“That is what we were hoping you could help us discover,” Stoker said.
“Buthow?” J. J. asked. “How does one simply acquire a body?”
“Ours was purchased at auction,” I told her.
Mornaday groaned again, and Stoker passed him the decanter as I rose.
“Come along,” I said briskly. “Let us introduce you to the Beauty.”
CHAPTER
11
It was the work of a few minutes to uncover the casket and arrange proper lighting, but when we had done, J. J. and Mornaday came near, mouths agape. Suddenly, Mornaday reared back as if burnt.
“You said you had a body,” he accused. “That is a waxwork.” He continued to move backwards as he spoke until his back hit the wall, slightly upsetting the suit of mediaeval German armour as he did so.
“You don’t care for waxworks?” I inquired.
“I do not,” he stated roundly. His face had gone quite pale and tiny beads of sweat pearled his hairline. “They are unnatural, they are. Looking a bloody sight too real for my comfort.”
J. J. grinned. “So we shall not find you whiling away a rainy afternoon in the waxen amusements at Madame Tussaud’s?”
Mornaday swore fluently but had the courtesy to do so under his breath. He swayed a little, and I put my hand to the back of his neck, shoving his head between his knees.
“Breathe,” I commanded. “Slowly and through the nostrils. Exhale at the same pace through lightly parted lips until the giddiness passes.”
He nodded and did as I instructed.
J. J. shot us a look of annoyance. “It is a low trick to promise us something as interesting as a body only to present us with a waxwork.”
“But she isn’t wax,” I said. I turned to Mornaday. “Do not distress yourself. She is a human corpse, I promise you.”
He brightened. “Is she indeed?”
“I have performed a rudimentary postmortem,” Stoker put in. “She is entirely human—or at least she was once. What remains has been heavily tampered with.”
“I shall pretend I did not hear you confess to an illegal act,” Mornaday said dryly.
Mornaday, slightly more accustomed to dealing with the dead than J. J. circled the figure, scrutinising her closely whilst J. J. demanded information. Every detail must be answered—how, why, where, when. Stoker and I answered to our ability, having already established the who was unknown. The story was swiftly told and although J. J. questioned and cross-questioned every particular, there simply was not much detail to be related, only the fact of her pregnancy and our theory as to her employment as a maid-of-all-work.
“Extraordinary,” J. J. said at last. Her eyes were bright, and her hair, never tidy at the best of times, had begun to make a concerted attempt to escape its pins. Her colour had risen, and I was pleased to see the change our challenge had wrought in her demeanour.
“She wasn’t half-lovely, was she?” Mornaday asked no one in particular.
“A little respect,” Stoker warned him. “Or I will see you have a proper burial before she does.”
Mornaday bristled a little. His relationship with Stoker had begun in hostility and settled into a gentle state of armed neutrality with occasional outbreaks of bellicosity. There were rare moments of real amity between them, but this was clearly not to be one of them.
“I am simply saying, she was a young lady blessed with considerable charms,” Mornaday protested.
Stoker said nothing but continued to watch him with a wary expression. J. J. was scrutinising the Beauty from top to toe. “What do we think? Eighteen years old or thereabouts?”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “No older than twenty, I should think.”
She peered at the hands. “I see the calluses and the scar, but there is a strange quality to the fingers,” she pointed out.
Stoker nodded. “It seems as if whoever preserved her like this put considerable effort into the face and hands. The flesh seems plumper there, somehow.”