City of the Absent by Robert W. Walker

me.”
    â€œNo…I am quoting from the Papyrus Ebers.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œPapyrus Ebers, a medical book, or rather a scroll found in Egypt and dating back to 1552 B.C.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œIt prescribes for people who’re losing their hair.”
    â€œIs that so? Are you saying that you think I should read it?”
    â€œIf memory serves, you apply six fats—”
    â€œSix fats?”
    â€œFat of the horse, hippopotamus, crocodile, cat, snake, and ibex, I think.”
    â€œIbex? What’s an—”
    â€œI think the hippo hump will be the most difficult to get hold of.”
    â€œNot the ibex?”
    â€œI suspect the hippo will cause more problems.”
    â€œWhere do I find such ingredients? Your dispensary?”
    â€œMore chance with H.H. Holmes’s apothecary.”
    â€œI think I’ll pass.”
    â€œA special hair dressing for the queen of Egypt, called schesh , consisted of equal parts of the heel of an Abyssinian greyhound, date blossoms, and hooves from an ass boiled in oil.”
    â€œIn other words, making an ass of the queen.”
    â€œDon’t prejudge! An ass’s dung took out the pain of a bee sting or a splinter.” She was having fun, and he realized this. “Splinters killed our ancestors then because the cure carried a disease. The tetanus virus thrives in dung!”
    â€œWas there anything the ancients got right?”
    â€œNot in chemistry or medicines.”
    â€œYou mean there’s nothing useful in lizard blood, swine teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from a sow’s ear, goose grease, or even fly excretions?”
    â€œThey got surgery right, the Romans did, thanks to an ancient genius named Galen.”
    â€œAnd the point of this lecture?” he asked as the cab came to a halt before Dr. Tewes’s shingle.
    â€œWhat point? To pass the time of a tedious ride, and to cope with this morning’s awful find.”
    â€œNothing more? Not to defend the surgeon who may be out there paying for Nell Hartigan’s remains so he can drop them in his specimen jars?”
    â€œI don’t condone it; I certainly am for advancing science, but this…this robbing of life in the name of giving life, no…this is not right in any light or angle.”
    â€œBut you are a surgeon. A scientist.”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œAnd you understand the need, the urge to cut.”
    â€œI do. I practice every day that I can, even though—”
    â€œEven though you have no surgical patients. So what or whom do you ‘practice’ on?”
    â€œAnimals and animal organs.”
    â€œAnd they are secured how?”
    â€œFrom a connection Tewes has with a knacker at the stockyards.”
    â€œA horse butcher? You put shivers through me at times, Jane.”
    â€œWhy so? Because I am a woman wielding a scalpel?”
    â€œBecause you dare associate with knackers at the yards!”
    She laughed at this. “Knackers know a great deal about the anatomy of men, thanks to their skill with animals. They’re not such a bad lot.”
    â€œFor all we know, Jane, a poor knacker, unable to feed ’is family on what they pay at the yards, is now delivering up human organs to surgeons in the city, and in this case, Nell Hartigan’s organs.”
    â€œI don’t know what you want me to say further, Alastair.”
    â€œSuppose a knock came at your back door, Jane, and you—or rather, Tewes—was offered, say, a human brain, a human heart, kidneys, lungs at a price?”
    â€œFrom some miscreant like your Mr. Bosch?”
    â€œLet’s say Shanks or Gwinn. What would be your response, Doctor?”
    â€œI should shoo him off.” But she’d hesitated half a second.
    â€œAre you sure?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.
    â€œI…I am quite sure.”
    â€œYou don’t sound sure.”
    â€œI tell you, I