Doctor Death (2 page)

“As long as the autopsy was performed by an experienced and dedicated scientist,” he said with dignity, “I would allow it.”

Upon which they shook hands.

Most young women would probably have run away screaming if they had heard their father declare that he would be willing to let an unknown man disembowel them for closer scientific examination. But I am not like most. I felt a small warm glow of pride out there in the cold.

In the chapel of Saint Bernardine’s, Cecile Montaine lay lifeless and unmoving on her bier, as Father Abigore watched over her. He had dimmed the gaslights and had lit candles instead and was now on his knees praying next to the dead girl. In the weak light he could not see that more of the little pale white mites were crawling from her nostrils and mouth, across the white cloth that covered her, and toward the prayer book that he held in his folded hands.

It was fortunate that it was such a cold night, as the mites could not survive for long in the chill air. Most of them died quickly.

But not all.

“Clearly an arachnid,” my father dictated. “With eight legs that are strongly developed in relation to the body size. The legs are eight jointed and have noticeable claws. The oral aperture is small, again relative to the size of the body and head. The abdomen appears flexible, as with ticks, which suggests a parasitic, possibly blood-sucking existence, but there is no chitin back shell, for which reason I postulate that the specimen can be classified as belonging to the soft mites . . .”

He broke off his recitation and stood up straight. There was a purposeful frustration to his movements.

“I don’t know enough about parasitology,” he complained. “Maddie, would you draw it? Then we might consult an expert—if we can find one.”

“Of course, Papa.”

I pulled my tall stool over to the microscope. For me it was immeasurably more absorbing to register bacterial life-forms and parasites than to reproduce the flower arrangements and
natures mortes
that Madame Aubrey’s Academy for Young Ladies had considered appropriate subjects for the daughters of the bourgeoisie.
But the lessons in watercolor and art appreciation had given me a certain basic competence with pencil, pen, and brush—one of the few lessons from the academy that I had found useful in real life.

While I sat there in the sunlight streaming through the tall windows and drew mandibles and scaly legs with carefully measured accuracy—on a scale of 1:100 since the creature measured barely 2.4 millimeters—my father and the Commissioner conversed over the cups of coffee Papa had made with the aid of the Bunsen burner. My father had turned the former kitchen into his laboratory more than a decade ago, and we had never built a new one. It simplified our housekeeping quite a bit, for which I was grateful. Madame Vogler came in a few days a week to do laundry and housecleaning, and her daughter Elise did the rest—received guests, when any came, lit the stoves, aired the rooms, ran errands for us, and took care of the modest daily shopping we required. Beyond that we usually ate at Chez Louis, which was right around the corner.

“Mademoiselle Montaine disappeared on the third of February,” said the Commissioner. “And since Emile Oblonski vanished at the same time, it was assumed that the young couple had eloped together. Which might of course be the case, but Cecile’s fate places Oblonski’s absence in a somewhat different light.”

“Are you implying that he in some way is responsible for the death of our young lady?”

“I am implying nothing. Especially not while I still do not have a cause of death.”

My father eyed the Commissioner.

“I have been denied even the permission to examine her unclothed body,” he said. “How am I supposed to venture an opinion on a reasonably scientific basis?”

The Commissioner looked at the ceiling as if he could find an answer to his dilemma by deciphering its various paint flakes and
soot marks. Finally he said, “Half an hour. Not a second more. No visible signs of the examination afterward and bring Madeleine with you, so that we may at least be said to have shown the proper respect, should we be discovered.”

Yes! I thought triumphantly. Now he cannot continue to refuse.

My father’s forefinger was tapping the table lightly with a tiny metronome-like sound. It was a sign of indecision, but this time I knew in advance what the result of his deliberations would be.

“Maddie, will you do us that small favor?”

“Of course, Papa.”

