05 CHAPTER 01-First edit

Dr. James Stone is woken up by banging on his door in Boston. He is met by Dr. Winford Lewis, who informs him that parts of a human form have been found and asks for his assistance in identifying the remains. They go to the Medical College where the janitor, Ephraim Littlefield, reveals that he suspects Dr. John Webster, a professor at the college, of being involved in the disappearance of Dr. Parkman. Littlefield had broken through the brick wall of Webster's privy and discovered a putrid smell. Dr. Stone and the others investigate and see a bulky shape or torso in the vault. Chapter 1. December, 1849. Bowdoin Square and North Grove Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The blows rained down on Dr. James Stone's door. He woke up feeling drugged, stunned, as if he had just been in a barrel rolling down a hill. It took a moment to overcome his disorientation and realize he was indeed in his bed at No. 6 Bowdoin Square above his medical dispensary and that it was the evening of Saturday, December 1. He possessed a dim memory of taking to bed early with a bad headache. What time was it, and who was keeping up that infernal banging? James searched for his dressing gown, eased into his slippers, and made his way, stumbling in the dark, to the bedroom doorway, where he lit a candle in the sconce on the nearby wall. He looked at the mantelpiece clock in the sitting-room. Nearly one o'clock! What affliction had beset one of his patients now? None other than a very sick individual would rouse Dr. Stone from his warm bed linens after midnight. Opening the heavy oak door to his chambers, James encountered, instead of a worried parent or spouse, Dr. Winford Lewis, Jr., who was looking frantic and agitated, his arm poised to deliver another resounding blow to the door. Next to him stood James's Irish maid, Sharon, wild-haired and trembling from the excitement of it all. Dr. Lewis had been James' anatomy professor at Tremont Medical School, and was a Harvard Medical College lecturer whose diagnostic and surgical courses James had also attended. Lewis shouted at James, his relief at rousing him evident, Thank God you're here, Stone! I feared you had gone out of town to tend to a patient. Aside from the fact that he had no patients out of town, and precious few within it, James was bewildered by Lewis's dramatic appearance. He could not imagine what would bring this respected physician and teacher to his door at this hour. The hair arose on the back of James's neck. Could this untimely visit concern the disappearance of Dr. Parkman, the subject of all speculation in Boston, who appeared to have disappeared from this earth one week previous? What is it, Dr. Lewis? Did they find Dr. Parkman, or some news of his whereabouts? James asked. They found parts of a human form. Ay, thus my purpose in gathering you, Dr. Stone, Lewis said. We suppose it will constitute a body. It may prove to be parts of several. The circumstance allows no easy identification to be made, which is why I'm requesting your assistance. You're the only anatomist I could locate. The flight was unintentional, but James perceived it nevertheless. Still, it was thrilling to be involved in a notorious case. James wanted to understand exactly what Lewis expected of him. The last thing he would allow himself to do was disappoint. James said, Are those remains Dr. Parkman's? Are you saying he was vivisected, Dr. Lewis? Lewis reached out and seized James by the arm, pulling him toward the door. Stone, you must rest quickly. We are anxiously awaited. Together we may be able to bring some clarity to this confounded mystery, but we must make haste to the Medical College. Lewis was perplexed. The Medical College? Surely Parkman had not been found there. He was the donor of the land on which the new building stood, for God's sakes. What a terrible irony that would be! Who at the Medical College would dare lift a hand to one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the city, let alone separate him into pieces? James turned to his bedroom to throw on whatever was available. For once he cared neither about his wardrobe nor its suitability for the occasion. Nothing was suitable for this occasion. Dr. Lewis's Phaeton pulled up to the Medical College on North Grove Street, which was adjacent to the property housing Massachusetts General Hospital. The hospital stood some distance away on Fruit Street. Through the carriage window James immediately recognized the janitor Ephraim Littlefield, who was dressed in a workingman's smock, standing outside the college. James remembered him from anatomical demonstrations he had attended just three years earlier. Littlefield had supplied the cadavers. The janitor stood next to a man James did not recognize, Francis Tukey, the chief of Boston's new police force. Tukey had his back to the new limestone and wood structure that housed the Medical College. A broad granite staircase led up the front of the building to a landing and a set of tall wooden doors. As James and Lewis disembarked, out of the building's shadows emerged Dr. Jacob Bigelow and Dr. J. B. S. Jackson, both prominent members of the Medical College faculty. James, I'm obliged you have come to assist us, said Bigelow. I would have fetched you myself, but I'm too concerned about the impacts of all this to leave for even an instant. James felt out of place in the company of these esteemed physicians, but