Already the anatomy theatre was crowded with students: tier upon tier of faces pallid beneath the clear shadowless light cast by the one elaborate lamp, large as a giant cartwheel, near the ceiling. The place gleamed with an aggressive cleanliness; the smell of formalin pervaded it; its centre was a faintly sinister vacancy – the spot to which would presently be wheeled the focal object of the occasion.
At Nessfield University Professor Finlay’s final lecture was one of the events of the year. He was always an excellent teacher. For three terms he discoursed lucidly from his dais or tirelessly prowled his dissecting-rooms, encouraging young men and women who had hitherto dismembered only dogfish and frogs to address themselves with resolution to human legs, arms, and torsos. The Department of Anatomy was large; these objects lay about it in a dispersed profusion; Finlay moved among them now with gravity and now with a whimsical charm which did a good deal to humanise his macabre environment. It was only once a year that he yielded to his taste for the dramatic.
The result was the final lecture. And the final lecture was among the few academic activities of Nessfield sufficiently abounding in human appeal to be regularly featured in the local Press. Perhaps the account had become a little stereotyped with the years, and always there was virtually the same photograph showing the popular professor (as Finlay was dubbed for the occasion) surrounded by wreaths, crosses, and other floral tributes. Innumerable citizens of Nessfield who had never been inside the doors of their local university looked forward to this annual report, and laid it down with the comfortable conviction that all was well with the pursuit of learning in the district. Their professors were still professors – eccentric, erudite, and amiable. Their students were still, as students should be, giving much of their thought to the perpetration of elaborate, tasteless, and sometimes dangerous practical jokes.
For the lecture was at once a festival, a rag, and a genuine display of virtuosity. It took place in this large anatomy theatre. Instead of disjointed limbs and isolated organs there was a whole new cadaver for the occasion. And upon this privileged corpse Finlay rapidly demonstrated certain historical developments of his science to an audience in part attentive and in part concerned with lowering skeletons from the rafters, releasing various improbable living creatures – lemurs and echidnas and opossums – to roam the benches, or contriving what quainter japes they could think up. On one famous occasion the corpse itself had been got at, and at the first touch of the professor’s scalpel had awakened to an inferno of noise presently accounted for by the discovery that its inside consisted chiefly of alarm clocks. Nor were these diversions and surprises all one-sided, since Finlay himself, entering into the spirit of the occasion, had more than once been known to forestall his students with some extravagance of his own. It was true that this had happened more rarely of recent years, and by some it was suspected that this complacent scholar had grown a little out of taste with the role in which he had been cast. But the affair remained entirely good-humoured; tradition restrained the excesses into which it might have fallen; it was, in its own queer way, an approved social occasion. High University authorities sometimes took distinguished visitors along – those, that is to say, who felt they had a stomach for post-mortem curiosity. There was quite a number of strangers on the present occasion.
The popular professor had entered through the glass-panelled double doors which gave directly upon the dissecting-table. Finlay was florid and very fat; his white gown was spotlessly laundered; a high cap of the same material would have given him the appearance of a generously self-dieted chef. He advanced to the low rail that separated him from the first tier of spectators and started to make some preliminary remarks. What these actually were, or how they were designed to conclude, he had probably forgotten years ago, for this was the point at which the first interruption traditionally occurred. And, sure enough, no sooner had Finlay opened his mouth than three young men near the back of the theatre stood up and delivered themselves of a fanfare of trumpets. Finlay appeared altogether surprised – he possessed, as has been stated, a dramatic sense – and this was the signal for the greater part of those present to rise in their seats and sing For he’s a jolly good fellow. Flowers – single blooms, for the present – began to float through the air and fall about the feet of the professor. The strangers, distinguished and otherwise, smiled at each other benevolently, thereby indicating their pleased acquiescence in these time-honoured academic junketings. A bell began to toll.
“Never ask for whom the bell tolls,” said a deep voice from somewhere near the professor’s left hand. And the whole student body responded in a deep chant: “It tolls for THEE.”
And now there was a more urgent bell – one that clattered up and down some adjacent corridor to the accompaniment of tramping feet and the sound as of a passing tumbrel. “Bring out your dead,” cried the deep voice. And the chant was taken up all round the theatre. “Bring out your dead,” everybody shouted with gusto. “Bring out your DEAD!”
This was the signal for the entrance of Albert, Professor Finlay’s dissecting-room attendant. Albert was perhaps the only person in Nessfield who uncompromisingly disapproved of the last lecture and all that went with it – this perhaps because, as an ex-policeman, he felt bound to hold all disorder in discountenance. The severely aloof expression on the face of Albert as he wheeled in the cadaver was one of the highlights of the affair – nor on this occasion did it by any means fail of its effect. Indeed, Albert appeared to be more than commonly upset. A severe frown lay across his ample and unintelligent countenance. He held his six-foot-three sternly erect; behind his vast leather apron his bosom discernibly heaved with manly emotion. Albert wheeled in the body – distinguishable as a wisp of ill-nourished humanity beneath the tarpaulin that covered it – and Finlay raised his right hand as if to bespeak attention. The result was a sudden squawk and the flap of heavy wings near the ceiling. Somebody had released a vulture. The ominous bird blundered twice round the theatre, and then settled composedly on a rafter. It craned its scrawny neck and fixed a beady eye on the body.
