The place was full of medical students, as usual, but we found a booth in the corner and settled ourselves in. I ordered chops and a glass of porter each, for I could see Will needed something to thicken his blood. I was not very hungry, and pushed the food about while Will ate. In the end I called Sorley’s dog over and fed the creature what I had left. ‘What is it, Jem?’ said Will. ‘Not much,’ I said. The sack containing the coffins lay on the table beside us. The crude, lumpen bulk of the thing unsettled me, so I turned my back on it, stretched out my legs towards the fire and pulled out my pipe. On the other side of the room Dr Bain was talking to a group of students. Every now and then there would be a burst of laughter. I felt sure they were talking about the day’s events, about Dr Graves as much as about the rationale behind Dr Bain’s experiment. But when I thought of Dr Graves’s face as he left the operating theatre I could see no cause for laughter. ‘So, your father was one of Dr Magorian’s patients?’ I said.
