“Well, it must be left to the police to unravel whatever mystery surrounds her. It is only for us to ascertain the cause of her death—whether natural, or by foul means;” and he went back to where the dead woman was lying still and cold, her dress disarranged, her dark hair fallen dishevelled, her sightless eyes closed in the sleep that knows no awakening until the Great Day.
The cabman stood with his hat in his hand; the constable had hung his helmet on his forearm by its strap.
“Then, outwardly, there are no signs of murder?” the latter asked, disappointed perhaps that the case was not likely to prove so sensational as it had at first appeared.
“Tell your inspector that at present I can give no opinion,” the surgeon replied. “Certain appearances are mysterious. To-night I can say nothing more. At the inquest I shall be able to speak more confidently.”
As he spoke, his cold, grey eyes were still fixed upon the lifeless form, as if held by some strange fascination. Approaching the cupboard, he took from a case a small lancet, and raising the dead woman’s arm, made a slight incision in the wrist. For a few moments he watched it intently, bending and holding her wrist full in the glaring gaslight within two inches of his eyes.
Suddenly he let the limp, inert arm drop, and with a sigh turned again to the two men who stood motionless, watching, and said: “Go. Take the body to the mortuary. I’ll examine her to-morrow;” and he rang for the attendants, who came, lifted the body from the couch, and conveyed it out, to admit a man who lay outside groaning, with his leg crushed.
Half an hour later the cab-driver and the constable stood in the small upper room at Vine Street Police Station, the office of the Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to that station. Inspector Elmes, a dark-bearded, stalwart man of forty-five, sat at a table, while behind him, arranged over the mantelshelf, were many photographs of criminals, missing persons, and people who had been found dead in various parts of the metropolis, and whose friends had not been traced. Pinned against the grey-painted walls were several printed notices offering rewards, some with portraits of absconding persons, others with crude woodcuts of stolen jewels. It was a bare, carpetless loom, but eminently business-like.
“Well,” the inspector was saying to the constable as he leant back in his chair, “there’s some mystery about the affair, you think—eh? Are there any signs of murder?”
“No, sir,” the man answered. “At present the doctor has discovered nothing.”
“Then, until he has, our Department can’t deal with it,” replied the detective. “Why has your Inspector sent you up here?”