Professor Finlay benevolently smiled; at the same time he produced a handkerchief and rapidly mopped his forehead. To several people, old stagers, it came that the eminent anatomist was uneasy this year. The vulture was a little bit steep, after all.
There was a great deal of noise. One group of students was doggedly and pointlessly singing a sea chanty; others were perpetrating or preparing to perpetrate sundry jokes of a varying degree of effectiveness. Albert, standing immobile beside the cadaver, let his eyes roam resentfully over the scene. Then Finlay raised not one hand but two – only for a moment, but there was instant silence. He took a step backwards amid the flowers which lay around him; carefully removed a couple of forget-me-nots from his hair; gave a quick nod to Albert; and began to explain – in earnest this time – what he was proposing to do.
Albert stepped to the body and pulled back the tarpaulin.
“And ever,” said a voice from the audience, “at my back I hear the rattle of dry bones and chuckle spread from ear to ear.”
It was an apt enough sally. The cadaver seemed to be mostly bones already – the bones of an elderly, withered man – and its most prominent feature was a ghastly rictus or fixed grin which exposed two long rows of gleamingly white and utterly incongruous-seeming teeth. From somewhere high up in the theatre there was a little sigh followed by a slumping sound. A robust and football-playing youth had fainted. Quite a number of people, as if moved by a mysterious or chameleon-like sympathy, were rapidly approximating to the complexion of the grisly object displayed before them. But there was nothing unexpected in all this. Finlay, knowing that custom allowed him perhaps another five minutes of sober attention at this point, continued his remarks. The cadaver before the class was exactly as it would be had it come before a similar class four hundred years ago. The present anatomy lesson was essentially a piece of historical reconstruction. His hearers would recall that in one of Rembrandt’s paintings depicting such a subject –
For perhaps a couple of minutes the practised talk flowed on. The audience was quite silent. Finlay for a moment paused to recall a date. In the resulting complete hush there was a sharp click, rather like the lifting of a latch. A girl screamed. Every eye in the theatre was on the cadaver. For its lower jaw had sagged abruptly open, and the teeth, which were plainly dentures, had half extruded themselves from the gaping mouth, rather as if pushed outwards by some spasm within.
Such things do happen. There is a celebrated story of just such startling behaviour on the part of the body of the philosopher Schopenhauer. And Finlay, perceiving that his audience was markedly upset, perhaps debated endeavouring to rally them with just this learned and curious anecdote. But, even as he paused, the cadaver had acted again. Abruptly the jaws closed like a powerful vice, the lips and cheeks sagged; it was to be concluded that this wretched remnant of humanity had swallowed its last meal.
For a moment something like panic hovered over the anatomy theatre. Another footballer fainted; a girl laughed hysterically; two men in the back row, having all the appearance of case-hardened physicians, looked at each other in consternation and bolted from the building. Finlay, with a puzzled look on his face, again glanced backwards at the cadaver. Then he nodded abruptly to Albert, who replaced the tarpaulin. Presumably, after this queer upset, he judged it best to interpose a little more composing historical talk before getting down to business.
He was saying something about the anatomical sketches of Leonardo da Vinci. Again he glanced back at the cadaver. Suddenly the lights went out. The anatomy theatre was in darkness.
For some moments nobody thought of an accident. Finlay often had recourse to an epidiascope or lantern, and the trend of his talk led people to suppose that something of the sort was in train now. Presently, however, it became plain that there was a hitch – and at this the audience broke into every kind of vociferation. Above the uproar the vulture could be heard overhead, vastly agitated. Matches were struck, but cast no certain illumination. Various objects were being pitched about the theatre. There was a strong scent of lilies.
Albert’s voice made itself heard, cursing medical students, cursing the University of Nessfield, cursing Professor Finlay’s final lecture. From the progress of this commination it was possible to infer that he was groping his way towards the switches. There was a click, and once more the white shadowless light flooded the theatre.
Everything was as it had been – save in two particulars. Most of the wreaths and crosses which had been designed for the end of the lecture had proved missiles too tempting to ignore in that interval of darkness; they had been lobbed into the centre of the theatre and lay there about the floor, except for two which had actually landed on the shrouded cadaver.
And Finlay had disappeared.
