The Devil's Feast Read online

  He coaxed a woman to try a mouthful of a soup he was “concocting for a certain milord who will be dining at the club tonight.” Indecorously plunging his forefinger, complete with its diamond ring, into the cauldron, he scooped it up and into his mouth. “Mmmm, a leetle more salt, I think, and a leetle of this magic dust,” he said, smiling at us and reaching into a small box. “Perfect!”

  He called to another lady, who had looked crotchety throughout. “How wonderful to see you, milady. It must have been, let me see, with the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire? It is a pleasure and an honor to see you once more. You must come and taste just a soupçon of this sole à la maître d’hôtel. As I recall, it was your late husband’s favorite dish? Let us see if it finds favor.”

  The lady allowed herself to be drawn forward and even submitted to eating a mouthful of the fish from a spoon proffered by Soyer himself. Then she smiled beatifically and pronounced it “Delicious!”

  “And now, dear friends,” and Soyer bowed so low it seemed impossible that his cap would not fall off—and yet it did not—“I must leave you. A chef is always wanted in three places at once, and I must attend to my sauces.” He raised an eyebrow in such a way as to suggest . . . I am not quite sure what, but several of the ladies could not suppress a nervous giggle.

  “Our tour is at an end. I wish you sweet adieux. I hope we have informed and entertained you. If you are intrigued, if you are impressed, our work is done. We seek only to please.” He bowed again, brought his fingers to his lips and blew us a somewhat operatic kiss, and began to back out of the kitchen. “Adieu, adieu, adieu. As your great playwright says, ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’” He turned, and was gone.

  The party on the tour dispersed, and I was left, a little bewildered, surrounded by kitchen maids and chefs.

  Soyer suddenly appeared from one of the side kitchens and seized my shoulders, kissing me on both cheeks. I was shocked.

  He laughed. “You are not familiar with the French way, eh? You will have to become accustomed to many grateful kisses now. I cannot thank you enough for agreeing to stay and help us! I am sure all will be well now. May we offer you a soupçon of anything? A dish of kidneys? A coddled egg? A little side of bacon, perhaps?”

  My stomach turned a little, and I declined.

  “Non, I can see, after last night . . .” he said, and for a moment the relentless smile was wiped from his face.

  “Oh, no, Monsieur Soyer, it was wonderful, extraordinary, astonishing,” I said, my epithets surprising even me. “Thank you! I have never tasted anything like it.” It was all true and, at the same time, irretrievably clouded by what had come after.

  “It was my pleasure,” said Soyer, and his face fell again.

  “Captain Avery?” A voice called from the other side of the kitchen. The footman whose face I knew. He fought his way across the kitchen. He was out of breath.

  “Jeffers, sir? From last night?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “Been searching for you. Couldn’t find you, sir,” he said almost reproachfully. “There’s a gentleman to see you, upstairs. A surgeon: Mr. Wakley.”

  Chapter Five

  Mr. Wakley was a big man with a prominent, hawkish nose. Every part of him gave the impression of impatience and distracted concentration. His brow was knotted, his mouth was pursed and his chin taut. He drummed his fingers on the worn leather case on his lap, and at the same time tapped his foot on a rare edge of uncarpeted floor. This caused the other gentlemen in the room to shoot him irritated looks, which he ignored. The only hint of levity was his hair, which, despite his middle age, fell in great, lavish, dark gold curls about his face.

  I had kept him waiting.

  “I should like to get on,” he said, rather more loudly than necessary, as two dozen eyes lifted to regard him crossly. “I have a great many things to attend to today. This is not the kind of case I should generally take on, believe me, nor do I care much for this place—as far as I am concerned, it has been the muzzling of the radicals. But since Molesworth asked me . . .”

  “I do apologize, Dr. Wakley. Shall we proceed?”

  “Mr. Wakley.” He stood up, gathering his case, and followed me out into the saloon. “I am a surgeon, not a medic; there is a difference. I must say, I was most surprised to receive the call, for I am hardly clubbable and make no bones of regarding this place as the graveyard of the radicals.” He said this with a grim little smile. “They have been seduced by fine dinners and thick carpets and marble halls and, once again, the Whigs, those antediluvian relics, are in charge. I am, sir, you see, a member of Parliament myself, and a radical. I suppose I am Molesworth’s revenge. And who, sir, are you?”