The dead body is precisely that—dead. All life processes have ceased, the blood separates into its basic elements, the skin turns bluish and sallow, all secretions dry up. And still the body continues for a time to have an identity. It is a human being, not just a temporary collection of tissue, bones, and organs that have ceased to function. Cecile was still recognizably Cecile, and to undress the dead body was a strange and intimate act that disturbingly interfered with the dispassionate objectivity I was trying to maintain.

The silk of the chemise was soft and smooth except under the arms and at the back, where the salt of dried sweat had caked and stiffened the material. I folded it and the soiled pantalets carefully and set them aside, because when the examination was over, I would need to dress her again to meet the Commissioner’s second demand—that after the fact there be no visible signs of what had taken place.

We don’t lay the dead naked in their graves. We dress them, even if they are unlikely to need it. We see it as our duty, the last
dignity we can give them, even though we know that the clothes will just rot with the body.

Cecile was naked now.

And still she appeared neither exposed nor desecrated in my eyes. Even in death there was a symmetry, a completeness to her that made it seem as if she were missing nothing except life. That absence hit me suddenly, so deeply that a tiny wordless exclamation escaped my lips.

“What is it?” asked my father. He stood together with the Commissioner just outside the half-open door and waited to be called in when I was done with the undressing.

“Nothing,” I said. And then I saw something that did mar the body’s symmetry. “That is . . . she has some marks on her. Some scars.”

“Maddie, you are not supposed to examine her. Just to undress her.”

“Yes, Papa. I have done that now.”

The two men entered. I took my notebook and began to make notes while my father carefully and systematically described Cecile Montaine’s corpse. Age and gender, approximate height and weight, state of nourishment (generally good but with signs of recent weight loss), hair color, eye color, and so on. Only then did he focus on the scars I had observed.

“Half-moon-shaped symmetrically opposed scars and bruises. Some quite faint and of an older date, others fresh and only newly healed. About half a dozen in all, primarily occurring in the region of the breasts, on the stomach, and on the inside of the thighs.”

“They are bite marks, aren’t they?” asked the Commissioner.

“Yes,” said my father. “Some have been quite deep, others more superficial.”

“An animal?”

My father shook his head. “I do not think so. A dog, for example,
would leave a much more elongated configuration, with deeper penetrations from the canines. I think these are of human origin.”

The Commissioner was not a man whose face mirrored his soul; he nonetheless raised one eyebrow.

“Are you telling me she was bitten, multiple times and over an extended period of time, by a human being?”

“Yes. That is what I have to conclude.”

“Is this relevant to the cause of death?”

“Not directly. The lesions have all healed. But human bites can of course carry infection just as animal bites can, so an indirect connection cannot be ruled out.”

I looked at the scars. Some were faded pale white lines now, others more garishly mauve and purple. Breasts, stomach, thighs. Not arms, shoulders, or neck. Only areas that would normally be hidden by her clothing. There was an unsettling intimacy and calculation to the damage.

“Is this something that has occurred voluntarily or . . . ?” The Commissioner did not finish his sentence.

“That is difficult to determine. But I can say this much—the pain must have been considerable.”

The scars in no way solved the riddle of Cecile’s death. They just raised more questions. Nevertheless, while I dressed her corpse, with some difficulty because rigor mortis had not yet dissipated, my father had no choice but to write out a death certificate that stated that her death was natural. Cecile Montaine had taken ill. She had died from her illness. And with that the case was officially closed.

On the day of Cecile Montaine’s burial, the thaw set in. Heavy gray snow fell in sodden clumps from the branches of the elm trees along the wall facing Hope Avenue, and the paths were a slippery mess of slush on top of old crusts of dark ice. It was not just for show that the ladies clutched at the supporting arms of the gentlemen of the party—button boots, even with a sensible heel, were not suitable footwear under these circumstances. The sky was leaden, and showers of drizzling cold rain swept across the churchyard at regular intervals.

“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable . . .” Father Abigore did his best, but the words sounded hollow when one gazed down at the rain-filled hole into which Cecile’s coffin had just been lowered. He sneezed violently and had to blow his nose into a big black-bordered handkerchief before he could continue.