The audience was bewildered and a little apprehensive. Had the failure of the lighting really been an accident? Or was the popular professor obligingly coming forward with one of his increasingly rare and prized pranks? The audience sat tight, awaiting developments. Albert, returning from the switchboard, impatiently kicked a wreath of lilies from his path. The audience, resenting this display of nervous irritation, cat-called and booed. Then a voice from one of the higher benches called out boisterously: “The corpse has caught the dropsy!”
“It’s a-swelling,” cried another voice – that of a devotee of Dickens – “It’s a-swelling wisibly before my eyes.”
And something had certainly happened to the meagre body beneath its covering; it was as if during the darkness it had been inflated by a gigantic pump.
With a final curse Albert sprang forward and pulled back the tarpaulin. What lay beneath was the body of Professor Finlay, quite dead. The original cadaver was gone.
The vulture swooped hopefully from its rafter.
“Publicity?” said Detective-Inspector John Appleby. “I’m afraid you can scarcely expect anything else. Or perhaps it would be better to say notoriety. Nothing remotely like it has happened in England for years.”
Sir David Evans, Nessfield’s very Welsh Vice-Chancellor, passed a hand dejectedly through his flowing white hair and softly groaned. “A scandal!” he said. “A scandal – look you, Mr Appleby – that peggars description. There must be infestigations. There must be arrests. Already there are reporters from the pig papers. This morning I have been photographed.” Sir David paused and glanced across the room at the handsome portrait of himself which hung above the fireplace. “This morning,” he repeated, momentarily comforted, “I have been photographed, look you, five or six times.”
Appleby smiled. “The last case I remember as at all approaching it was the shooting of Viscount Auldearn, the Lord Chancellor, during a private performance of Hamlet at the Duke of Horton’s seat, Scamnum Court.”
For a second Sir David looked almost cheerful. It was plain that he gained considerable solace from this august comparison. But then he shook his head. “In the anatomy theatre!” he said. “And on the one day of the year when there is these unseemly pehaviours. And a pody vanishes. And there is fultures – fultures, Mr Appleby!”
“One vulture.” Dr Holroyd, Nessfield’s professor of human physiology, spoke as if this comparative paucity of birds of prey represented one of the bright spots of the affair. “Only one vulture, and apparently abstracted by a group of students from the Zoo. The Director rang up as soon as he saw the first report. He might be described as an angry man.”
Appleby brought out a notebook. “What we are looking for,” he said, “is angry men. Perhaps you know of someone whose feelings of anger towards the late Professor Finlay at times approached the murderous?”
Sir David Evans looked at Dr Holroyd, and Dr Holroyd looked at Sir David Evans. And it appeared to Appleby that the demeanour of each was embarrassed. “Of course,” he added, “I don’t mean mere passing irritations between colleagues.”
“There is frictions,” said Sir David carefully. “Always in a university there is frictions. And frictions produce heat. There was pad frictions between Finlay and Dr Holroyd here. There was personalities, I am sorry to say. For years there has been most fexatious personalities.” Sir David, who at all times preserved an appearance of the most massive benevolence, glanced at his colleague with an eye in which there was a nasty glint. “Dr Holroyd is Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, look you. It is why I have asked him to meet you now. And last week at a meeting there was a most disgraceful scene. It was a meeting about lavatories. It was a meeting of the Committee for Lavatories.”
“Dear me!” said Appleby. Universities, he was thinking, must have changed considerably since his day.
“Were there to be more lavatories in the Physiology Puilding? Finlay said he would rather put in a path.”
“A path?” said Appleby, perplexed.
“A path, with hot and cold laid on, and an efficient shower. Finlay said that in his opinion Dr Holroyd here padly needed a path.”
“And did Dr Holroyd retaliate?”
“I am sorry to say that he did, Mr Appleby. He said that if he had his way in the matter Finlay’s own path would be a formalin one. Which is what they keep the cadavers in, Mr Appleby.”
Dr Holroyd shifted uneasily on his chair. “It was unfortunate,” he admitted. “I must freely admit the unfortunate nature of the dispute.”
“It was unacademic,” said Sir David severely. “There is no other word for it, Dr Holroyd.”
“I am afraid it was. And most deplorably public. Whereas your own quarrel with Finlay, Sir David, had been a discreetly unobtrusive matter.” Dr Holroyd smiled with sudden frank malice. “And over private, not University, affairs. In fact, over a woman. Or was it several women?”
“These,” said Appleby rather hastily, “are matters which it may be unnecessary to take up.” Detectives are commonly supposed to expend all their energy in dragging information out of people; actually, much of it goes in preventing irrelevant and embarrassing disclosures. “May I ask, Sir David, your own whereabouts at the time of the fatality?”
“I was in this room, Mr Appleby, reading Plato. Even Vice-Chancellors are entitled to read Plato at times, and I had given orders not to be disturbed.”
“I see. And I take it that nobody interrupted you, and that you might have left the room for a time without being observed?”
