubt. The lump of flesh under the cellar floor belonged to Cora Crippen. The hysterectomy scar was quite unmistakable. But this is not the time or the place for me to give you a lecture in forensic science, Chief Inspector.”

  “You do not need to patronise me, Doctor. I might not understand the science, but I know about the investigation; indeed I was closely involved with it. One of the questions I raised was, how could a man who had so cunningly disposed of all but one of the body parts, be so careless with the hiding of the torso?”

  “Criminals often become overconfident when they think they have got away with the crime,” Dody replied. Then she flushed. Of course he knew that.

  “Yes,” Pike said sarcastically, “that was pointed out to me. But I also know a fair trial when I see one. The defence was quite incompetent, at the mercy of Dr. Spilsbury—he’s quite the showman, you know, with h
is red carnation in his buttonhole. He played the jury like a theatre crowd …” He stopped abruptly, seeing the heat flaming her cheeks. “Forgive me, he is your colleague, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Tempted as she was to fire back a long list of police bungles, she held back. When it came to the trial, she might be ignorant of the legal minutiae, but she was proudly intimate with all the forensic details. Crippen was guilty and justice had been met; there was no doubt in her mind about it at all.

  She also knew professional jealousy when she saw it.

  With tightened lips she turned her heel on Pike and joined the men filing towards the shed door.

  “Wait,” Pike held her back. “Where are you going now?”

  “Into the pit to inspect the body,” Dody said coolly.

  He shook his head. “Protocol dictates the body hang alone unattended for an hour before it is cut down.”

  “Why?” As soon as the word was uttered, she realised it was a question she should not have voiced. Her hand went to her mouth as if she might snatch it back.

  “To make sure he is dead, Doctor,” Pike said softly.

  Her knees buckled and suddenly there was no air in her lungs. She let Pike take her by the arm and escort her to the prison officers’ canteen, where he revived her with a mug of sweet, milky tea. The room was large and draughty and they sat close to the potbellied stove.

  “I shouldn’t have expressed my views about the trial or Dr. Spilsbury so strongly to you, nor been so blunt about the body in the pit. I apologise if I was the cause of your distress,” Pike said. “I’m Yorkshire born and bred and tend to speak my mind. This is not the first time I’ve got myself into trouble for it.”

  Dody accepted his apology with a faint smile and turned her face to warm the other cheek. “My sister often accuses me of possessing a sharp tongue; I, too, overreacted. I was very busy in Edinburgh, I missed much of the press coverage of the trial, so I know little of what went on in the court, although I do support Dr. Spilsbury’s findings completely.”

  “No matter about the newspapers’ accounts, they weren’t always accurate.” Dody heard Pike’s boots scuffing against the floor under their table. Now they had made their awkward peace, the silence seemed to stretch interminably before them.

  “But I did read about the ocean chase and that Crippen’s lover had disguised herself as a boy. Oh, and the Marconi-gram sent by the ship’s captain to Inspector Dew in London.” Dody’s calculated brevity had the desired effect. Pike stirred his tea with enthusiasm, tinkling the spoon on the side of the mug when he’d finished.

  “The first criminal to be captured through wireless telegraphy,” he said with a satisfaction that made her wonder if it was he who had initiated it.

  “I can tell you hold much admiration for new technology, but it puzzles me that you seem to have such an inherent suspicion of medicine—of forensic science anyway. Tell me, Chief Inspector, do you feel the same way about all medical scientists as you do about Dr. Spilsbury?”

  He lifted his mug and spoke from behind it. Dody suspected that what he was about to say would not be the truth, or not the complete truth. “On the contrary, I have a lot of respect for the profession,” he said.

  “And female doctors?” she asked with the slightest of smiles.

  “I have not known any until now.” Pike paused and then said, “On the scaffold, you were about to tell me the results of your tests.”

  “How did you know about the tests?”

  “Deductive reasoning, as Mr. Holmes would say.” It was Pike’s turn to smile. The even features of a handsome man shone briefly through his worn countenance. Dody relaxed, felt her strength returning. A policeman who could laugh at himself was not all bad, surely. If only she could loosen her corset—it was the constriction that had caused the near fainting spell, she didn’t doubt it.

  “The borrowed truncheon was the first indication that you were up to something,” Pike said, “and then there was your night visit to the mortuary. Poor Alfred admitted to leaving you alone in the cadaver keep for at least thirty minutes.”

  “You bullied it out of him, I suppose?” Dody could not help herself. She wanted to trust this man, and she had to make the effort to trust the police in general if she wanted to work for the Home Office. But it was a challenge to undo a lifetime of conditioning in a matter of just days.

  “And then there was a complaint about your man battering pigs’ heads at your address. It didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to deduce what that was all about.”

