Читать книгу Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse - Brad Steiger - Страница 34

Early on, the most infamous of the grave-robbers were William Hare and William Burke, who supplied Dr. John Knox of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Hare ran an inn, and his friend, Burke, a small, portly cobbler, did his business in a shop near Hare’s inn. Between them, the two men unearthed coffins from cemeteries and carried their contents from the grave to Dr. Knox’s laboratory.

Burke and Hare had hit upon a goldmine. At 10 pounds per corpse (approximately 17 dollars in present U.S. currency) the two men could get rich in very little time, because Knox went through cadavers at an incredible rate. Ten pounds was more than an average 1820s working man could earn in six months. To keep pace with their greed, Burke and Hare had added their own special wrinkle to the wholesale corpse business: The goods they pedaled were always fresh because they would not wait for a “corpse” to die.

Returning to Hare’s inn on a cold December night, the two men warmed themselves with a few tankards of grog. Burke joined his common-law wife, Helen, and Hare went to his kept mistress, Mag Laird. Together the foursome celebrated their newfound financial independence. Even though they had been in the cadaver business less than a month, their clothes had already become those of the rich.

All through the spring and into the summer of 1828, business boomed. Even though Knox had to reduce the going rate to eight pounds (approximately 13 U.S. dollars) during the hot months because of his need for ice, Burke and Hare figured that was fair enough.

With his newfound riches, Burke changed his taste in women. Helen was a bit frowsy, and, besides, he had his eye on Mary Paterson, a beautiful prostitute who had always been out of his financial class. Burke approached her as a prosperous businessman, then bought her a jug of gin. From there it was only a little jingle of coin to the home of his brother, Constantine, who collected garbage for the Edinburgh police.

Unannounced at his brother’s house, Burke informed the bewildered man that he had some business to discuss with the ample-bosomed, blond-haired beauty. The door to the bedroom had not been closed long before the door of the house opened again and in barged Helen Burke, her eyes blurred with drink and her voice screeching hatred for her husband. Someone had told her of his leaving the grog shop with the beautiful streetwalker.

Helen ran to the bedroom and jerked open the door to find a frustrated Burke and a Mary Paterson who had fainted dead away from too much drink.

To further complicate matters, Hare had followed Helen Burke to brother Constantine’s house, and, to avoid trouble, had quickly doled out a few shillings to get the man and his wife out of the way. Constantine protested, wondering what would become of Mary Paterson, but Hare assured him that all would be handled very smoothly. After promising Helen that he would see that her husband committed no unfaithful act, Hare also convinced her to leave.

The next day the medical students attending Dr. Knox’s lecture and dissection laboratory were a little stunned by the dead beauty that lay under the doctor’s knife. More than one of them had seen her before on the streets.

The medical students were not the only people who had missed the beautiful streetwalker. She had a steady friend, an Irishman named McLaughlin, who looked on himself as her protector. Though the big, burly man could not prove anything, he was sure that Mary had met with foul play, and he traced her vanishing trail right to a cobbler named Burke.

Even while McLaughlin went storming away uttering curses and promising extreme retribution if anything had happened to his Mary, Burke was suffering from further domestic problems. While trying to fulfill a special order from Dr. Knox for a 10-year-old boy and an old lady, he and Hare had unwittingly taken an idiot as a victim. The fact would have been inconsequential to Dr. Knox, but to Helen Burke, her mind clouded with drink and superstition, it was an evil omen—a curse in fact—and the two grim businessmen had all they could do to keep her from spilling the entire story while moaning in her grog. Even a vacation at the seaside did her no good, and Burke, Hare, and Mag Laird decided to leave Edinburgh and hide out in Glasgow. In their absence, Helen Burke managed to regain her callousness, and by the time the trio tiptoed back into Edinburgh a few months later, she had not opened her mouth.

The next day the medical students attending Dr. Knox’s lecture and dissection laboratory were a little stunned by the dead beauty that lay under the doctor’s knife.

But the game could not be played much longer. When a neighbor ran across the corpse of an old lady, which was all tucked neatly away in Burke and Hare’s chest ready for transport, the entire matter nearly exploded in their faces. Only Hare’s quick action in moving the evidence saved the day.

The thorough Edinburgh police had been moving in on the dealers in corpses ever since the first missing-person report had come from that sector of the city. McLaughlin had come to the police reporting the disappearance of Mary Paterson, and subsequent questioning of medical students, who had seen her beautiful, cold body on Knox’s dissection table, had made the officials suspicious of Burke and Hare.

The police made arrests at Hare’s inn and simultaneously raided Dr. Knox’s laboratory where they found the body of the old lady, which had recently been delivered. Although neither of the Burkes ever opened their mouths both Mag Laird and William Hare confessed, telling how the victims were lured to the inn, then suffocated. Even though Dr. Knox claimed that he had known nothing of the murders and was never brought to trial, the grisly publicity ruined his reputation and he faded into obscurity.

Of the four ghoulish grave robbers only William Burke paid with his life. Helen Burke, who had only circumstantial evidence against her, was released. Probably because they had so readily confessed to their roles in the crimes, both the Hares were set free. Mag died seven years later in France, but William lived to the age of 80 and died a beggar in London.

Burke himself remains with us to this day—a skeleton in the Edinburgh anatomy museum. The placard placed beside this stocky structure is decorated with a small skull and minces no words. It reads: William Burke, The Murderer.