Sir David gloomily nodded.
“And you, Dr Holroyd?”
“I went to poor Finlay’s final lecture and sat near the back. But the whole stupid affair disgusted me, and I came away – only a few minutes, it seems, before the lights went out. I composed myself by taking a quiet walk along the canal. It was quite deserted.”
“I see. And now about the manner of Finlay’s death. I understand that you have inspected the body and realise that he was killed by the thrust of a fine dagger from behind? The deed was accomplished in what must have been almost complete darkness. Would you say that it required – or at least that it suggests – something like the professional knowledge of another anatomist or medical man?”
Holroyd was pale. “It certainly didn’t strike me as the blind thrust of an amateur made in a panic. But perhaps there is a species of particularly desperate criminal who is skilled in such things.”
“Possibly so.” Appleby glanced from Holroyd to Sir David. “But is either of you aware of Finlay’s having any connections or interests which might bring upon him the violence of such people? No? Then I think we must be very sceptical about anything of the sort. To kill a man in extremely risky circumstances simply for the pleasure of laying the body on his own dissecting-table before his own students is something quite outside my experience of professional crime. It is much more like some eccentric act of private vengeance. And one conceived by a theatrical mind.”
Once more Sir David Evans looked at Dr Holroyd, and Dr Holroyd looked at Sir David Evans. “Finlay himself,” said Sir David, “had something theatrical about him. Otherwise, look you, he would not have let himself pecome the central figure in this pig yearly joke.” He paused. “Now, Dr Holroyd here is not theatrical. He is pad tempered. He is morose. He is under-pred. But theatrical he is not.”
“And no more is Sir David.” Holroyd seemed positively touched by the character sketch of himself just offered. “He is a bit of a humbug, of course – all philosophers are. And he is not a good man, since it is impossible for a Vice-Chancellor to be that. Perhaps he is even something of a poseur. If compelled to characterise him freely” – and Holroyd got comfortably to his feet – “I should describe him as Goethe described Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Holroyd moved towards the door, and as he did so paused to view Sir David’s portrait. “Fair outside but rotten inwardly,” he quoted thoughtfully. “But of positive theatrical instinct I would be inclined to say that Sir David is tolerably free. Good afternoon.”
There was a moment’s silence. Sir David Evans’ fixed expression of benevolence had never wavered. “Pad passions,” he said. “Look you, Mr Appleby, there is pad passions in that man.”
Albert was pottering gloomily among his cadaver-racks. His massive frame gave a jump as Appleby entered; it was clear that he was not in full possession of that placid repose which ex-policemen should enjoy.
Appleby looked round with brisk interest. “Nice place you have here,” he said. “Everything convenient and nicely thought out.”
The first expression on Albert’s face had been strongly disapproving. But at this he perceptibly relaxed. “Ball-bearing,” he said huskily. “Handles them like lambs.” He pushed back a steel shutter and proudly drew out a rack and its contents. “Nicely developed gal,” he said appreciatively. “Capital pelvis for child-bearing, she was going to have. Now, if you’ll just step over here I can show you one or two uncommonly interesting lower limbs.”
“Thank you – another time.” Appleby, though not unaccustomed to such places, had no aspirations towards connoisseurship. “I want your own story of what happened this morning.”
“Yes, sir.” From old professional habit Albert straightened up and stood at attention. “As you’ll know, there’s always been this bad be’aviour at the final lecture, so there was nothing out of the way in that. But then the lights went out, and they started throwing things, and something ’it me ’ard on the shins.”
“Hard?” said Appleby. “I doubt if that could have been anything thrown from the theatre.”
“No more do I.” Albert was emphatic. “It was someone came in through the doors the moment the lights went out and got me down with a regular Rugby tackle. Fair winded I was, and lost my bearings as well.”
“So it was some little time before you managed to get to the switch, which is just outside the swing doors. And in that time Professor Finlay was killed and substituted for the cadaver, and the cadaver was got clean away. Would you say that was a one-man job?”
“No, sir, I would not. Though – mind you – that body ’ad only to be carried across a corridor and out into the courtyard. Anyone can ’ave a car waiting there, so the rest would be easy enough.”
Appleby nodded. “The killing of Finlay, and the laying him out like that, may have been a sheer piece of macabre drama, possibly conceived and executed by a lunatic – or even by an apparently sane man with some specific obsession regarding corpses. But can you see any reason why such a person should actually carry off the original corpse? It meant saddling himself with an uncommonly awkward piece of evidence.”
“You can’t ever tell what madmen will do. And as for corpses, there are more people than you would reckon what ’as uncommon queer interests in them at times.” And Albert shook his head. “I seen things,” he added.
“No doubt you have. But have you seen anything just lately? Was there anything that might be considered as leading up to this shocking affair?”
