He disappeared into the room, and Stoker turned to me with a whimper. “No tea? I am famished.”
“When we have finished,” I told him firmly. “The Anatomical Beauties must be in that room.”
“I hope for your sake they are,” he said. “I could perish of malnutrition for all the time it has taken us to get this far, thanks to your insistence upon seeing every last eyelash in his collection.”
“We want to find Signore Branzino’s waxwork and gain information,”I reminded him. “And information is more easily dealt to those with whom one has a rapport.”
“And the fact that he is a handsome, wealthy gentleman with exquisite taste and a collection of Yellow Gorgons would have nothing to do with it?”
“I shall not dignify that with a response,” I said in lofty tones.
Before he could reply, Lord Ambrose reappeared with a smile. “Come. I would like to introduce you to the prize jewels in my collections.” He gestured for us to precede him into the room.
Whatever I might have expected after inspecting our own Beauty, I was thoroughly unprepared for the experience of finding myself in an entire room of wax figures. Each was encased in glass, like so many sleeping maidens. Each was beautifully formed, elegantly shaped, but amongst them they represented many facets of feminine appeal. One, resting on a crimson satin drape, had raven hair fanned out across her lace pillow, pearls at her throat. Next to her, a blonde maiden reposed, hair neatly plaited with blue velvet ribbons. In the casket on the other side lay another, this one on her side, her features distinctly Japanese, and her robe of pale pink silk folded back in pleats as elaborate as the pillowy rolls of her coiffure.
On and on it went, coffin after coffin, figure after figure, each so perfectly moulded, so exact in every detail, I would not have been surprised if they had rubbed the sleep from their eyes and risen from their slumbers. I had offered Lord Ambrose considerable flattery during the course of our visit, but in this room, my praise was fully sincere if slightly aghast.
“How did you come to acquire so complete a collection?” I asked as I bent to study one particularly ravishing Venus whose sensual pose suggested more of the courtesan than the anatomical teaching aid.
He shrugged. “How does one acquire any collection, Miss Speedwell? Patience and passion.”
“And money,” Stoker put in dryly.
Lord Ambrose was generous enough to smile. “That as well. I am fortunate that my share of my mother’s fortune has permitted me to indulge my interests to the fullest.”
I recalled what Lavinia had related about eccentricity in the Despard family and observed to myself that the fine line which marked peculiarity from madness was often simply a matter of wealth.
As if intuiting my thoughts, Lord Ambrose turned to me, still smiling. “No doubt, if you are acquainted with Sir Rupert’s wife, you have heard tales of my family. We are a notoriously eccentric lot.”
“She may have mentioned your father’s interest in matters of health,” I temporised.
“Did she tell you about my mother?” he asked. “A thorough original, obsessed with pigs. Lives in the country with her porkers and refuses to have a single one of them butchered for meat. They are pets, you understand. With the run of the house. You cannot imagine what they have done to the floors.”
He turned back to his waxworks. “My Venuses are rather less destructive. Lying in perpetual slumber, they are a constant invitation to view, to learn, to admire the fullness of human anatomy.”
“Female anatomy,” Stoker said blandly.
“Yes.” Lord Ambrose’s voice was smooth. “The female human is far more complex and therefore more interesting than the male, but then that is true of most species, don’t you think?”
Without waiting for a response, he moved on, pointing out the various features of several of the models. One was crafted specifically for the teaching of obstetrical arts, fitted as she was with an infant, fully formed and actually crowning. Lord Ambrose presented this with the detachment of a physician, but I looked swiftly away. When one has no intention of giving birth, one cannot be entirely delighted by the carnage of birth, I had found.
The next figure was more gruesome but somehow less alarming. Lord Ambrose opened the casket and demonstrated by lifting out assorted pieces how she might be configured for teaching. “You see here? Seven levels of dissection for close study. She is a marvel, is she not? Only look at the detail on that pancreas.”
“Yes, it’s very nice,” I said faintly. “I notice several of your Venuses have labels written in Italian.”
“Oh, indeed. The Italians were at the vanguard of their creation, and examples of their craft have always commanded the highest respect and prices,” he added with a wry look that did nothing to damage his attractions. “They were once the crown jewels of the collections in Padua, Pavia. And then the Germans began to see the merit in them. The use of them spread to Leiden, Berlin, Heidelberg. At one time, there was not a university worth the name that did not have at least one to boast of.”
“But surely these ought to be in teaching hospitals,” I protested with a sweeping gesture.
“Their day is past,” he told me regretfully. “With the creation of Dr. Grey and Dr. Carter’s textbook on anatomical study, the fashion for the Venuses was finished. Students prefer the cold and clinical words on the page to the allure of a lifelike model.” He paused with a melancholy sigh before shaking off the gloom as a dog will shed water. “Still, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. If they hadn’t fallen from favour, then I should never have been able to acquire so many first-rate specimens, and mine are among the most perfect ever constructed.”
He fell to silence again, and I darted a meaningful look at Stoker. It was time to draw Lord Ambrose further out, if possible, on the subject of the Venuses. With a subtle flick of his finger, Stoker indicated which of the Beauties had formerly resided with Professor Pygopagus’s show. I moved near, making appropriate noises of admiration as I surveyed her long blonde tresses and pretty blue eyes.
“This glass coffin is a particularly fine example of the art, I think,” I ventured.
“Oh, indeed! A happy marriage of the Venetian glassmakers’ efforts with the metalsmiths of Florence. Frequently the caskets are damaged or missing entirely, so it was a real coup to discover this lady with her original place of repose.”
“Wherever did you find her?” I asked, widening my eyes in curiosity.