  I explained.

  “Well,” he said skeptically, “you are very young. So, the body. Where is it?”

  “The body? In a bedchamber upstairs.”

  “And the name?”

  “Mr. Rowlands, an MP.”

  “Not little Charlie Rowlands? Fancy dresser? Whiggish tendencies?” I nodded. “Dear me, not overly serious, but too young to die. He was a friend of Tommy Duncombe, my neighboring MP.”

  “May I speak plainly?” I said. I explained the circumstances of Rowlands’s death, and the club’s request.

  “Does Duncombe know?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “He must be told.”

  Our dialogue was interrupted by a man in black suiting who came bustling up to us.

  “Mr. Wakley? I am the club secretary, Mr. Scott. And Captain Avery, I have not had a moment to introduce myself. You may not recall, but we encountered each other earlier. Do not hesitate to call on me if you require anything.” He had a hurried manner, full of self-importance, as if he had much more pressing and significant things to be doing elsewhere, and flat, undistinguished features. He rubbed his hands a lot. “I am delighted you have made each other’s acquaintance,” he said.

  “So, what have you done thus far?” said Wakley to Scott.

  Scott said that, since the committee had wished the matter to be dealt with discreetly, he had thus far done nothing.

  “You’ve done nothing?” said Wakley. “What kind of man are you? What of his family? Are they coming to collect the body? Have plans been made for the burial?”

  Mr. Scott said he had not yet informed Rowlands’s family of his death.

  “Not told the family, sir! Outrageous! And an egregious waste of my time!” Wakley almost shouted. “A postmortem examination cannot be performed unless the family of the deceased request it or a coroner has ordered it. I assume you have informed the coroner?” he said, turning to me.

  “I am sorry, sir,” I said. “I rather thought you were one, and that, thus far, we had no reason to call one. The doctor who attended Mr. Rowlands diagnosed cholera, but we wished to be sure by having a postmortem examination.”

  “I do not like it much, but I see the sense in establishing quickly whether the boy did die of cholera or not. And I am the correct man for the job, being both a coroner and a surgeon—you would be surprised how few there are. I can fill out the relevant papers, but I ought to convene a court on the matter, and it would be unusual for me to perform the postmortem examination as well—though it is not illegal. Ideally, it should be done in a mortuary, or at the least in my own surgery. I cannot imagine there is anywhere suitable in this ridiculous palace.” He gazed up at the saloon’s grand glass dome.

  “You”—he waved at Scott, for whom I now felt almost sorry—“find me a messenger boy. I will need my assistant to bring my instruments, and I will send a note to the Westminster coroner, whom I know, to arrange matters. Presumably, the party has not been told of Rowlands’s death either? It should be the duty of the club to inform the party.”

  Scott shook his head. He looked rather crushed.

  Wakley glanced back at him. “What? Still here? I n
eed this now!” And he turned his back on the unfortunate secretary, who immediately scuttled away.

  • • •

  THERE WERE SEVERAL ROOMS outside the kitchen’s main area which might serve as a place in which Wakley could do his work. Mr. Percy arranged for the body to be moved to one. It lay covered by a sheet on one of the butler’s tables, its proximity to the kitchen mildly disturbing.

  Wakley and I descended to the kitchen. The scene had changed entirely; it was nothing like the orderly oasis it had seemed only half an hour before. It was luncheon, and a state of furious chaos prevailed. The heat was now tropical and, everywhere, there was shouting. I gradually made this out to be demands for dishes in a curious combination of French and English: “Deux côtelettes! Two stewed rump! Trois canetons! Une sole! One ox tongue! Trois turbots! Two chops!”