Albert hesitated. “Well, sir, in this line wot I come down to since they retired me it’s not always possible to up’old the law. In fact, it’s sometimes necessary to circumvent it, like. For, as the late professor was given to remarking, science must be served.” Albert paused and tapped his cadaver-racks. “Served with these ’ere. And of late we’ve been uncommon short. And there’s no doubt that now and then him and me was stretching a point.”
“Good heavens!” Appleby was genuinely alarmed. “This affair is bad enough already. You don’t mean to say that it’s going to lead to some further scandal about body-snatching?”
“Nothing like that, sir.” But as he said this Albert looked doubtful. “Nothing quite like that. They comes from institutions, you know. And nowadays they ’as to be got to sign papers. It’s a matter of tact. Sometimes relatives comes along afterwards and says there been too much tact by a long way. It’s not always easy to know just how much tact you can turn on. There’s no denying but we’ve ’ad one or two awkwardnesses this year. And it’s my belief as ’ow this sad affair is just another awkwardness – but more violent like than the others.”
“It was violent, all right.” Appleby had turned and led the way into the deserted theatre. Flowers still strewed it. There was a mingled smell of lilies and formalin. Overhead, the single great lamp was like a vast all-seeing eye. But that morning the eye had blinked. And what deed of darkness had followed?
“The professor was killed and laid out like that, sir, as an act of revenge by some barmy and outraged relation. And the cadaver was carried off by that same relation as what you might call an act of piety.”
“Well, it’s an idea.” Appleby was strolling about, measuring distances with his eye. “But what about this particular body upon which Finlay was going to demonstrate? Had it outraged any pious relations?”
“It only come in yesterday. Quite unprepared it was to be, you see – the same as hanatomists ’ad them in the sixteenth century. Very interesting the late professor was on all that. And why all them young varmints of students should take this partikler occasion to fool around–”
“Quite so. It was all in extremely bad taste, I agree. And I don’t doubt that the Coroner will say so. And an Assize Judge too, if we have any luck. But you were going to tell me about this particular corpse.”
“I was saying it only come in yesterday. And it was after that that somebody tried to break into the cadaver-racks. Last night, they did – and not a doubt of it. Quite professional, too. If this whole part of the building, sir, weren’t well-nigh like a strong-room they’d have done it, without a doubt. And when the late professor ’eard of it ’e was as worried as I was. Awkwardnesses we’ve ’ad. But body-snatching in reverse, as you might say, was a new one on us both.”
“So you think that the outraged and pious relation had an earlier shot, in the programme for which murder was not included? I think it’s about time we hunted him up.”
Albert looked sorely perplexed. “And so it would be – if we knew where to find him. But it almost seems as if there never was a cadaver with less in the way of relations than this one wot ’as caused all the trouble. A fair ideal cadaver it seemed to be. You don’t think, now” – Albert was frankly inconsequent – “that it might ’ave been an accident? You don’t think it might ’ave been one of them young varmint’s jokes gone a bit wrong?”
“I do not.”
“But listen, sir.” Albert was suddenly urgent. “Suppose there was a plan like this. The lights was to be put out and a great horrid dagger thrust into the cadaver. That would be quite like one of their jokes, believe me. For on would go the lights again and folk would get a pretty nasty shock. But now suppose – just suppose, sir – that when the lights were put out for that there purpose there came into the professor’s head the notion of a joke of his own. He would change places with the cadaver–”
“But the man wasn’t mad!” Appleby was staring at the late Professor Finlay’s assistant in astonishment. “Anything so grotesque–”
“He done queer things before now.” Albert was suddenly stubborn. “It would come on him sometimes to do something crazier than all them young fools could cudgel their silly brains after. And then the joke would come first and decency second. I seen some queer things at final lectures before this. And that would mean that the varmint thinking to stick the dagger in the cadaver would stick it in the late professor instead.”
“I see.” Appleby was looking at Albert with serious admiration; the fellow didn’t look very bright – nevertheless his days in the Force should have been spent in the detective branch. “It’s a better theory than we’ve had yet, I’m bound to say. But it leaves out two things: the disappearance of the original body, and the fact that Finlay was stabbed from behind. For if he did substitute himself for the body it would have been in the same position – a supine position, and not a prone one. So I don’t think your notion will do. And, anyway, we must have all the information about the cadaver that we can get.”
“It isn’t much.” Albert bore the discountenance of his hypothesis well. “We don’t know much more about ’im than this – that ’e was a seafaring man.”
