think.’ He indicated the way with an expansive gesture of an arm clad in dark blue worsted; with his Savile Row tailoring and silver-haired urbanity, he always suggested to Lambert the consultant surgeon he might have been.
Burgess took his visitor past his lugubrious, disapproving assistant, with Lambert trying not to speculate about the nature of the russet smears which marred the front of the young man ’s white overall. The Superintendent hoped he did not blench as he was taken to stand beside the body of the late Guy Harrington, almost as if the occupant of the slab was a patient who might be permitted visitors after a serious operation.
Lambert tried not to think about the huge incisions in the flesh beneath the sheet, but he had attended too many post-mortems to be in much doubt about them. Indeed, only his senior rank had enabled him to depute the police presence at this one to a hapless junior officer. He found this one of those occasions when the human brain and the human imagination ref use to remain inactive when commanded to.
Burgess brought out the notes he would later transform into an official report. ‘Stomach contents,’ he announced with relish.
‘ Tell me, please, don’t show me,’ said Lambert apprehensively: he knew that the information was necessary to establish the time of death.
Burgess grinned at the familiar effect his work was having on the Superintendent. ‘A meal of steak, potatoes, calabrese and carrots, what appears to me to be sherry trifle, cheese and biscuits, was taken some time before death. Coffee, as usual, and a considerable quantity of alcohol—I’d say the best part of a bottle of wine, and perhaps five standard measures of spirits. Of course, the people at that meal had only to toddle to their rooms and fall into bed on the site—no need to bother about driving.’
Both of them knew the police could have found most of this from the people who had eaten and drunk with the dead man on the previous evening, but this was accurate and scientific and the Coroner ’s Court would want to hear it. Lambert knew that Burgess liked to tease him by holding back the vital facts of his report as long as possible. He indulged him, in exchange for the unspoken assurance that he would not be asked to witness the internal organs of what lay before him beneath its sheet. ‘Time of death?’ he rapped, like one bringing an over-indulged child to heel.
‘ My dear John, you always want precision where precision is least possible.’ Burgess pursed his lips, pretending to give careful consideration to a matter he had already decided for himself two hours earlier. ‘The body temperature said our friend had been dead for probably not less than twelve hours when I got him here. From the digestive state of the stomach contents, I’d say the meal was completed not less than three and not more than five hours before death. I imagine that puts us some time after the witching hour?’
‘ Well after, I think. I understand they began what seems to have been a fairly leisurely meal at about eight. Probably they didn’t complete it before nine-thirty.’
‘ Which would put death at somewhere between twelve-thirty and two a.m.’ Burgess rubbed his hands with satisfaction. ‘When all innocent citizens have entered the land of nod.
“ Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care , The death of each day’s life , sore labour’s bath , Balm of hurt minds —”’
‘ Yes indeed!’ Lambert interrupted ungraciously. Burgess, weaned on the detective fiction of the ‘thirties, thought death ignoble if not accompanied by quotation. The CID man in Lambert made him add sourly, ‘I doubt whether our killer at the Wye Castle will make himself so quickly obvious as the perpetrator of that Scottish bloodbath. I take it this was murder?’ He gestured almost apologetically at the corpse between them.
‘ Oh, I think so.’ The pathologist gave again his impression of the surgeon who has
Burgess took his visitor past his lugubrious, disapproving assistant, with Lambert trying not to speculate about the nature of the russet smears which marred the front of the young man ’s white overall. The Superintendent hoped he did not blench as he was taken to stand beside the body of the late Guy Harrington, almost as if the occupant of the slab was a patient who might be permitted visitors after a serious operation.
Lambert tried not to think about the huge incisions in the flesh beneath the sheet, but he had attended too many post-mortems to be in much doubt about them. Indeed, only his senior rank had enabled him to depute the police presence at this one to a hapless junior officer. He found this one of those occasions when the human brain and the human imagination ref use to remain inactive when commanded to.
Burgess brought out the notes he would later transform into an official report. ‘Stomach contents,’ he announced with relish.
‘ Tell me, please, don’t show me,’ said Lambert apprehensively: he knew that the information was necessary to establish the time of death.
Burgess grinned at the familiar effect his work was having on the Superintendent. ‘A meal of steak, potatoes, calabrese and carrots, what appears to me to be sherry trifle, cheese and biscuits, was taken some time before death. Coffee, as usual, and a considerable quantity of alcohol—I’d say the best part of a bottle of wine, and perhaps five standard measures of spirits. Of course, the people at that meal had only to toddle to their rooms and fall into bed on the site—no need to bother about driving.’
Both of them knew the police could have found most of this from the people who had eaten and drunk with the dead man on the previous evening, but this was accurate and scientific and the Coroner ’s Court would want to hear it. Lambert knew that Burgess liked to tease him by holding back the vital facts of his report as long as possible. He indulged him, in exchange for the unspoken assurance that he would not be asked to witness the internal organs of what lay before him beneath its sheet. ‘Time of death?’ he rapped, like one bringing an over-indulged child to heel.
‘ My dear John, you always want precision where precision is least possible.’ Burgess pursed his lips, pretending to give careful consideration to a matter he had already decided for himself two hours earlier. ‘The body temperature said our friend had been dead for probably not less than twelve hours when I got him here. From the digestive state of the stomach contents, I’d say the meal was completed not less than three and not more than five hours before death. I imagine that puts us some time after the witching hour?’
‘ Well after, I think. I understand they began what seems to have been a fairly leisurely meal at about eight. Probably they didn’t complete it before nine-thirty.’
‘ Which would put death at somewhere between twelve-thirty and two a.m.’ Burgess rubbed his hands with satisfaction. ‘When all innocent citizens have entered the land of nod.
“ Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care , The death of each day’s life , sore labour’s bath , Balm of hurt minds —”’
‘ Yes indeed!’ Lambert interrupted ungraciously. Burgess, weaned on the detective fiction of the ‘thirties, thought death ignoble if not accompanied by quotation. The CID man in Lambert made him add sourly, ‘I doubt whether our killer at the Wye Castle will make himself so quickly obvious as the perpetrator of that Scottish bloodbath. I take it this was murder?’ He gestured almost apologetically at the corpse between them.
‘ Oh, I think so.’ The pathologist gave again his impression of the surgeon who has
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