“Woke up at Saint Anthony hospital feeling like my whole body was on fire. Stuck in a cot with two poor souls, both stonemasons who had their legs crushed beneath a brick the size of Skye. Three of us made a sorry sight, I can tell you that.”
“You don’t remember anything else?” Jack said, leaning forward on his knees.
Munro shook his head. “They kept me in hospital awhile, trying to figure out how I lost me arm. I told ’em, about the man and the theater and the damp handkerchief and all that, but no one seemed to pay me any mind. Thought I was a common drunk who found himself in trouble, and I suppose I can’t say I wasn’t. Tried to get out of hospital quick as I could, mind you. Smelled like shit and death in there, and one of the blokes in my bed snored like an elephant who caught cold. Food wasn’t too bad, if you were sure you managed to get the bugs out. Maggots are just like the rest of us, trying to get warm, trying to get a bite in their belly, can’t fault them for that. Ay, think I can maybe get a swig o’ something stronger than tea in here? Seein’ as what I’ve gone through is more or less an ordeal, as they say.”
Hazel nodded, and Iona went to get the whisky from the cupboard. “Did the doctors in the hospital say anything about your wound? Anything about why the arm might have been taken?”
“S’matter of fact, they did note that the stitches was particularly neat. Like it was all done by someone who knew what he was doing.”
“May I?”
Munro shrugged and pulled his shirt off his left shoulder to reveal all that was left of his arm. It was cut at the joint; nothing below the shoulder remained. And, just as Munro had mentioned, the black stitches were small, and straight, and even. The wound sweated with a small amount of pus, and the skin around it was red and swollen, but the stitches were perfectly in place.
“But why would someone take your arm?” Jack said, dumbfounded. “I just don’t understand it.”
Munro’s whisky arrived, and he thanked Iona with a wink and then took a deep swig. “Beats me,” he said, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his remaining arm. “Not gonna be able to dig anymore, that’s the shame of it. And how am I supposed to get honest work now? Couldn’t get honest work when I had two arms.”
“We’ll find something for you,” Jack said. “You can come work with me at the theater.”
“Ay, there’s a laugh!” Munro said, croaking. “Haven’t been gone long enough not to know what’s going on there. Closed from the plague, innit? How’s your work at the theater going, Jack?”
Jack sank in his chair.
“We can find something for you at Hawthornden,” Hazel said. “We always need someone to help tend the grounds. And—and you shoot? I’m certain Cook would be delighted with a few more rabbits.”
Munro puffed out his chest. “Even one-handed, there’s no one in Scotland who’s a better shot, I can promise you that. Thank you, miss. Most sincerely.” And he swept off his cap and stood just to bend at the waist in a deep bow. A few playing cards and false coins fell out of his pockets onto the floor, and he blushed as he snatched them up.
“There’s nothing else to the story? Nothing else at all you remember? Is it possible that there was a one-eyed man? That the doctor, in the operating theater, was wearing an eye patch?”
Munro took another sip of whisky. “That’s the story. Stayed in hospital for a while till they sent me home, went to the pub, then came to find Jack here. As for the doctor … I can’t say for certain. All of that part goes a bit hazy. I wouldn’t even know his face if he had three eyes, if I’m telling the truth.”
Hazel sat, thinking. Someone had kidnapped Munro, used ethereum on him—what else could it have been?—and took his arm. That was what she knew. The unknowns were why and who. The unknown who was worrisome, but not so worrisome as her next unknown: When were they going to strike again? Because it seemed, at least to Hazel, that whoever was kidnapping and maiming the poor in Edinburgh had no intention of stopping.
Hazel sent Charles to summon the police constable, who arrived at Hawthornden at sundown. He had a mustache as thick and straight as broom bristles, and his nostrils were flared in annoyance from the moment his boots crossed the threshold.
“Please, do sit,” Hazel said to him. “Iona, fetch a fresh pot of tea.”
“Thank you, miss,” he said, and stiffly sat on the chair across from Munro, who was lounging on the couch. Hazel winced, seeing Munro through the constable’s eyes: streaked with grease and soot, the sleeves of his shirt yellowing, the smell of booze floating around him like perfume.