The cadaver, it appeared, had at least possessed a name: James Cass. He had also possessed a nationality, for his seaman’s papers declared him to be a citizen of the United States, and that his next-of-kin was a certain Martha Cass, with an indecipherable address in Seattle, Washington. For some years he had been sailing pretty constantly in freighters between England and America. Anybody less likely to bring down upon the Anatomy Department of Nessfield University the vengeance of outraged and pious relations it would have been difficult to conceive. And the story of Cass’ death and relegation to the service of science was an equally bare one. He had come off his ship and was making his way to an unknown lodging when he had been knocked down by a tram and taken to the casualty ward of Nessfield Infirmary. There he had been visited by the watchful Albert, who had surreptitiously presented him with a flask of gin, receiving in exchange Cass’ signature to a document bequeathing his remains for the purposes of medical science. Cass had then died, and his body had been delivered at the Anatomy School.
And, after that, somebody had ruthlessly killed Professor Finlay and then carried James Cass’ body away again. Stripped of the bewildering nonsense of the final lecture, thought Appleby, the terms of the problem were fairly simple. And yet that nonsense, too, was relevant. For it had surely been counted upon in the plans of the murderer.
For a few minutes Appleby worked with a stop-watch. Then he turned once more to Albert. “At the moment,” he said, “Cass himself appears to be something of a dead end. So now, let us take the lecture – or the small part of it that Finlay had got through before the lights went out. You were a witness of it – and a trained police witness, which is an uncommonly fortunate thing. I want you to give me every detail you can – down to the least squawk or flutter by that damned vulture.”
Albert was gratified, and did as he was bid. Appleby listened, absorbed. Only once a flicker passed over his features. But when Albert was finished he had some questions to ask.
“There was the audience,” he said, “–if audience is the right name for it. Apparently all sorts of people were accustomed to turn up?”
“All manner of unlikely and unsuitable folk.” Albert looked disgusted. “Though most of them would be medical, one way or another. As you can imagine, sir, a demonstration of a sixteenth-century dissecting technique isn’t every layman’s fancy.”
“It certainly wouldn’t be mine.”
“I couldn’t put a name to a good many of them. But there was Dr Holroyd, whom you’ll have met, sir; he’s our professor of Human Physiology. Went away early, he did; and looking mighty disgusted, too. Then there was Dr Wesselman, the lecturer in Prosthetics – an alien, he is, and not been in Nessfield many years. He brought a friend I never had sight of before. And out they went too.”
“Well, that’s very interesting. And can you recall anyone else?”
“I don’t know that I can, sir. Except of course our Vice-Chancellor, Sir David Evans.”
Appleby jumped. “Evans! But he swore to me that–”
Albert smiled indulgently. “Bless you, that’s his regular way. Did you ever know a Welshman who could let a day pass without a bit of ’armless deceit like?”
“There may be something in that.”
“’E don’t think it dignified, as you might say, to attend the final lecture openly. But more often than not he’s up there at the far doorway, peering in at the fun. Well, this time ’e ’ad more than ’e bargained for.”
“No doubt he had. And the same prescription might be good for some of the rest of us.” Appleby paused and glanced quickly round the empty theatre. “Just step to a telephone, will you, and ask Dr Holroyd to come over here.”
Albert did as he was asked, and presently the physiologist came nervously in. “Is another interview really necessary?” he demanded. “I have a most important–”
“We shall hope not to detain you long.” Appleby’s voice was dry rather than reassuring. “It is merely that I want you to assist me in a reconstruction of the crime.”
Holroyd flushed. “And may I ask by what right you ask me to take part in such a foolery?”
Appleby suddenly smiled. “None, sir – none at all. I merely wanted a trained mind – and one with a pronounced instinct to get at the truth of a problem when it arises. I was sure you would be glad to help.”
“Perhaps I am. Anyway, go ahead.”
“Then I should be obliged if you would be the murderer. Perhaps I should say the first murderer, for it seems likely enough that there were at least two – accomplices. You have no objection to so disagreeable a part?”
Holroyd shrugged his shoulders. “Naturally, I have none whatever. But I fear I must be coached in it and given my cues. For I assure you it is a role entirely foreign to me. And I have no theatrical flair, as Sir David pointed out.”
Once more Appleby brought out his stop-watch. “Albert,” he said briskly, “shall be the cadaver, and I shall be Finlay standing in front of it. Your business is to enter by the back, switch off the light, step into the theatre and there affect to stab me. I shall fall to the floor. You must then dislodge Albert, hoist me into his place and cover me with the tarpaulin. Then you must get hold of Albert by the legs or shoulders and haul him from the theatre.”
“And all this in the dark? It seems a bit of a programme.”
Appleby nodded. “I agree with you. But we shall at least discover if it is at all possible of accomplishment by one man in the time available. So are you ready?”
“One moment, sir.” Albert, about to assume the passive part of the late James Cass, sat up abruptly. “You seem to have missed me out. Me as I was, that is to say.”
“Quite true.” Appleby looked at him thoughtfully. “We are short of a stand-in for you as you were this morning. But I shall stop off being Finlay’s body and turn on the lights again myself. So go ahead.”
Albert lay down and drew the tarpaulin over his head. Holroyd slipped out. Appleby advanced as if to address an audience. “Now,” he said.