it was clear that Dr. Bigelow, long his patron and mentor, had chosen him to be there, along with Dr. Lewis. Dr. Jackson hurriedly explained that he had been called upon at his residence by the janitor Littlefield earlier that day, and told of the man's suspicions regarding the privy beneath the laboratory of Dr. John Webster, the college's professor of chemistry. The entire building, including Dr. Webster's rooms, had been thoroughly searched during the first week of Dr. Parkman's disappearance, and had yielded no clues. Dr. Jackson now motioned Littlefield over. To James' surprise, the man he remembered as a surly loner displayed remarkable equanimity in telling the gaggle of important men surrounding him that he had been suspicious of Professor Webster's comments and actions in recent days. Littlefield said he was particularly struck by an encounter the previous morning with Webster, in which the professor repeated a rumor of a woman seen putting a bloody bundle into a handsome cab. Webster assured Littlefield that Dr. Parkman had fallen into mean hands, and his body was unlikely to be discovered, the murderers no doubt having done away with it. Littlefield told the doctors in Tukey that he had remained suspicious of the chemistry professor. On November 30th, the janitor used a trap-door in his apartment to descend to the crawl-space beneath the college, where he advanced on hands and knees to the brick wall of the vault built for Webster's privy. It drained directly into the Charles River. James looked at the small crowd, and found everyone closely following Littlefield's account. James had expected a reaction to Littlefield's effrontery in invading a professor's privacy on his own presumption. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the dean of the Medical College, would have never authorized such an action. That was probably why he was not invited to this gathering, James realized. Dr. Bigelow, the senior doctor present, asked the janitor why he had acted so abruptly of his own volition. It was to satisfy myself and the public, Littlefield said in a self-important tone. Every other part of the building had been searched, and nothing could have passed this space but through the privy. Once authorized by Dr. Jackson to proceed with his plan, Littlefield said he had used a hammer and chisel to break through the privy's thick brick wall. He had sent his wife to watch the door to their apartment, and had given her instructions that in the unlikely event Professor Webster were to appear, she was to rap four times on the kitchen floor with her heel to alert the janitor of his presence. Sure enough, as Littlefield labored to dislodge the first of five layers of brick masonry, he heard the tell-tale tapping. In a panic he hurled away his tools and hurried upstairs. It was not Professor Webster who had arrived in his apartment, but Parkman's business manager, Charles Kingsley, and police constable William K. Jones. Covered in dirt, Littlefield disclosed his scheme to the police and Kingsley, and thus threw him to the Parkman family and the police for the first time, promising that in a short time he would have a hole punched through the privy wall that would reveal what he suspected was hidden in the vault. Kingsley hurried off to tell Parkman's brother-in-law, Robert Goldshaw, of Littlefield's suspicions. Constable Jones departed to inform his superiors, after promising to return to see the results of Littlefield's endeavors. Littlefield continued his account of that night, telling the assembled doctors and Tukey that he had returned to the basement, this time armed with a crowbar. Minutes later he had succeeded in knocking a hole through the final layer of bricks, finally allowing him a view into the privy vault. He peered into the darkness, holding a candle close by his head, and was shaken to his core by what he saw dimly illuminated. Now, he said, tonight he would lead them to the horrible sight. Let me show you, gentlemen, what I saw, because you are knowledgeable in these matters and I am not, Littlefield told the group of four doctors and Tukey as he led them to the left side of the building. He now displayed more humility than James knew him for. Still, he saw Littlefield as a man resentful of his low station in life. The group, each man bearing a candle, followed the janitor into his apartment and through the trap-door to the earthen floor below. One by one each crawled through the dark cramped space, following Littlefield and his candle as he made his way to the brick privy wall. Eventually the men reached an area where they could all stand in the dim light of a hunched position. Before them was a hole in the brickwork, about eighteen inches wide by ten or twelve inches high, from which emitted a putrid smell, more foul than even a privy would produce. The four medical men and Tukey hung back, initially reluctant to view the vault's contents. James's curiosity overruled the bile he felt churning in his stomach. He stumbled forward, stretching out his hand to push his candle into the black hole of darkness as far as possible, and peered in. He saw a bulky shape or two hanging from what looked like large fish-hooks. James squinted to bring clarity to what he first perceived. The hanging form resembled the human pelvis, or at least most of one, with the genitalia still attached, and two additional pieces that appeared to be appendages, one possibly part of a