Death of a Stranger by Anne Perry Page A

larger man came staggering in holding a woman in his arms. She was so pale her skin looked waxy in the gaslight, and her eyes were closed, her head lolling as if she were completely insensible.
    “Put her there.” Hester pointed to the larger, empty table.
    “ ’Aven’t yer got a bed?” The large man stifled a sob. His face was twisted with emotion; anger was so much less painful than the terror which obviously engulfed him.
    Hester was accustomed to all kinds of feelings pouring out beyond control, and she made no judgment of them, no response to those that were unfair.
    “I need to see what is wrong,” she explained. “I have to have a firm surface, and the light. Put her there.”
    He obeyed, his eyes imploring her to help, to find some answer beyond his imagining.
    Hester looked at the girl lying in front of her. The man had put her down as gently as he could, but it was still clear that her bones were broken. Her arms and legs lay awkwardly; the flesh was swelling and the bruises were darkening even as Hester watched. The veins in the girl’s neck and shoulders were blue, her skin gray-white. She was breathing but her eyelids did not flutter at all.
    “Can yer ’elp ’er?” the man demanded, the youth now beside him.
    “I’ll try,” Hester promised. “What happened? Do you know?”
    “Someone beat the ’ell out of ’er!” he exploded. “Can’t yer see that? Yer blind or summink?”
    “Yes, I can see that,” Hester said, looking at the woman, not at him. “I wanted to know how long ago, how you found her, if she’s been stabbed or cut. If you can tell me that without my moving her, so much better. I can see how her arms and legs are. What about her body? Did you see where she was punched or kicked?”
    “Gawd, lady! D’yer think I’d’a let it ’appen if I’ad? I’d’a killed the b-bastard if I’d b-bin there!” he stuttered in a futile effort to find a word bad enough for the rage that ate him. “If yer can’t ’elp ’er, at least don’ ’urt ’er any more, yer ’ear me?”
    Hester put her hands very gently on the woman’s arms, feeling for the grating edges of bone where the flesh was already misshapen and damaged. She found one break in the left arm, two in the right. The left knee was swollen and at least two small bones were broken in the right foot. The collarbone was broken on one side, but there was little she could do about that. Cutting the cloth of the girl’s bodice, she exposed a purple bruise at least six inches wide across the ribs and stretching down below the waist. This was what she feared-it meant internal bleeding she could do nothing to help. She had a fair knowledge of anatomy, mostly learned in the battlefield while looking at the actuality of torn-open bodies, not the neater, more leisurely education of medical school, or dissections of the dead. Still, she knew where the major arteries were and what could happen to them when damaged.
    “Do something! Damn yer!” the man said desperately, shifting his immense weight from one foot to the other and back again in his fever of anxiety.
    Without answering, Hester continued to learn as much as she could without moving the broken body of the woman. She wished Margaret were there to help. Bessie was kind, but she had not the inner calm, the steady hands that Margaret had. She identified too much with the women, having lived all her life among them. She saw the pain and the fear from the inside, and it robbed her of the dispassion needed for practical help in such critical injuries as these.
    “Go and find Mr. Lockhart,” she ordered, and saw Bessie’s face flood with relief that she could do something useful and at the same time escape the pain. She was out of the door without even grasping for her hat.
    Hester turned to Livia, ignoring the man.
    “Miss Baltimore!” she said firmly. “Would you be good enough to pass me that roll of bandage on the table? And then fetch a splint from the cupboard over