  Cooks bent, red-faced, over steaming and smoking pans, enveloped in clouds of heat, perspiring freely. Kitchen maids and boys dashed from table to stove to fire, carrying vast stew pans or sauce boats wrapped in white cloths, or trays of plates and bowls. Soyer, a white apron over his velvet suiting, his ridiculous cap askew upon his head, stood in the main kitchen by the kitchen clerk’s desk, inspecting each dish.

  “Is that the famous Monsieur Soyer?” said Wakley. “I should like to meet him.”

  I hesitated; Soyer was entirely engrossed, and dozens of dishes were awaiting his inspection. But I led Wakley over anyway.

  “Monsieur Soyer,” I said. “May I—?”

  Soyer glanced at Wakley. “Do I know you, sir?”

  “No,” said Wakley genially, “but I am about to carve up your deceased dinner guest.”

  Soyer’s smile wavered.

  “Thomas Wakley at your service: surgeon, coroner, member of Parliament, editor and founder of The Lancet medical journal: ‘We amputate nonsense and let in the light of truth and common sense.’ I am to divine the cause of Mr. Rowlands’s death.”

  “Mr. Molesworth’s acquaintance! Enchanted to meet you,” said Soyer.

  “I have been following your work at the consumption hospital in Knightsbridge and the Clerkenwell poorhouse, Soyer,” said Wakley. “Impressive results! In my opinion, your scientific systems should be adopted by every hospital and poorhouse in the country, and I shall be saying so in my next editorial.”

  “Why, Mr. Wakley, I am ravished and enchanted by your words,” said Soyer. “They come at a moment of shadow, and they bring the sun with them!” And he suddenly embraced the surgeon and kissed him upon both cheeks.

  “Well,” said Wakley, extremely startled, “I think we should commence with the postmortem.”

  • • •

  WAKLEY EXAMINED the room and decided it would do, though he complained that the light was dim. Rather peremptorily, he demanded gas lamps, a basin, water, a deal of clean linen, the permanent loan of four glass jars with stoppers as tight as possible, and several large dishes which “the kitchen would not be sad to lose.” All this was quickly furnished with admirable efficiency, along with an iron post higher than a man and curved at the end on which a lamp could be hooked to provide overhead light. One of the kitchen clerks asked if we should like something to eat. Wakley gave a brief, slightly scornful smile and shook his head. Uncertain of what would be required of me, I declined, too.

  • • •

  BY NOW, WAKLEY’S ASSISTANT had arrived. The two men removed their neckties and frock coats, rolled up their sleeves and put on white aprons. Over the table and bench in the room, the assistant laid thick tablecloths. Wakley placed his leather case of surgical instruments on one of these and opened it. Laid upon the red cloth interior was an array of formidable-looking instruments: two or three scissorlike tools, a saw with a red wooden handle; two tweezerlike implements; a thing very like a sharp shepherd’s crook; and five knives with blades of varying lengths. From his bag, Wakley’s assistant brought forth a ledger and pencil. Wakley washed his hands and instructed his assistant to draw back the sheet. Together they divested the cadaver of his clothes, often with a judicious snip of scissors. There was poor Rowlands, no longer a man, just a gray-faced, unfamiliar mannequin.

  “Will you stay, Captain Avery? My assistant is a little squeamish.” (At this, the assistant reddened and looked intently at his ledger.) “It is not for the fainthearted, but you will certainly learn something.”

  I did not relish the thought, but I had seen some unpleasant things during my campaign in India and had grown up on a farm, and I thought I should stay.

  The young footman who had brought the last of the jars idled by the door, too, curious.

  Wakley leaned over the body, looking first at the face, and especially the lips and mouth. I had seen Blake do much the same thing.

  “Face is somewhat dehydrated and shrunken, but no bluishness,” he said, and the assistant made a note. “It is congested, however. See, Captain Avery, it is darker than the rest of the body.”

  “Is that indicative of something?

  “If you have seen cholera before, you will recall that the face falls in and the skin often takes on a bluish tinge. This gentleman is not blue—though that is not conclusive of anything—but the darkness of the face is unusual and may indicate something else.”

  He moved his attention to the rest of the body, which was wrinkled and wrung out, but not as badly as some I had seen taken by cholera. Slowly, he scrutinized every inch, muttering to himself and every so often passing unintelligible comments to his assistant.

