. . . A snort like that of an inconvenienced carriage horse escaped his colleague. “Good Lord, Thornton, why do you let that female into the place? Indigent Hospital’s no place for a lady, wot-wot!”
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Edmund regarded his colleague, a small, barrelshaped man wearing a smock apron covered in blood, his ginger mustachio bound up with surgical gauze to keep it clean of splattered gore from the open cadaver on the table between them.
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Edmund smiled. “I see. Well, Danforth, Nurse Milton and her staff will be glad to hear you say so.”
. . . Edmund climbed the stairs up from the hospital basement housing the laboratories. He avoided the madhouse wing and skirted the lepers. If anyone saw him he’d be detained with questions and appeals, he knew; appeals for his time, appeals for his money, appeals for his sympathy. He had plenty of all three, and a nearly inexhaustible willingness to spend them in the name of Science and Truth here at the Mercy Sanatorium for the Mad and the Indigent. The Sisters of Mercy were grateful for the patronage of Doctor Thornton, Edmund liked to think. In fact, he was quite gratified by their appreciation. And the hospital provided an endless supply of cadavers for his research. It should be some small measure of comfort to these poor souls, thought Edmund, that though they had not much to offer Society in life, their dead bodies were of great assistance to the cause of Science . . . .
Zandra Renwick 