Megan Shepherd - Her Dark Curiosity

I skipped over Inspector Newcastle’s name and let my gaze linger on the last line of the article, a line that I’d barely glanced at in my hurry yesterday: ‘The bodies are being kept in King’s College of Medical Research until autopsies can be performed to shed light on the exact nature of the deaths.’

King’s College – I knew those dark hallways only too well. I’d scrubbed blood from the mortar there, dusted cobwebs from between skeletons’ bones. That was where Dr Hastings had decided a simple cleaning girl wouldn’t dare refuse his sexual advances, and I’d slit his wrist. I still remembered the crimson color of his blood on the tile.

The last thing I wanted to do was return to those hallways.

And yet the bodies there called to me, promising to tell me the answers buried within their cold flesh.

It was a call I couldn’t resist.

I dressed and came downstairs with a lie prepared about needing to do some Christmas shopping in the market. To my surprise, I heard sounds of arguing and found the professor in the library with a visitor, a stout man with stiff waxed hair and thick glasses whose face froze when he saw me standing in the doorway.

‘Ah, Juliet, you’re awake,’ the professor said, rising to his feet. His mouth was still tense from their argument, but he forced a smile as he pulled me into the hallway.

‘Who’s that man?’ I asked, trying to peek around his shoulder.

‘Isambard Lessing. A historian, one of the King’s Club men. No need to concern yourself with him; he’s here to inquire about some old journals and family heirlooms. Did you need something?’

‘I was thinking of going shopping. This close to Christmas—’

‘Yes, yes, a fine idea,’ he said, herding me toward the stairs. He fumbled in his pocket for some bank notes and pressed them into my hand. ‘I’ll see you back here for supper.’

I muttered a silent prayer of thanks that he was distracted and wasted no time hurrying from the house with Sharkey. I took the dog to the market and firmly deposited him with Joyce, so by the time I got to King’s College – wearing an old apron over my fashionable red dress – classes were already in session for the morning. I entered through the main double doors into the glistening hallway with polished wood-inlay floors and wall sconces bearing electric lights. My boots echoed loudly in the empty hallways. I’d never felt comfortable on this main floor, the realm of academics and well-off students from good families. Grainy photographs lined the walls showing the illustrious history of the university and its construction. One brass frame bore the crest of the King’s Club with the motto underneath: Ex scientia vera. From knowledge, truth. I thought of stiff Isambard Lessing and his red face. I paused to look at the date on the frame’s inscription.

1875. Four years before I was born. The photograph documented the King’s Club membership at the time, two lines of a dozen male faces wearing long robes and serious expressions. Lucy’s railroad magnate father, Mr Radcliffe, was among them, his beard much shorter, standing next to a stout man I recognized as Isambard Lessing himself, and with a shudder I recognized a young Dr Hastings. I also found the professor’s face among them, decades younger but with the same wire-rim glasses and a hint of a smile on an otherwise stern face. On his left was a young man whose face I knew all too well – my father.

I shifted in my stiff clothing. The professor had mentioned they’d met in the King’s Club, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. In the photograph Father had dark hair cut in the fashion of the time, and his eyes were alert and focused, so unlike his wild-eyed, gray-haired visage I had known more recently. The face in the photograph was the face I knew from my earliest memories, when I’d idolized him, before madness and ambition had claimed him.

I tore myself away from the old photograph and hurried for the stairs to the basement, where I felt instantly more at ease. The morning cleaning crew was already hard at work scouring the stairs leading to the basement hallways. I recognized my old boss, Mrs Bell, as her rounded body stooped to scrub the treading. A woman who used to watch out for me when no one else did. When she stood to refill her bucket, I grabbed her hand and pulled her around the corner.

‘Mercy!’ she cried, putting a hand over her heart. ‘Juliet Moreau, is that you? My, but you gave me a fright.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bell. I wondered if I might ask you a favor.’

‘You aren’t wanting your old job back, I hope,’ she said, then cocked her head at the fine dress beneath my apron. ‘No, I suppose not …’

‘It isn’t about that. As a matter of fact, I’ve had a change in fortune, and it’s only right for me to share.’ I fished in my pocket for the silver buttons and pressed them into her hand before she could object. ‘I just need to know if you’ve already cleaned the hallways on the east side.’

The buttons jangled in her callused hand. ‘Heading there next, right after we finish these stairs.’

I bit my lip, glancing at the two other cleaning girls. ‘Could you start on the west side instead? It’s a long story … a student friend of mine thinks he might have dropped some cufflinks there and I’d like to look for them.’

She gave me a stern look, and I half expected her to ask what the real story was, but luckily for me she just threw her hand toward the hallways.

‘Have at it, girl.’

I started past the steps, where a rail-thin cleaning girl was polishing the brass handrail. Her basket sat beside her, filled with a collection of cleaning tools that were all quite familiar to me. How many hours had I spent on hands and knees on this very floor, sleeves hitched above my elbows, scrubbing so hard my knuckles bled? What a lonely life that had been, with only my memories to keep me company. How easily I could be back there if not for the professor.

The skinny girl turned around when she saw me staring at her basket. Her eyes went to the dirty apron that didn’t quite match my fine dress – an incongruity only the poor would notice.

‘Can I help you … miss?’ she asked.

‘Oh no,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sorry. My mind was wandering.’

She nodded, still looking at me strangely, then returned to work. Once her back was turned, I bent down to pretend to lace my boots and secretly grabbed one of the brushes out of her basket, a soft-bristled one meant for cleaning fabric. If I ran into anyone here, I might need it as disguise. I hid it in my apron and hurried down the stairs into the basement.

The electric lights were on, buzzing and clicking, spilling artificial light over the tiles. Fresh sawdust had been sprinkled on them to soak up any blood fallen from patients or bodies. I wound my way down another corridor and paused at the closed door to the storage rooms where they kept cadavers for autopsies.

I peeked through the keyhole to make sure the room was empty. Unwanted memories returned of a night a year ago when Lucy and I had come here on a dare, only to stumble upon medical students dissecting a live rabbit. My arm twitched, just as that rabbit’s hind leg had, and I clamped a hand over my arm to keep it calm, hoping the rest of my illness’s symptoms wouldn’t soon follow. Through the keyhole, I spied cold tables draped with clothes.

Voices came down the hall, making me jump.

‘Old coot doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground,’ one said.

Whoever they were, their footsteps were headed my way. I pulled the soft-bristled brush out and stooped to hands and knees on the sawdust-covered floor just as two medical students rounded the corner.

‘You can’t expect him to—’ The one speaking paused when he saw me, but then continued. ‘You can’t expect him to graduate you when he couldn’t even pass the exams.’ The two students stepped over my arm as I pretended to scour the floor. One glanced back briefly, but I made sure to keep my face toward the ground. Cleaning girls weren’t worth anything to boys like them except a quick glance to see if they were pretty.