A glance out the window tells me the streets are emptying. There are more carriages now than pedestrians. I spot the corner of the crumbling steps. If they haven’t been here long, no attempt at restoration has been made. “How new?”
“A few weeks. A month, if that. Rumor has it, all the other hospitals—Royal, King’s, Bartholomew’s—are filled to the brim with the dead and dying. There’s no space left.”
Things were bad back home, but I don’t recall it being this dire. “Do people not recover?”
“These days, our hospitals aren’t places of healing so much as they are gateways to the end. For every person who’s made the journey to recovery, they infect two to three people along the way. Beecham came in with a promise to change that, catering to those requiring mild treatment or convalescent care. Those who can pay for it, that is.”
I scoff, disgusted. “Already swindling the public and they’ve been here a month? That’s quick.”
“There was nothing for them to build. The space was vacant, an old shop. All they had to do was knock some walls down. The pounding went on for days.” She peeks over my shoulder at her preoccupied customers. “They want Lewis & Allenby’s as well, but my bosses are holding firm.”
“What does he look like? This Beecham?”
“That’s the thing,” she says, leaning in to whisper. I’m glad she’s cooperating, albeit begrudgingly. “No one’s seen him, so far as I know. No one in our shop, anyway. He’s some sort of entrepreneur surgeon, with very little time to spare. He contacted us one time by letter, and that’s it.”
That was the ticket. It was commonplace for business owners to reside in their offices during the work week. Some of them lived there. But, disappearing bodies—supposed donation? Lack of presence? There was surely something sinister occurring within the brick walls behind her, and that’s what the Wharncliffe case would reveal.
While I couldn’t promise the recovery of poor Alma’s remains, especially if they’d already been sold or donated to researchers, I could at least shed light on their ill practices and hopefully prevent it from happeningto anyone else.
“In your time here, have you ever seen folks enter? Visitors?”
Her brows furrow. “Families drop off their infected, I suppose.”
“Have you ever seen the ill leave? After their stay?”
The seamstress scowls, as if she’s realized she’s being questioned, scooping an armful of the fabric and turning her back to me to place them on the far counter. “People aren’t strolling in and out, if that’s what you’re asking. Casual visitors are prohibited. Itisa sanatorium, after all.”
This made sense. London, as it seemed, received the brunt of most ailments these days. Still, harvesting corpses without consent was illegal.
“I need to get in.”
She snorts. “Good luck, detective.”
“Privateinvestigator,” I correct, with no intention of leaving. “Jacques. And I could use your help, Seamstress.”
She doesn’t give her name in return. She’s busied herself separating the silk by color, but the tips of her ears peeking out from her hair are pink. “I won’t get involved.”
I shove my hand in my pocket. “You know, as a plainclothes detective, I could use a new pair of trousers or two. Since you and your fellow tailor are running the shop today, I presume the owners are out?”
“Away on business, yes. And Thomas is doing no such thing. I’m in charge when they’re away.” She slips a pair of large tailoring shears from her skirt pocket and begins to cut through a piece of fabric. “My career is set here. And you’ll have to make an appointment for me to fit you into new trousers.”
“Which is exactly why you should help me infiltrate. Yet another perfect opportunity for us to see each other again.”
She is evidently not bemused by my charms, not botheringa glance in my direction. “If Beecham discovers I or anyone else from the shop is involved, he’ll buy us outright. He already offered a ridiculous amount of money. Our owners might’ve declined, but that’s because they were in longstanding business with the royal family. All he has to do is pull a few strings. Offer funds to the right people, and we’re done for. Evicted. With this space, he’d open an entire operating hospital, fronting nurse and surgeon wages within a week,” she replies frostily as I nod, retreating from the counter. I bend my head to hide my grin. “Everything we’ve worked for, gone. Everything my mother sacrificed her safety for, gone. And, by the way, breaking into a sanatorium sounds illegal.”
I round her counter just as she whirls to face me. “So is selling corpses for research. Or giving them away without written consent of the family.”
Her fingers tense around the shears. There’s a minuscule tremble at her wrist. “How doyouknow that’s what’s happening?”
“The letter disclosing the girl’s demise informed her parents that her body was donated. Enclosed in the parcel were four of her teeth.” I let that settle. “That’s all they have to remember her by.”
Her cruel laugh is the biting sound of disbelief. “That sounds like an unfortunate case of failing to scour the fine print.”
“That is not something one discloses in fine print,” I snap. “Especially when families trust you with their dying.” Her mouth tightens. “If I get in, I might be able to shut it down. Which means Lewis & Allenby stays. Beecham loses. And you—” I let my gaze flick across the room, the rolls of silk, fine dresses and hats in tidy order. “You keep your mother’s legacy.”
She’s already stepping closer, the shearsswinging lightly in her grasp. “This is not her legacy. What I make of myself on a shore she never chose to land on, is.”
I fall silent, biting my tongue. The trade routes. Merchant ships. A young woman, taken or traded. Tea, silk, opium. Bodies. Any of them are plausible, and it’s not my place to ask, but my jaw tightens.
