“Not now. This entire room must be cleared out immediately.” Uncle crouched beside the blackened corpse. He flicked his gaze up to me. “We will perform the postmortem here.”
My palms tingled as I stood at the foot of the stage, eyeing our temporary laboratory. Silks that hadn’t burned entirely hung in tatters, smoke rose from the body, and ashes covered much of the scene like gray snow. It seemed the most wretched of places to carve open a corpse, but was actually quite fitting given the theatrics of it all.
A crew member rushed over to Uncle, handing him his medical satchel. Uncle must have sent for it as soon as he’d left our table. I had no idea how he always remained calm during the worst of storms, and could only hope to emulate him one day. The young man backed away from the scene, his eyes wide and unblinking. A few moments later, the dining saloon was empty and we were ready to work. Mechanically, I took aprons from Uncle’s bag and handed them out, then tied my own about my waist. The flowers on my gown bulged and the hem would most certainly get ruined with soot, but I didn’t care. I removed my gloves and folded them neatly. They would affect my grip on the scalpels.
Thomas helped me up onto the stage, and I somehow found the will to slow my heartbeat, to clear my mind. I stood over the body, pressing the dampened cloth to my nose.
“The fire started at the feet,” I said, voice cracking. Uncle and Thomas jerked their attention from the corpse to me. “The gauze melted there, but not on the face. Same with the burnt skin. It’s charred on the legs, but the head isn’t as bad. Thomas was correct earlier—whoever she was, she wasn’t alive when the fire began.”
Thomas stalked around the body, fingers tapping his lips as he glanced from the ceiling to the floor and all around. His face was a mask of ice. When he switched into this role, I understood why others were sometimes frightened of him. Except now I no longer thought their taunts of him being an automaton were correct—when he transformed into a deductive scientist, he looked more like an unforgiving god, sent to mete out justice.
A muscle in his jaw flickered. “An emerald ring. Looks to be an heirloom.”
I ripped my attention off of Thomas and stared at the ring, heart pounding. A memory struck me at once.
“Miss Crenshaw,” I blurted. “Her mother said she had an emerald ring. And she never took it off.”
Thomas knelt beside the body. “Victim has auburn hair. Lady Crenshaw has a similar shade, though it’s not definitive proof.”
“No, but it’s a start.” Uncle twisted his mustache. “We’ll need to collect physical descriptions and see if the Crenshaws can confirm height and weight. It’s not impossible to identify the body, but let’s not traumatize anyone by making them inspect it if we don’t need to. I’d also like to know if Dr. Arden has ever treated any member of the family. Perhaps the victims are all connected to him.” He nodded toward the ring. “Once we complete our investigation, we’ll also see if this is indeed the ring they’d mentioned.” He set his mouth into a grim line. “Hand me my scalpel, Audrey Rose.”
I did as I was told. Normally, the bodies were already without clothes when I assisted Uncle in his laboratory. Removing the clothing was a bit harder in this case; Uncle had to carefully cut away what fabric he could, doing his best to not accidentally carve off burnt flesh. Instead of risking harm to the lower half of the body, he focused on cutting away material from the torso up. I noted that she’d been stripped to her underthings, and from what was left, the lace appeared to be of a fine quality. She was likely another first-class passenger, our murderer’s preferred victims. Uncle moved briskly and efficiently, his years of training and practice showing.
In a few moments, he had the body ready for our inspection. After performing a quick external
examination and finding no obvious outward causes of death, he brought the scalpel to the flesh and made a Y incision, swiftly parting the skin. I handed him the rib cutters and stood back as her inner cavity was exposed. Uncle wiped his hands down the front of his apron, smearing the cream fabric with rust-colored liquid. I imagined he longed to wash in carbolic soap, but couldn’t worry about contamination now. He leaned over the body, sniffing. Previous experience told me he was looking for signs of poison. Often a scent could be detected near the stomach if it had been ingested. I tried not to think about the victims of our last case in Romania.
I handed him another blade and he carefully opened the stomach, searching through its contents. He rooted around for a bit, then stepped back. “If she ate chocolate cake, sugared berries, and champagne before dying, then what does that indicate?”
“She must have had an awful stomachache,” Thomas said blandly.
“Thomas!” I shot him a look of horror. “Be serious.”
“I am.” He held his hands up. “All of those are sweet. And are more than likely to hide poison in them. I imagine her stomach must have hurt immensely. It probably started slowly, and she’d thought it was simply from the overindulgence. Then she would have likely figured out something was wrong soon after, when the pain increased and the perspiration began in earnest.” He pointed to her hands, red and splotchy from where they’d been burned. “Her nails are broken, but the cuts are on her palms, not from fighting the murderer. A fine indicator that she clutched herself, trying to dull the pain.”
Uncle removed the stomach and motioned for a tray. I held it steady as he deposited the organ on it with a slick thud, doing everything in my power to not picture the broiled lobster the tray had held earlier. With forceps, he pulled a few undigested berries out. “We’ll need to run tests, naturally, but these appear to be belladonna.”
I mentally flipped through lessons on poisons. Belladonna was a nightshade, sometimes called the devil’s berries. An uncomfortable feeling slid through my bones. She would have suffered greatly after ingesting that many berries—her heart rate likely sped up, her breathing and muscles unable to work properly. Whoever had fed this dessert of death to her was heartless. I could not fathom what it must have been like, sitting there, watching her body convulse as death claimed her. This murder was slow and deliberate, the staging of the body extreme.
I placed the berries in a vial for further inspection, watching Uncle sew the corpse together again. His stitches were neat and precise, exactly as he’d taught me.
“Have the captain show Lord and Lady Crenshaw the ring. See if they’re able to identify it as their daughter’s.” He turned his attention on the body, his expression sad. “It’s the least we can offer as far as peace goes.”
Thomas went to do the gruesome task of sliding the ring off her finger, but I stopped him. I didn’t want to be so cold and clinical in this moment. It felt much too solemn for that. I bent down and gently lifted her arm, taking great care as I removed what had once been a treasure to her, according to her family. I sat on my heels a second more, then laid her arm over her chest. She had been tortured, murdered, then had her body turned into a spectacle of fear.
“The Star,” I said, mostly to myself. Thomas and Uncle wore similar expressions of confusion. “The tarot card most likely associated with this staged death. I’ve…” I didn’t want to tell them I’d gotten hold of a deck of tarot cards along with my playing cards, so I shrugged. “I borrowed Liza’s cards and studied them last night. This body looks like that card. We need to figure out what it means. Combined with the others, it might lead us to our murderer.”
Uncle looked skeptical, but nodded assent. I pushed myself to a standing position, the ring clasped tightly in my hand. Gone were my feelings of horror and sadness. In their place a spark of anger ignited. Whoever had done this had gone too far, and I would not rest until they paid for their crimes.
“Cover her with a cloak before they take her away,” I said, my voice like ice. “I’ll bring this to the captain now.”
I spun on my heel and strode toward the door, determination pounding through me like a second heartbeat. This ship might be turning into a floating nightmare, but I refused to give in to fear.
FIFTEEN
AN INDECENT SITUATION
LORD CRENSHAW’S CABIN