  Dody adjusted her seat and smoothed her skirts. “I ruled out the brick and the wooden beam; there were no triangular indentations in the skull at all. As I suspected, Dr. Mangini’s report was totally inaccurate. Lady Catherine’s injuries were caused by a truncheon or a belaying pin.”

  “But you cannot tell which?”

  “Unfortunately the weapons caused identical pitting to the skull.”

  Pike lowered his eyes. “So I might still be looking for a murdering policeman.”

  “I believe Hugo Cartwright retracted his statement.”

  “He did.”

  “Under threat of violence, I heard.”

  Pike looked up. “Violence? Who told you that?”

  “Hugo told my sister.”

  Pike climbed to his feet in the manner of a man whose patience had finally run out. “Believe what you wish to believe, Dr. McCleland. I hope you find that today’s experiences contribute satisfactorily to your further education.” With that, he tipped her a small bow and left the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The body, not yet cold, lay on a table in the prison mortuary. Dody had been present when it was cut down in the pit, had witnessed Dr. Wilson putting his stethoscope to the chest and pronouncing the time of death. Even after a clean hanging, he explained, the heart could continue to beat for up to ten minutes.

  In his professional capacity, Wilson was more willing to share his experiences than his earlier manner had boded. His tone remained pleasant and conversational. He even offered her a cigarette, which she refused in favour of her pipe. The odours in the prison mortuary weren’t as bad as the hospital morgue, but the smooth smoke in her lungs was still preferable to the scratch of carbolic. Besides, the pipe had become an enjoyable habit and one she sometimes had trouble resisting.

  Dody carried out her tasks as assistant, laying out an assortment of surgical instruments, sponges, enamel bowls, and specimen jars within easy reach of the mortuary table. With Wilson’s permission, she took her tape measure from her bag—the same she had used to measure Lady Catherine’s wounds—and recorded the head measurements for the phrenological society.

  “Did Crippen make any last-minute confession, Doctor?” she asked as they began to remove the dead man’s clothing.

  “To my knowledge, no. I believe he maintained his innocence to the very end.”

  Dody felt something crackle in the top pocket of Crippen’s suit jacket. She drew out a woman’s photograph.

  “His lover, Ethel Le Neve,” Wilson explained. “Chief Inspector Pike had it delivered to him at the condemned cell a few days ago. Put it somewhere safe, will you? His last wish was for it to be buried with him.”

  Dody placed the photograph on top of the pile of clothing: suit, shirt, socks, undershirt, and drawers.

  “The poor man was in quite a state last night,” Wilson continued. “He tried to end it himself, you know, broke a lens from his spectacles and attempted to slit his wrists with it. Lucky the guard entered when he did. Make a note of these lacerations, please, Doctor.” Wilson peeled back a dressing from Crippen’s wrist to expose two bloodless incisions. “A fellow mustn’t be allowed to cheat the hangman, eh, what?” he added in a jocular tone.

  Dody said nothing; she would not be drawn into personal opinions. So far she had even managed to avoid looking squarely into the dead man’s grey face. “Inspect the man’s drawers, please, Doctor,” Wilson said.

  Knowing the reason for th
e task, she carried out her orders without distaste. Faeces and excess urine might indicate prolonged distress. Every minor detail must be recorded to provide evidence that the execution had been carried out as humanely as possible, so that any mistakes made might be prevented in the next. Semen would indicate ejaculation at the time of death, a common occurrence when the spinal cord is snapped.

  Wilson pointed to the dead man’s flaccid penis. “No priapism,” he dictated to Dody.

  His gaze travelled to the top of the body. “This isn’t as clean as some, though. The hangman could have done a better job. No doubt we will find considerable damage to the bony as well as the soft structures of the neck—the drop was too long, in my opinion. I will have to note it in my report. The hangman, Mr. Ellis, will not be pleased; he takes considerable pride in his work. Help me turn him, please, Doctor.”

  Dody placed her hands upon the cooling skin and heaved. The body groaned as air was forced from the lungs. The buttocks and shoulders showed the beginning of lividity where the table had pressed.

  Once more Wilson drew Dody’s attention to the neck area, then asked her to pass him the scalpel. “Spilsbury would have liked a full autopsy, but time is against us,” he said. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to make use of those specimen jars. He should have done this himself, or pulled a few more strings. My budget does not extend to full autopsy when the cause of death is so obvious.”

  “Dr. Spilsbury is still on leave, sir.”

  “Ah, that explains his absence. In any other forensic pathologist, absence might betray a reluctance to perform a postmortem on a criminal his evidence had condemned—but not Spilsbury.”

  Wilson sliced through the skin and dissected the muscles of the neck, exposing the spine. The man knew his job, Dody did not doubt it, despite the awkward angle of the scalpel between his blunt fingers and the slight tremble of his coarse hand. She could not help comparing Wilson’s style to Dr. Spilsbury’s ambidextrous elegance with the knife. The difference was like that between a competent colliery band and the London Symphony Orchestra.