Duel with the Devil by Paul Collins

Author:Paul Collins [Collins, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-95647-7
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

HAVING MADE some palpable hits on the defendant already, Colden was ready for his coup de grâce: the doctors. His first medical witness, Richard Skinner, possessed just the sort of theatrical flair that might impress a crowd; as the sort of fellow who would attire himself with a gold watch from Paris, a walking stick, and a scarlet cloak, he immediately stood out.

Skinner, though, proved curiously demure regarding his qualifications.

“Dr. Skinner,” the prosecutor began, “are you not a surgeon in this city, and did you not see the body of Elma Sands after it was taken out of the well? Pray, sir, inform the court and jury.”

“I follow a branch of surgery,” he replied, “but I do not pretend to be a professed surgeon.”

This was news to many in the crowd. For years Skinner had been advertising himself in local papers as a surgeon, boasting that he was “the only operator in America that sets artificial eyes”; he would also, in a pinch, install artificial ears, noses, and legs. But the only actual training that Skinner would aver before a judge was rather different.

“I am a dentist,” he explained.

Skinner had always been ambitious, though. As an unknown new arrival from London, he immediately tried hitting up Benjamin Franklin for a twenty-dollar loan, and proceeded to make a name for himself by picking a fight with George Washington’s dentist. And his sidelines in glass eyes and peg legs notwithstanding, Skinner had, in fact, built a respectable dental practice in the city, selling gold teeth at four dollars apiece, hawking his own patented dental tincture for a half guinea per bottle, and yanking out teeth at four shillings apiece in his Partition Street office—or, for his more well-to-do customers, for seven shillings on a house call.

His heart, though, had always belonged to the finer arts of the scalpel and the saw.

“I have made the subject of surgery generally my study,” he added; and it was such medical curiosity that had brought him to the Ring boardinghouse in January. “I saw the corpse of the deceased twice.”

The first time he viewed Elma was in the dim, hushed interior of the Rings’ house, where she had been laid out; the next time was in broad daylight, when her coffin was thrown shockingly open to the multitudes on Greenwich Street.

“I had but a superficial view, though, as it lay in the coffin, exposed to the view of thousands,” Skinner said with some regret. “I examined such parts as were come-at-able, such as her head, neck, and breast. I discovered several bruises and scratches—particularly a bruise upon the forehead and chin, and upon the left breast or near it.”

Judge Lansing knew enough of medical testimony that he quickly halted the witness.

“How long was this after she was taken out of the water?” the judge inquired.

“I do not know,” Skinner admitted.

This was an awkward admission, and the prosecutor quickly moved his witness back to firmer ground.

“Will you describe those marks more particularly?” Colden asked.

“I think that the mark upon the neck had the appearance of a compression, but not by a rope or handkerchief.

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