And Appleby talked. Being thorough, he made such anatomical observations as his ignorance allowed. Once he glanced round at the corpse, and out of the corner of his eye glimpsed Holroyd beyond the glass-panelled door, his hand already going up to flick at the switch. A moment later the theatre was in darkness, and seconds after that Appleby felt a sharp tap beneath the shoulder-blade. He pitched to the floor, pressing his stop-watch as he did so. Various heaving sounds followed as Holroyd got the portly Albert off the table; then Appleby felt himself seized in surprisingly strong arms and hoisted up in Albert’s place. Next came a shuffle and a scrape as Holroyd, panting heavily now, dragged the inert Albert from the theatre. Appleby waited for a couple of seconds, threw back the tarpaulin and lowered himself to the floor. Then he groped his way through the door, flicked on the light and looked at his watch. “And the audience,” he said, “is now sitting back and waiting – until presently somebody points out that the cadaver is the wrong size. Thank you very much. The reconstruction has been more instructive than I hoped.” He turned to Holroyd. “I am still inclined to think that it has the appearance of being the work of two men. And yet you managed it pretty well on schedule when single-handed. Never a fumble and just the right lift. You might almost have been practising it.”
Holroyd frowned. “Yachting,” he said briefly, “–and particularly at night. It makes one handy.”
And Albert looked with sudden suspicion at Nessfield’s professor of Human Physiology. “Yachting?” he asked. “Now, would that have put you in the way of acquaintance with many seafaring men?”
Of James Cass, that luckless waif who would be a seafarer no longer, Appleby learned little more that afternoon. The cargo-vessel from which he had disembarked was already at sea again, and a couple of days must elapse before any line could be tapped there. But one elderly seaman who had recently made several voyages with him a little research did produce, and from this witness two facts emerged. There was nothing out of the way about Cass – except that he was a man distinctly on the simple side. Cass had been suggestible, Appleby gathered; so much so as to have been slightly a butt among his fellows. And Appleby asked a question: had the dead man appeared to have any regular engagement or preoccupation when he came into port? The answer to this was definitive. Within a couple of hours, Appleby felt, the file dealing with this queer mystery of the anatomy theatre would be virtually closed for good.
Another fifteen minutes found him mounting the staircase of one of Nessfield’s most superior blocks of professional chambers. But the building, if imposing, was gloomy as well, and when Appleby was overtaken and jostled by a hurrying form it was a second before he recognised that he was again in the presence of Dr Holroyd.
“Just a moment,” Appleby laid a hand on the other’s arm. “May I ask if this coincidence extends to our both aiming at the third floor?”
Holroyd was startled, but made no reply. They mounted the final flight side by side and in silence. Appleby rang a bell before a door with a handsome brass plate. After a perceptible delay the door was opened by a decidedly flurried nurse, who showed the two men into a sombre waiting-room. “I don’t think,” she said, “that you have an appointment? And as an emergency has just arisen I am afraid there is no chance of seeing Dr–”
She stopped at an exclamation from Appleby. Hunched in a corner of the waiting-room was a figure whose face was almost entirely swathed in a voluminous silk muffler. But there was no mistaking that flowing silver hair. “Sir David!” exclaimed Appleby. “This is really a most remarkable rendezvous.”
Sir David Evans groaned. “My chaw,” he said. “It is one pig ache, look you.”
Holroyd laughed nervously. “Shakespeare was demonstrably right. There was never yet philosopher could bear the toothache patiently – nor Vice-Chancellor either.”
But Appleby paid no attention; he was listening keenly to something else. From beyond a door on the right came sound of hurried, heavy movement. Appleby strode across the room and turned the handle. He flung back the door and found himself looking into the dentist’s surgery. “Dr Wesselmann?” he said.
The answer was an angry shout from a bullet-headed man in a white coat. “How dare you intrude in this way!” he cried. “My colleague and myself are confronted with a serious emergency. Be so good as to withdraw at once.”
Appleby stood his ground and surveyed the room; Holroyd stepped close behind him. The dentist’s chair was empty, but on a surgical couch nearby lay a patient covered with a light rug. Over this figure another white-coated man was bending, and appeared to be holding an oxygen-mask over its face.
And Nessfield’s lecturer in Prosthetics seemed to find further explanations necessary. “A patient,” he said rapidly, “with an unsuspected idiosyncrasy to intravenous barbiturates. Oxygen has to be administered, and the position is critical. So be so good–”
Appleby leaped forward and sent the white-coated holder of the oxygen-mask spinning; he flung back the rug. There could be no doubt that what was revealed was James Cass’ body. And since lying on Professor Finlay’s dissecting-table it had sustained a great gash in the throat. It had never been very pleasant to look at. It was ghastly enough now.
