borders and beds was a stand of gnarled, overgrown yews that must throw the house into a sepulchral gloom, and a broken sundial marooned in a patch of thistles. The front step was cracked; only faint traces of paint showed on window frames weathered gray, and crows nested in the eaves. It occurred to Sebastian that if Dr. Hiram Higginbottom conducted his autopsies with the same care he showed the upkeep of his house, then the chances of finding out exactly how Emma Chance had died were slim.
A breeze kicked up, bringing him the smell of manure from the nearby barns and the pungent pinch of burning tobacco.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” said a gravelly voice from behind him. “That grand London lord with all the nonsensical notions.”
Sebastian was getting more than a bit tired of hearing himself described as “that grand London lord.” He turned slowly to find a man seated on a rusty bench buried in the depths of the yews.
“I’m Devlin, yes. I take it you’re Hiram Higginbottom?”
The doctor straightened and shuffled forward with a peculiar, splayfooted gait. He held the bowl of a burl wood pipe in one hand; the hem of his old-fashioned, bottle green frock coat flared as he walked. He was a small man, his frame solid and compact. But his head was huge, as if it should by rights have belonged to a much larger man, and it looked as if it had been stuck onto his body without a neck. In age, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, his sagging jaw gray with several days’ growth of beard, his shoulders rounded and already tending to stoop.
“Young Archie Rawlins said you might be coming by. Said I was to give you my findings if you did. Well, here they are: She committed suicide.”
He started to turn away toward the barns.
Sebastian said, “You’ve already completed the autopsy?”
Higginbottom kept walking. “There’s no need for an autopsy, and it wouldn’t show nothing anyway. It’s obvious how she died: opium poisoning.”
“I’m told it’s impossible to detect an opium overdose in a postmortem.”
Higginbottom swung around to jab one pointed finger into the air at him. “No need to detect it when you’ve got an empty laudanum bottle lying right there, and a suicide note in her hand.”
“Suicide note? What suicide note?”
Higginbottom jerked his head toward the farm outbuildings. “I’ll show you.”
He led the way to a lean-to shed attached to one end of the cow barn. He’d left the door open, and Sebastian could hear the buzzing of flies as they approached, smell the sickly sweet scent of insipient decay. Instead of a stone slab like the one used by Paul Gibson for his official autopsies and surreptitious dissections, Higginbottom had only a stained wooden table. Emma Chance lay upon it still fully clothed. As far as Sebastian could see, the only thing the doctor had done was to lay her arms straight down at her sides before the rigor rendered her completely stiff.
“Here,” said Higginbottom, plucking a small slip of paper from a shelf near the door. “See? Suicide.”
Sebastian found himself staring at a narrow strip of heavy, aged paper that looked as if it had been sliced from an old book. It contained only four words, printed in an elegant Baroque typeface.
The rest is silence.
Sebastian looked up at him. “You call this a suicide note?”
“Well, what would you call it, then? Hmmm?”
“Actually, I’d call it one more deliberate misdirection by the killer—just like the empty laudanum bottle.”
The other man’s nostrils quivered, his gray eyes narrowing with annoyance. “This is ridiculous. It’s as if you’re determined to make this out to be a murder. Why can’t you simply accept that it is what it is? A suicide!”
“How the bloody hell do you know? You didn’t even look.”
“Of course I looked. She hasn’t been strangled. And if she’d been stabbed or shot, there’d be stains on her clothing. Well, there are none—except for
A breeze kicked up, bringing him the smell of manure from the nearby barns and the pungent pinch of burning tobacco.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” said a gravelly voice from behind him. “That grand London lord with all the nonsensical notions.”
Sebastian was getting more than a bit tired of hearing himself described as “that grand London lord.” He turned slowly to find a man seated on a rusty bench buried in the depths of the yews.
“I’m Devlin, yes. I take it you’re Hiram Higginbottom?”
The doctor straightened and shuffled forward with a peculiar, splayfooted gait. He held the bowl of a burl wood pipe in one hand; the hem of his old-fashioned, bottle green frock coat flared as he walked. He was a small man, his frame solid and compact. But his head was huge, as if it should by rights have belonged to a much larger man, and it looked as if it had been stuck onto his body without a neck. In age, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, his sagging jaw gray with several days’ growth of beard, his shoulders rounded and already tending to stoop.
“Young Archie Rawlins said you might be coming by. Said I was to give you my findings if you did. Well, here they are: She committed suicide.”
He started to turn away toward the barns.
Sebastian said, “You’ve already completed the autopsy?”
Higginbottom kept walking. “There’s no need for an autopsy, and it wouldn’t show nothing anyway. It’s obvious how she died: opium poisoning.”
“I’m told it’s impossible to detect an opium overdose in a postmortem.”
Higginbottom swung around to jab one pointed finger into the air at him. “No need to detect it when you’ve got an empty laudanum bottle lying right there, and a suicide note in her hand.”
“Suicide note? What suicide note?”
Higginbottom jerked his head toward the farm outbuildings. “I’ll show you.”
He led the way to a lean-to shed attached to one end of the cow barn. He’d left the door open, and Sebastian could hear the buzzing of flies as they approached, smell the sickly sweet scent of insipient decay. Instead of a stone slab like the one used by Paul Gibson for his official autopsies and surreptitious dissections, Higginbottom had only a stained wooden table. Emma Chance lay upon it still fully clothed. As far as Sebastian could see, the only thing the doctor had done was to lay her arms straight down at her sides before the rigor rendered her completely stiff.
“Here,” said Higginbottom, plucking a small slip of paper from a shelf near the door. “See? Suicide.”
Sebastian found himself staring at a narrow strip of heavy, aged paper that looked as if it had been sliced from an old book. It contained only four words, printed in an elegant Baroque typeface.
The rest is silence.
Sebastian looked up at him. “You call this a suicide note?”
“Well, what would you call it, then? Hmmm?”
“Actually, I’d call it one more deliberate misdirection by the killer—just like the empty laudanum bottle.”
The other man’s nostrils quivered, his gray eyes narrowing with annoyance. “This is ridiculous. It’s as if you’re determined to make this out to be a murder. Why can’t you simply accept that it is what it is? A suicide!”
“How the bloody hell do you know? You didn’t even look.”
“Of course I looked. She hasn’t been strangled. And if she’d been stabbed or shot, there’d be stains on her clothing. Well, there are none—except for
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