“Body snatchers can’t earn more than maybe a dozen guineas per corpse,” I explained to my brother. “And now that the public is aware of their actions and has tightened security at the graveyards in and around Edinburgh and London and the other medical schools, setting watches and using mortsafes and such, it’s much more difficult for them to steal bodies without being caught. Especially since Burke and Hare’s trial two years ago.” The actions of those men were still fresh in the minds of everyone in Edinburgh, particularly the poor, who rightly believed they were more susceptible to similar such schemes.
Rather than risk being caught while performing the difficult labor of disinterring bodies from the heavily guarded local graveyards, Burke and Hare had begun inviting victims to their lodging house, plying them with alcohol, and smothering them to death. They then sold the bodies to the Surgeons’ Hall at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, hoping the anatomists would not recognize the bodies they were dissecting as missing persons. There was some speculation that the surgeons had known what Burke and Hare were really doing, but it could never be proven. In any case, Burke and Hare were finally caught in November 1828, but not before they’d murdered sixteen people.
That Sir Anthony’s death and the revelation of my involvement with his work had occurred less than six months after Burke and Hare’s trial had only added fuel to the fire of my scandal. The shock of the discovery of a gently bred female participating in such a gruesome undertaking as human dissection appealed to the morbid fascination of the citizens of London, making it all too easy for vicious rumors about me to begin circulating. I had never prowled the streets, luring unsuspecting young gentlemen to their deaths, or dined on their choicest organs. I was no cannibal, nor did I have anything to do with the procurement of my late husband’s dissection subjects. I merely sketched what he told me to. But the truth did not matter to the public, and soon they were whipped up into such a panic that there was nothing for me to do but leave the city. It simply wasn’t safe for me or my family to stay.
I still felt bitter that no one had considered my feelings in the matter. Everyone had jumped to the conclusion that I had wished to assist with Sir Anthony’s work, when the truth was that I had been forced to do so. I’d had no desire to take part in the grisly business, and for three years I’d suffered in silence. I’d made the best of it—I’d had no other choice—learning from my late husband’s pompous tutelage, as he still continued to lecture as if speaking to an entire medical theater full of students rather than an audience of one. When Sir Anthony had died, any tears that had stung my eyes had been in relief, not grief, though of course, I’d never let them fall. I couldn’t. Not then.
I shook away the memory, hoping Gage and Trevor hadn’t noticed how downtrodden my thoughts had become.
“But older bodies would not have been guarded. Just as Lord Buchan’s wasn’t. Everyone believes they’re safe from any criminals,” Trevor guessed, beginning to understand what Gage and I had already realized.
“Yes,” I replied. “Think how much more money they could earn ransoming a body back to wealthy relatives. So much less effort and risk, and such a greater reward.”
“I doubt the laws against kidnapping contain any mention of corpses,” Gage added with an ironic lift to his brow.
“Or would the corpse, the bones, be considered stolen property?” my brother pointed out.
Gage nodded his head to concede Trevor’s point. “An interesting conundrum.”
“Do you mind telling us whose body was stolen . . . kidnapped . . . whichever it is?” I asked Gage.
“Sir Colum Casselbeck. I was asked to investigate by his son, Sir Robert. Sir Colum’s body was taken from the graveyard at their parish church in Musselburgh.”
“That’s east of Edinburgh, near the sea, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He frowned down at his boot where it rested against his knee. His hand flexed where it gripped his ankle. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. I was asked to investigate just a few days before the ransom note arrived. I wasn’t able to uncover anything of use, so we decided to follow the ransom note’s instructions and try to catch them that way.” He looked up at me and I could tell he was angered by whatever had happened. “But they were clever. Fiendishly. Isn’t that the word you used?”
I nodded.