  “Ah,” he said, as he reached the feet.

  He returned to the face. In a swift and almost violent movement he forced open the jaw, bent over the mouth and sniffed. He sniffed again. “No especially pungent smells.”

  With the gaslight over his head, he thrust his fingers into the mouth, felt about and then peered in.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  He turned to his instruments and picked up a knife and a pair of scissors.

  “Scalpel and forceps, Captain Avery,” he said, holding them up. “The light is not perfect. Might you be able to hold the lamp directly over the body, should I ask you, while my assistant makes the notes? If you cannot, I shall not think the less of you. I have seen the strongest man laid low by the contents of a man’s stomach, and I should rather know it before you have passed out on the floor.”

  I assured him that I would be able, though I was not at all sure I would. With that, he made a deep cut into poor Rowlands’s middle. Blood bloomed slowly on either side of the cut. Wakley asked if I would wipe it away gently, which I did. At this, the footman swiftly withdrew.

  The next minutes were not ones I wish to recall in precise detail. That first cut went from the chest bone to the bottom of the pelvis. There was blood, but not quantities of it. Then Wakley made a cut at ninety degrees across the first long one so that he was able to fold back the skin of the chest and abdomen, and clipped the two flaps back. The chill in the room helped ensure the smell was not as bad as I had feared, though the legacy of the night before rendered me more nauseous than I had expected, and it took a good deal to maintain my equilibrium. As he inspected the body’s cavity, sniffing gently and prodding various organs, Wakley asked me to bring the lamp closer. I did not look away. Having examined it to his satisfaction, he dictated a few lines to his assistant, and then, from his case, brought out a piece of catgut and, pushing the ribs gently apart, found a red, tube-like extrusion and tied a tight knot about it. He tied two further tight knots around a similar protuberance at the bottom of the pelvis.

  “Captain Avery, would you bring that dish across to me? I shall now remove the stomach.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him make two cuts on either side of the two sets of knots and lift out a large, sagging, red sack, which he set on the plate I held. I nearly gagged but placed the dish on the table behind me. I was suddenly and horribly reminded of Soyer’s feast; Wakley’s arranging of the body parts s
eemed a hideous parody of it. The thought made my gorge rise.

  Wakley removed the guts in similar fashion. I provided the dishes and bowl and held the lamp. Then he went through the various organs—liver, kidney, spleen and, finally, the heart—prodding, examining, making observations that his assistant noted down, then removing each organ and placing it into a jar which I held for him and immediately closed as tightly as I could. He returned again to the cavity, scrutinizing the upper chest and neck and the bottom of the gut, and making several small cuts.

  “I shall now examine the stomach. I think, perhaps, Captain Avery, you should turn away. You have done better than I expected.”

  I did not argue.

  At length, he announced that he had finished.

  “Interesting. I am glad you called upon me.”

  “And your conclusion?” I said.

  “You were there when he was taken ill?”

  “I was.”

  “I should like to know the order in which his symptoms appeared. Did he say he was thirsty?

  “Yes.”

  “When? At what point? Was it before or after he had vomited?

  I tried to think back. “Before. He was thirsty from the start.”

  “Did he vomit and then evacuate his bowels, or was it the bowels first?”

  “He vomited.”

  “It is not cholera. Of that I can assure you. The body is, among other things, simply too wet. Cholera dries a body out. And you would expect to find the surface of the stomach and gut almost dry and velvety smooth. No, this is not cholera. Let me show you. Here, the liver. There are the beginnings of fatty deposits all across it. And here in the heart. You cannot see it so clearly in the jar, but the left chamber is full of liquid—blood has leaked into it. And the stomach, if you will give it a glance, is very inflamed. Here, see the patches of deep crimson and these clusters of small brown ulcers; they continue all the way down into the gut. I have taken some samples of the liquid from the stomach and the gut and will analyze them in my rooms, if I have time—otherwise, I shall send some to a chemist—and that will show it beyond doubt. But the organs do not lie, and I am certain I know what they say.”