The Orchid Shroud by Michelle Wan Page A

throttled.” He was a big man with forearms the size of Parma hams. It was hard to believe he had the lightest touch with pastry in the region.
    Loulou dipped his head from side to side. “Death was not”—he probed the interior of his mouth delicately with a toothpick, seeking remnant shreds of Mado’s lamb ragout—“due to natural causes. Of course, I never thought it was.” His round face had the smug, glossy look of an egg pudding. The freckles on his scalp resembled raisins.
    “Well, get on with it.” Julian found the ex-cop’s well-known fondness for keeping an audience dangling very irritating.
    Loulou put the toothpick down. “According to Lamartine, X-rays of the skull turned up a number of things.” He held up one, two, and three fingers in turn.
“Primo
, dislocation of the mandible.
Secundo
, massive crushing of the nasal bones.
Tertio
, cracking and displacement of the maxillae. Not throttled. Smothered. Pressure was applied directly downward and with far more force than was necessary with an infant of that age. As if”—he tugged pensively at the wattle under his chin—“whoever had done it had been in a towering rage.”
    “Mon dieu,”
whispered Mado, drawing her son tightly to her.
    “Postpartum depression.” Paul rocked back in his chair. “Mother off her head, kid screaming all the time, pillow over the face.”
    They all fell silent, contemplating the scene.
    Then Paul asked, “How did it come to be mummified?”
    “Oh, it can happen, given cool, dry conditions.” Loulou reached across to share out the remains of a bottle of red—a Coteaux de Bonfond Domaine de la Source 1998, as it happened. “There are many examples of naturally occurring mummies in crypts, for example. And a wall’s not so different. But one thing Lamartine said, it was a healthy baby, well fed.”
    Mado looked surprised. “How could he know that?” She shifted Eddie in her arms.
    “Because there was evidence of saponification.” Loulou scooted his bottom forward in his chair, the better to deliver his information. “That only happens with fat corpses, you see. The fat mixes with water to produce fatty acids that draw the moisture out. Thedehydration slows down bacterial growth and the body is preserved. Now, the baby’s fattest parts—its stomach, buttocks, and thighs—were literally turned into a waxy substance like soap. The upper parts of the body were more vulnerable and simply dried out. It was a good thing Lamartine had the X-ray evidence to go on. Otherwise, he would have had to rehydrate the body before he could have examined it.”
    There was another silence while his audience took this in.
    Julian cleared his throat. “Any idea when it died?”
    “I’m coming to that. Lamartine puts it certainly after 1860 and provisionally as late as the outbreak of war in 1914.”
    “That’s a fifty-four-year span,” Julian complained.
    “Bien
, with mummies it’s hard to be precise. In fact, the science and tech lads had to rely on the baby’s trappings to pin things down. It was wrapped in a woman’s shawl. Silk. French manufacture, probably Lyon, factory-produced in bolts throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and sold by the measure through the better shops in Paris and places like Tours and Bordeaux. However, one of the threads used in the embroidery was colored with a synthetic dye that came into use in France only after 1860. So that establishes the anchor date. The outside date of 1914 was based on the style of the child’s clothing and the material, a kind of Egyptian cotton generally not available in France after Egypt became a British protectorate. As for the embroidery itself, done by hand to suit the customer, or, because many women did embroidery in those days, even by the wearer herself.”
    “But who she was remains the big question,” muttered Julian darkly. Absently, he tossed bits of bread to the dogs.
    Mado pointed out, “Anyway, the shawl could have lain