dinner conversation. He assured me that you were, and I suppose that applies to breakfast as well. I’m hoping it will compensate for the inelegant presentation of the meal. Never mind, here comes Mrs. Dunphy. Dig in.”
Mrs. Dunphy turned out to be a rather large woman with a heavy gait and a dour expression. She stomped in from the kitchen and thumped down a gigantic bowl of porridge. Thaddeus filled his bowl, then looked in vain for a jug of milk and some sugar to go with it. Christie ladled out a huge serving for himself, sprinkled it liberally with salt, and then handed the saltcellar to Thaddeus. “Get yourself around a bowl of oatmeal every morning and you’re content for the rest of the day, isn’t that right, Luke, my boy?”
Apparently they were expected to eat their oatmeal Scottish-style: plain porridge with salt and nothing more.
“Wait,” Luke said to his father, and a few moments later Mrs. Dunphy returned with a platter of scrambled eggs and side bacon. Thaddeus was relieved. There was a time when he would have been happy enough with a bowl of plain oatmeal, but he had since been spoiled by Sophie’s cooking. Mrs. Dunphy’s food didn’t appear to be quite up to the standards of the Temperance House Hotel, but it was served hot and looked reasonably edible.
“Methodist Episcopal, eh?” Christie said between mouthfuls of porridge. “Not many of those around here.”
“I’m finding that,” Thaddeus replied. “I have my work cut out for me.”
“Always found Methodist services a little hysterical for my taste — all that shouting and so forth. I’m a John Knox man myself, or at least I was raised that way. Some seem to like the excitement though. The Cummers up yonder, of course. And the Africans down along Richmond Street, but I expect, being in the city, they’re not really part of your circuit.”
“No, they’re not. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is actually a separate body from us. It was organized by the coloureds themselves. They don’t even fall under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Conference.”
“Interesting that they’ve found their way here, isn’t it?” Christie mused.
There had always been a small coloured population in Toronto, Thaddeus knew, but now their community had burgeoned, swelled by new laws in the United States. Local authorities, even in the anti-slavery northern states, were now required to assist in the recovery of runaway slaves. Since all that was required on the part of the slave owner was an affidavit confirming that a coloured person was his property, many free Africans in the northern cities were being scooped up and sent south to the plantations. Many of them deemed it wiser to exit the country entirely.
“Execrable business, this slavery stuff,” Christie said, polishing off his porridge and reaching for the platter of bacon and eggs. “Slave owners should all be hanged. That would put an end to it, then, wouldn’t it?” He suddenly glared in the direction of the kitchen door. “Mrs. Dunphy! Tea!” he shouted.
“You’ll get it when it’s ready!” Mrs. Dunphy shouted back. “You can’t make it steep any faster by yelling at it!”
Christie looked at Luke and Thaddeus and smiled. “There you go. Tea’s on the way. By the way, Luke, I wonder if you might attend the office this morning? I have some rather pressing business to see to.”
“Of course,” Luke said, although Thaddeus noted that his son didn’t seem happy at the prospect.
Mrs. Dunphy trudged in and set a large teapot on the table. Then she settled herself in a chair at one end and glared at Christie, who, with an apologetic look, passed her the bowl of oatmeal.
“And what will you do with yourself today, Mr. Lewis?” Christie asked.
Thaddeus wasn’t sure. He had a two-day rest period before he once again had to meet any appointments, but he hadn’t given much consideration to what he might do when Luke was working. In the old days when his circuit was complete, he always returned home to discover that Betsy had numerous things that needed doing, and he seldom had time to complete all of the tasks before he had to leave again. Even his free days were full.
“You could go and visit Morgan Spicer,” Luke said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Morgan Spicer?” Thaddeus was astonished. “Where on earth did you run across Morgan Spicer?” He had long since lost track of his one-time protégé.
“He hailed me as I was walking down the street the other day. He mistook me for you.”
“But what is he doing in Yorkville?”
“Spicer?” Christie said, “Isn’t he that weedy little character who looks after the Burying Ground? The one with the twins?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “But he wanted to speak with my father in connection with the Burying Ground, so I’m sure you’re right. He said there had been a strange occurrence there. He said to say it was a puzzle.”
“Ah yes, someone’s been tampering with the graves, I hear,” Christie said, reaching for the last rasher of bacon on the platter. “Resurrection men no doubt, looking for bodies for the medical students to cut up. Should do it the way they do in Scotland — just fetch them from the hangman.” He stopped talking for a moment, wrinkled his brow, and chewed thoughtfully. “Mind you, there was rather a strange case in Edinburgh in ’28. Not enough people hanged, you see, so cadavers were in short supply. Families soon found that they had to post guards at the graves of their newly buried love ones, so the bodies wouldn’t be dug up and sold. And then two bright souls decided to expedite the process by dispatching a raft of old folks, drunks, and prostitutes, whom no one would miss, you see. Burke and …” he hesitated for a moment and chewed thoughtfully on his bacon, “Hare. Yes, that was the other fellow. Rather a clever ploy, but they were careless with the victims’ clothing and were soon caught. Hanged, of course, and dissected by the surgeons. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“Where did the bodies come from at McGill?” Thaddeus asked Luke. It wasn’t a subject that had previously ever occurred to him to inquire about, but he supposed that they had to come from somewhere.
“From the jails, mostly, I guess.” Luke said. “There was some grave robbing, but not much within the city itself. It was more of a problem in the outlying districts. The Montreal graveyards are all within the city limits, with stores and houses around them. There was some talk of putting a new cemetery up on the mountain overlooking the city. That might make it easier for the resurrectionists, I suppose.”
“If they’d just hang more criminals, it wouldn’t be such a problem,” Christie pointed out. “Enough of this nonsense of sending them off to penitentiary, where they sit around and eat their heads off. Hanging would save a great deal of money and ensure a steady supply of cadavers. They could start with resurrectionists and work their way up to slave-owners.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Thaddeus said. He didn’t dare look at Luke. He was reasonably certain that if he did so, he would scarcely be able to stop from laughing out loud.
Chapter 4
Thaddeus had no difficulty recognizing Sally Spicer when she opened the door of the Keeper’s Lodge at the Burying Ground. In spite of the years that had passed since he had last seen her, she was still the same raw-boned, red-haired girl he remembered. She, on the other hand, seemed to have trouble placing him, and her eyebrows lifted in a question.
“Sally!”
