The Angel of Highgate

34 RIPPED FROM THE WOMB

The fist pounding on the front door launched Robert Greenley out of his chair. Despite his soreness, he rushed through the hallway, growing angrier with each painful step over the impudence of that impatient banging.

When he snatched the front door open, Doctor Garrette stood on the front step, the black Gladstone bag clutched in one hand. He held a large jar filled with a clear liquid beneath his free arm.

Greenley hesitated, then stepped aside and let the doctor in. As he brushed past, Greenley caught a whiff of the strangest odor clinging to the man’s clothes, but assumed it was something related to his profession: powerful disinfectant, perhaps.

“I think it would be prudent to first consult with Aurelia’s present physician, Doctor Fuller.”

“That would merely delay things. To be effective, the procedure must be carried out immediately.”

“What exactly is this procedure—?”

But the doctor was already climbing the stairs. “I am a very busy man. Your daughter is upstairs?”

Greenley followed the doctor up the staircase. The odor really was quite overpowering. He knocked twice on the bedroom door before showing the doctor in. The room was dark apart from a single candle burning on the bedside table. Aurelia stood up from a chair, the novel she was reading clutched in her hand.

“Father?”

“This is Doctor…”

“Garrette.”

“Doctor Garrette. You have already met my daughter, Aurelia.”

The doctor stepped to the bedside and looked down at Aurelia, then took hold of her chin and turned her face first this way and that. In the quivering candlelight her skin shone luminous and pale, the eyes all pupil and uncanny. Silas Garrette shivered in anticipation: the unborn child she carried must be near translucent. “I will need to give your daughter a thorough examination.”

“Of course.”

“Including the more intimate aspects of her physiology.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Her feminine parts.”

Discomfort rippled across Greenley’s face. “Again? Is that entirely necessary? I am not sure I feel comfortable—”

“Of course, you may stay and observe if you wish.”

Like most men of his time, Greenley was squeamish about such matters. He quickly excused himself and fled the bedroom.

The doctor flashed an unconvincing smile and instructed Aurelia, “Please lay back upon the bed.”

Uneasy, she shyly complied.

Doctor Garrette set the glass jar atop the dresser, then opened his bag, took out his leather holster of instruments and unrolled them. He reached back into the bag and produced a stoppered brown bottle and a mesh face mask.

“Do you know what chloroform is?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I am going to sedate you. Do not be frightened. It will help you… slip away.”

Doctor Garrette placed the mask over her mouth and nose and dripped several drops of chloroform onto it.

“Breathe deeply. Soon you will find yourself lost in the most interesting dream you’ve ever had.”

Aurelia looked up with frightened eyes. She grabbed his hand, trying to pull the mask away, but he kept it clamped in place.

“Don’t fight it. Let go. Fall into it… fall into it like death!”

Her struggles faded as the chloroform swept the light from her eyes. Aurelia’s hand loosened, fell away limp. Her eyelids fluttered and closed.

Doctor Garrette stepped to the bedroom door and turned the key, locking them in and Robert Greenley out. He returned to the bedside to find Aurelia breathing deeply, fully unconscious. He unfastened several of the buttons on the front of her dress, and then pushed it up onto her chest. Her abdomen was softly domed. She was maybe two months along. With scalpel in hand, he knelt on the bed and pressed his ear to her belly, listening.

Father… Father… came a tiny, distant voice. His newest child was there, sleeping just beneath the flesh, waiting to meet its new father. Just a few quick scalpel strokes away. His fingers trailed across the leather holster until they found his favorite scalpel. He drew it out, breathed upon its reflective surface and polished the blade on his sleeve.

In the downstairs parlor, Robert Greenley paced, ill at ease. The idea of a stranger, albeit a doctor, having unrestricted access to his daughter disturbed him. Especially this doctor. There was something queer about the man that disturbed Greenley the more he thought about it. For one, he wore a white top hat — not a fashion befitting the gravity of such a profession. And then there was the man’s peculiar aroma, a scent that Greenley felt he had smelled before but could not place. When his unease peaked, he climbed the stairs to Aurelia’s room and knocked softly on the door. No answer. Greenley waited a few moments, then quietly turned the doorknob and pushed. To his surprise, he found the door locked.

“Doctor?” he called, rattling the handle. No reply. He banged a fist on the door. “Doctor, what is going on?” A strange silence. Robert Greenley was a big man, so when he shoulder-charged the door the deadbolt tore loose of the casement on the first impact. Inside, he found the doctor, a scalpel in his hand, crouched over Aurelia who lay unconscious on the bed, exposed.

Greenley roared with rage and leapt on the doctor and the two men toppled off the bed, upending the table and flinging the glass jar into the air. It hit the wall and shattered. The doctor slashed at his attacker’s face, but Greenley seized the hand with the scalpel and pinned it to the floor. The open bottle of chloroform was gurgling itself empty on the rug beside them. The doctor grabbed the bottle with his free hand and splashed chloroform in Greenley’s face, who recoiled, bellowing, as the volatile liquid burned his eyes.

Doctor Garrette broke free and leaped to his feet. The jar was smashed. No time. He rolled up the leather holster and stuffed it into his coat pocket, then lifted Aurelia’s limp form from the bed and flung her over one shoulder.

Groping, flailing, unable to open his eyes, Greenley caromed out of the bedroom and slammed into the wall at the top of the landing. He heard feet thunder down the stairs, the front door crash open and though he stumbled blindly after, he knew it was too late.

Aurelia had been taken.