leg. He felt faint and nauseated. His gut's instinct had been accurate. Bigelow, Lewis, Tukey, and Jackson were right behind him, and also peered in with their candles, but the darkness was hardly vanquished. Tukey demanded Littlefield bring a lantern to better illuminate the dank space. While waiting for the janitor to return, the men stood silently, unwilling to look at each other or back inside the vault. When Littlefield returned, he handed Dr. Lewis the lantern, which he extended unsteadily as he and James searched the cavern more carefully this time. Yes, these were most definitely human remains. The pelvis was quite clear, along with the genitals, one upper leg of thigh, and what appeared to be a section of a leg from the knee down to the foot. Now he understood why Lewis had fetched him at Dr. Bigelow's instruction. It would be their job to identify which parts of the human body these random pieces were, and to answer the most delicate question of all, from whose body or bodies had they come? The evening's chill seemed more penetrating to James as the doctors gathered again outside Littlefield's cottage. Bigelow said it was confounding that the police had searched the college so many times, invading lecture rooms, laboratories, and private offices in a rough manner that had put the faculty into an uproar. Yet here were these remains, right beneath where they all stood. I must go to Dr. Holmes and President Sparks immediately, Bigelow said as he looked around the shivering group. This discovery will do no honor to Harvard and may cause grave consternation in the community. We'll all be blamed for this foul deed. This is only the beginning of our troubles, said Dr. Jackson, the most senior faculty present. Remember whose laboratory is above that privy. The assembled doctors looked uneasily at each other. They had heard Littlefield's stories of his encounters with Professor John Webster. All were aware that Webster was frequently in debt and had borrowed money from George Partman. They also knew that Webster, as professor of chemistry, had no connection to the Department of Anatomy. There was no reason for anything to be in that vault other than waste, much less distinguishable portions of a human body. Can we be certain that what we just viewed are indeed the remains of Dr. Partman? James asked in a voice more confident than he'd intended. He was a bit cowed in the midst of these learned men who had been his teachers, but he felt he must pose the most logical questions. Shouldn't we do a closer examination, and first determine to a certainty that these specimens are indeed human? And if so, were they recently deposited in the privy vault? And only then try to determine from whose body they were detached? A fleeting smile crossed Bigelow's face. This is why I sent for you, James, he said, not only for your anatomical skills, but for your common sense. Jackson and Lewis looked at James with respect, not for his insight, because Bigelow was rare in bestowing praise. Bigelow called over Marshal Tukey, who'd been standing nearby, overtly eavesdropping. He instructed Tukey to have his men break fully into the vault, carefully remove the specimens from the hooks that had been used to suspend them, and lay them on a clean board so they could be examined in one of the dissection rooms. James could see that Tukey did not like taking direction from a Harvard College know-it-all. The Marshal now was sure that someone just like these professors was in all probability the perpetrator of this terrible crime. Lt. Dorastus Claff's police carriage pulled up, and he hurried out to join the group huddled in the cold. He told the doctors that Professor Webster had seemed nervous and flustered when he'd met the first search party in his laboratory several days earlier. He had pointed hurriedly to various articles in the room, and directed the constables to his private storeroom, where he kept his dangerous chemicals. These actions now could be interpreted as diversions to keep the police away from his privy. After bestowing a withering look upon his top lieutenant for not mentioning this earlier, he assigned three constables to aid in the removal of the body parts, and sent another patrolman to fetch Suffolk County Coroner Jabez Pratt. He took his most trusted constables with him, and went back into the medical college, followed by the clatch of doctors. It turned out that a thorough search of Webster's rooms had never been accomplished. The largest space was set up as a lecture room, with a table centered on a low platform in the middle, and a set of stairs on either side of the platform leading up to it. As the group moved toward the partitioned area of the upper laboratory in the Webster's back rooms, the police and doctors saw dark brown stains on the floor. In a cabinet behind another locked door that they forced open, they found a pair of blood-stained pants and slippers. There were also several blankets that presumably had come from Webster's home, since Littlefield said they were not part of the medical college's supplies. These could have been used to cover laboratory windows from prying eyes. Bigelow, James, and the other physicians looked at each other, their hearts sinking. The worst possible conclusion seemed likely. Can you contemplate any other solution to this mystery, Bigelow said to James under his breath, unwilling to have the others overhear them, or to draw attention by leaving