“Good. His corpse is the less gruesome one in my parlor. The other fellow brought to me last night was nearly cut in half stem to stern, and then the fishes got at him. Not a pretty sight. You are lucky, Captain. Mr. Warrilow died very suddenly and is intact.”
With this cheerful assessment, he turned and waved us to follow. Mrs. Clay smiled and nodded at me as though encouraging a child who had to face an unpleasant task.
“An unfortunate circumstance of gin houses close to the river,” Thompson murmured as we trailed after Mr. Clay. “Sailors come to shore, drink themselves insensible, fight like savages, and dump the losers of the fights into the Thames for me and my lads to find.”
Nothing in this small house, painted a lighthearted white with colorful rugs on the wooden floors, betrayed that corpses were cut up and teeth extracted in the back rooms. That is, not until we entered a small chamber in the rear of the house, in which stood a heavy wooden chair. Leather straps for holding a patient immobile hung from its arms, and a basin full of bloody water rested on the floor next to it.
Clay led us through this unnerving room and out a back door to a small yard behind the house. Here reposed a stone shed, its walls thick—to keep the bodies cool, I surmised.
The atmosphere inside the stone building was damp and proved to be far cooler than the outside air. Four pallets lined a long wall, and on an adjacent wall sat a bench strewn with grim-looking tools—saws, picks, knives, and what appeared to be giant tongs.
Two of the four pallets were occupied, both corpses covered with sheets. The other two pallets were empty, stripped down to the wood, awaiting the next set of unfortunates.
“This is Mr. Warrilow,” Mr. Clay said moving to the first pallet. “Are you a relation?”
“No,” I confessed. “I am interested in discovering who killed him.”
Mr. Clay’s eyes twinkled. “After a reward, are you? Well, I wish you luck. There’s not much to see.” He slid back the sheet to reveal the hapless Mr. Warrilow.
Stripped of clothing, his skin gray, Warrilow was a pathetic sight. He’d been of medium height, neck and forearms burned by the Caribbean sun. His stomach was paunchy from middle age and too much rum, or whatever he’d liked to drink. The face was not handsome but not ugly either, just an ordinary man.
However, I could see why Eden had found him unpleasant. Warrilow’s jaw was hard, set even in death, as though his obstinacy followed him into the afterlife. Though his eyes were closed, a frown puckered his face. Whiskers shadowed his jaw, and long sideburns, much in fashion nowadays, traced thickly down his cheeks. His hair had been dark brown going to gray, much reduced on the top of his head.
“The blow that caused his death is here.” Mr. Clay lifted Warrilow’s shoulder from the table and turned him on his side with surprising strength.
The wound lay on the right side of the head where it met Warrilow’s thick neck. A great gash had been opened at the base of his skull, Warrilow’s hair matted with blood there. Brewster moved forward, studying the wound with professional assessment.
“A clean strike,” he said.
“’Tis true,” Mr. Clay agreed. “Felled him hard, killed him quickly. Pieces of bone went right into his brain.” He touched the wound, depressing the skull an inch or so inward.
I’d seen far more grisly corpses than this on the battlefield, but the way Mr. Clay prodded him made me shiver. Thankfully, he soon lowered Mr. Warrilow carefully to the table and covered him with the sheet as gently as he’d tuck in a child.
“I can’t tell you much more than that, Captain, Mr. Thompson.” Clay took up a cloth lying on the bench and wiped his hands. The cloth was already smeared with blood, and I could not see that it did any good. “Whoever struck him was strong, but if a man has a decently heavy weapon, he doesn’t need to be extraordinarily strong. Just enough to wield it well. Warrilow must have turned his back and then …?” Mr. Clay swung his arm with an imaginary cudgel in demonstration.
“What sort of weapon, would you say?” Thompson asked.
Brewster spoke before Mr. Clay could answer. “Cosh can be made of anything. Stout stick, its head rounded, stone tucked into a stocking, any sort of bottle.”
“Your large friend has the right of it. I’d say this wound was made by something about this big.” Mr. Clay made a circle with his forefingers and thumbs four or so inches wide.
“Could be the bottom of a pitcher,” Brewster speculated. He held up an imaginary one by its handle. “From a wash basin. Seized in the moment.”
“Was a pitcher or anything of that size found in his rooms?” I asked Thompson.
“Not that I know of, but my house didn’t investigate. The crime was committed in an area that falls under the jurisdiction of the Tower Liberty, though their magistrate put the word out for the Runners to assist.”
I wondered what he meant by the Tower Liberty, but this explained why Pomeroy had been quickly on hand to arrest Eden.
“What happens to his body now?” I asked.
Mr. Clay shrugged. “Inquest has already been held, but no family has come forward. From what I understand, Mr. Warrilow recently returned from the Antilles.”
“From Antigua, yes. Will he be shipped back there?”
“If someone stands the cost,” Mr. Clay answered. “Probably he’ll be put into a burial ground here with a plain marker. He’s not a pauper but no one knows much about his family.”
“Where were his lodgings?” I asked Thompson.
“Wellclose Square. Not far from here. Shall we go there now?”
I was in agreement. Mr. Clay bid us a happy farewell. As we left him, he was approaching the second body in interested anticipation, but we were mercifully out of the room before he lifted the sheet.
Mrs. Clay saw us to the front door, and I thanked her for the tea. “Not at all, Captain.” She showed tea-stained teeth in a wide smile. “Makes a change to have living men in me parlor, whole ones at that.” She chortled at her joke, and we left the pleasant little house.
The hill ended at the top of the street, and we took a level road farther north before turning onto Ratcliffe Highway, which ran not far north of the London Docks. A small lane from here took us to Wellclose Square.
The place had once been affluent, I could see, and many fine houses still existed on the street where we walked. In the center of the square lay a lovely white church in the baroque style, reminiscent of ones I’d seen in Portugal. Arched windows lined the church’s pale peach sides, and round windows flanked those. The steeple was a graceful flourish of curves rather than a straight spire.
“The Danish and Norwegian church,” Thompson told me. “Architect was the father of Colley Cibber, the famous actor, in fact.”
“Never ’eard of ’im,” Brewster said behind us.
“Dead these fifty years,” Thompson answered in his thin voice. “I’ve only heard of Cibber because I live in these parts, and people come to look at the church. A charity runs it now.”
“You said this was the jurisdiction of the Tower Liberty?” I said, gazing around the large square. “What is that?”
“The Crown annexed these lands close to the Tower, which once belonged to monasteries, long ago, and are now known collectively as the Tower Liberty. The Constable of the Tower is in charge of policing the area, and his coroner holds their inquests. Mr. Clay assists, as he’s a skilled surgeon—he also assists the Whitechapel coroner. After the recent expansion of the docklands there’s been a bit more crime, and the Constable of the Tower welcomes help, especially from the Runners of Whitechapel and Bow Street.”