Wesselmann’s hand darted to his pocket; Holroyd leaped on him with his yachtsman’s litheness, and the alien dentist went down heavily on the floor. The second man showed no fight as he was handcuffed. Appleby looked curiously at Holroyd. “So you saw,” he asked, “how the land lay?”
“In my purely amateur fashion I suppose I did. And I think I finished on schedule once again.”
Appleby laughed. “Your intervention saved me from something decidedly nasty at the hands of Nessfield’s authority on false teeth. By the way, would you look round for the teeth in question? And then we can have in Sir David – seeing he is so conveniently in attendance – and say an explanatory word.”
“I got the hang of it,” said Appleby, “when we did a very rough-and-ready reconstruction of the crime. For when, while playing Finlay’s part, I glanced round at the cadaver, I found myself catching a glimpse of Dr Holroyd here when he was obligingly playing First Murderer and turning off the lights. There was a glass panel in the door, and through this he was perfectly visible. I saw at once why Finlay had been killed. It was merely because he had seen, and recognised, somebody who was about to plunge the theatre in darkness for some nefarious, but not necessarily murderous, end. What did this person want? There could be only one answer: the body of James Cass. Already he had tried to get it in the night, but the housebreaking involved had proved too difficult.”
The benevolent features of Sir David Evans were shadowed by perplexity. “But why, Mr Appleby, should this man want such a pody?”
“I shall come to that in a moment. But first keep simply to this: that the body had to be stolen even at great hazard; that when glimpsed and recognised by Finlay the potential thief was sufficiently ruthless to silence him with a dagger secreted for such an emergency – and was also sufficiently quick-witted to exploit this extemporaneous murder to his own advantage. If he had simply bolted with Cass’ body and left that of Finlay the hunt would, of course, have been up the moment somebody turned the lights on. By rapidly substituting one body for the other – Finlay’s for that of Cass – on the dissecting-table, he contrived the appearance first of some more or less natural momentary absence of Finlay from the theatre, and secondly the suggestion of some possible joke which kept the audience wary and quiet for some seconds longer. All this gave additional time for his getaway. And – yet again – the sheerly grotesque consequence of the substitution had great potential value as a disguise. By suggesting some maniacal act of private vengeance it masked the purely practical – and the professionally criminal – nature of the crime.
“And now, what did we know of Cass? We knew that he was a seaman; that he travelled more or less regularly between England and America; that he was knocked down and presently died shortly after landing; and that he was a simple-minded fellow, easily open to persuasion. And we also knew this: that he had a set of rather incongruously magnificent false teeth; that in the anatomy theatre these first protruded themselves and then by some muscular spasm appeared to lodge themselves in the throat, the jaw closing like a vice. And we also knew that, hard upon this, a certain Dr Wesselmann, an alien comparatively little known in Nessfield and actually a specialist in false teeth, hurried from the theatre accompanied by a companion. When I also learned from a seaman who had sailed with Cass that he was often concerned about his teeth and would hurry off to a dentist as soon as he reached shore, I saw that the case was virtually complete.”
“And would be wholly so when you recovered Cass’ body and got hold of these.” Holroyd came forward as he spoke, carrying two dental plates on an enamel tray. “Sir David, what would you say about Cass’ teeth?”
Nessfield’s Vice-Chancellor had removed the muffler from about his jaw; the excitement of the hunt had for the moment banished the pain which had driven him to Wesselmann’s rooms. He inspected the dentures carefully – and then spoke the inevitable word. “They are pig,” he said decisively.
“Exactly so. And now, look.” Holroyd gave a deft twist to a molar; the denture which he was holding fell apart; in the hollow of each gleaming tooth there could be discerned a minute oil-silk package.
“What they contain,” said Appleby, “is probably papers covered with a microscopic writing. I had thought perhaps of uncut diamonds. But now I am pretty sure that what we have run to earth is espionage. What one might call the Unwitting Intermediary represents one of the first principles of that perpetually fantastic game at its higher levels. Have a messenger who has no notion that he is a messenger, and you at once supply yourself with the sort of insulating device between cell and cell that gives spies a comforting feeling of security. Cass has been such a device. And it was one perfectly easy to operate. He had merely to be persuaded that his false teeth were always likely to give him trouble, and that he must regularly consult (at an obligingly low fee) this dentist at one end and that dentist at the other – and the thing was practically foolproof. Only Wesselmann and his friends failed to reckon on sudden death, and much less on Cass’ signing away his body – dentures and all – to an anatomy school.” Appleby paused. “And now, gentlemen, that concludes the affair. So what shall we call it?”
Holroyd smiled. “Call it the Cass Case. You couldn’t get anything more compendious than that.”
But Sir David Evans shook his beautiful silver locks. “No!” he said authoritatively. “It shall be called Lesson in Anatomy. The investigation has been most interesting, Mr Appleby. And now let us go. For the photographers, look you, are waiting.”