the group to speak privately? Dr. Webster seems the guilty party to this abominable crime as much as I hate to state it. James's cautious nature once again held sway. Let's not jump to conclusions that may prove premature, he whispered back to Bigelow, turning so that no one else could hear him. We must find and speak to Professor Webster, and observe his reactions to this discovery. As Bigelow and James spoke, one of Tukey's men opened a grate of a small wood-burning furnace located near the door to Webster's private rooms. Every instructor in the medical college had one of these iron stoves in his rooms to ward off the cold northwest wind that swept down the Charles River unobstructed and blasted the college at all hours of the day and night. But none possessed what lay inside Webster's. The doctors were called over to confirm what was plain to see. A jawbone, along with a partial set of false teeth, rested among the ashes. Bigelow's posture sagged. He knew the pride Dr. Partman took in the teeth he'd had specially commissioned for his long jaw, even if they never fit properly. There was little doubt remaining, for anyone who knew the late gentleman, what was left of George Partman was before and below them. Bigelow and the other physicians could not meet James's gaze, but stared fixedly at the ground. The police were not done. Constable George Fuller poked through a pile of battered wooden crates and rubbish in a partitioned area to the left of the laboratory, and there he discovered an old wooden tea-chest, about two feet high and locked shut. Fuller tried to move it, but it was far too heavy for its size, and it barely budged. He pried off the cover and found the chest seemingly filled with minerals and geological specimens labeled by Webster for his lectures. Removing the top layer of contents, Fuller could not see what lay below, only some sort of dark mass. He forced his hand down into the bottom of the chest until it encountered something soft and damp. Before anyone could object, Fuller turned the chest over and emptied it on the floor. Everyone in the room fell silent. What emerged was a jumble of body parts, packed in the thick sludge of the tannic acid that Webster used in his demonstrations of organic chemistry to preserve his human samples. James warned Fuller to be careful as the doctors rushed over to examine the chest's contents. A burned part of a torso, the abdomen cut open, a thigh forced into the chest cavity, the ribs let down over it, and a lone kidney. These were accompanied by a blood-stained Bowie knife, one of the few implements sharp enough to accomplish this apparent vivisection. James's training in anatomy brought the gory picture into focus. The abdomen had been opened and the intestines removed. The cartilage of the ribs had been separated, and the liver and the heart taken out, although one kidney remained. All those body parts had been forced into the old tea-chest, with the tannic acid employed as an effective means of destroying the organs and bones. Now the contents were doing their putrefying best to assert themselves in the exposed air of the room. James knew that if one were disposing of a body, the easiest way to begin would be with the appendages, head, arms, and legs. Lop off the limbs first, get them out of the way, sever the head, and begin to dismember the trunk of the body. He shuddered at the thought of Professor Webster performing this grisly business on Dr. Partman, a man of wealth, high standing, and great beneficence. How was this possible? James's head swam with the import of what lay before them. Another constable, poking about in a room adjoining the laboratory, found a small hand-saw clotted with what appeared to be blood. Tukey was furious that all of this evidence had been missed in the initial search. It was all he could do to contain his rage. This is enough, gentlemen, Tukey announced with a preemptory growl. I need see no more. He turned to another constable, John Bryant. Gather up all this evidence and label where you find each piece of it. Me, Officer Clapp, and Officer Fuller will proceed immediately to Professor Webster's house in Cambridge and arrest him for the murder of Dr. George Partman. Tukey turned to Bigelow and James. Would one or both of you please come with me? I have a plan in my mind, and it will be a great help to have a person familiar to Dr. Webster with us when we apprehend him. Bigelow and James looked at each other. James was neither a friend nor even an acquaintance of Professor Webster. He had taken Webster's chemistry course three years earlier, as required, but enjoyed no personal contact with the professor. Bigelow shook his head. James could see that he did not have the wherewithal to witness Webster collapse, confess, beg for mercy, or any of the other depressing outcomes this journey promised. I'll stay with our colleagues to await Dr. Holmes and President Sparks, Bigelow deferred. I believe it best if you accompany the police, James. Webster will think little is amiss if you are with them, but if it is I, he'll know the matter is grave and he might act rashly. Tookie wasted no further time. So you'll join us, Dr. Stone, he demanded. The question required no answer. The police hurried for the room, James following behind. The nightmare of this evening would not end. James wished it were a dream, not this reality that was more disturbing at every turn. For more UN videos visit www.un.org