A Rip Through Time(21)

I hold the pen over the page … and a blob of ink falls onto it.

“I believe your pen is broken, sir.”

He sees the blob and sighs. “Have you not used a fountain pen, Catriona?”

Er, right. No ballpoints in the nineteenth century.

He continues, “There is a dip pen at my desk if you prefer, but fountain pens are the writing instrument of the future, and it would be wise to learn how to use one.”

Dip pen? I’m guessing that would be a pen you dip into the ink each time, unlike a fountain pen, which has a capsule of ink. I take a closer look at this one. Instead of the cartridge I’d see in a modern fountain pen, it has a small reservoir that I’m presuming needs to be filled.

I test the nib on a corner of the page and nod. I’ll need to be careful, but I think I can manage it.

Gray holds Evans’s hand in the way he wanted and makes observations, which I jot down. He moves to the victim’s head and lifts the rope coiled beside it.

“This was used to strangle him and was also left in situ.” He pauses and spells “in situ” and explains it’s Latin for “on site” or “in position.” Then he continues, “Because we know this rope was used, I can examine the marks it left and the fibers that remained and those observations can be of use in crimes where the rope was removed.”

“To find the murder weapon.”

“Murder weapon.” He samples the phrase. “Yes, that is it precisely. Make a note of that terminology, please.”

He returns to his observations, and I look from him to the body. As he talks, there’s a note in his voice I haven’t heard before. Passion. The passion of an enthusiastic teacher expounding on his favorite subject.

I’d been confused yesterday by Gray, an undertaker, examining a murder victim. Now I remind myself he isn’t just an undertaker. He’s also a doctor. And he’s using that professional combination to study forensics.

To modern police, matching weapons to wounds is as obvious as dusting for fingerprints or gathering DNA. None of that exists in the Victorian world. Oh, I’m sure police have started matching weapons and wounds, but still, it is the early days of it, which makes Gray a pioneer in my favorite science.

This is why McCreadie snuck Evans’s body in. So Gray could get a look before the coroner started carving it up, and presumably so Gray could give his friend insights that McCreadie might use in his investigation.

With that, Duncan Gray becomes a thousand times more interesting.

“What do they call what you’re doing?” I ask. “Criminal science?”

“There’s a word used in medicine,” he says. “Forensics. It is used for scientific studies that play a role in the judicial system.” He pauses. “The judicial system meaning court, such as in a criminal trial.”

“This is forensic science, then?”

“You could call it that, though it’s hardly a recognized discipline.”

“It’s new then? The idea of what you’re doing? Matching weapons to wounds and such.”

He laughs, and the sound startles me. When I glance over, he looks very different from the man I’ve been serving for the last two days. He’s relaxed and comfortable, absorbed by his work and forgetting that his student is a mere servant. A female servant, no less. Or maybe that’s unfair, and it’s not so much forgetting as not caring. I’m interested, and that is all that seems to matter.

“No,” he says. “It isn’t new at all. I have a book on such scientific inquiry from thirteenth-century China, and it’s not even the first of its kind—only the first that survives.”

“Seriously?”

That very modern exclamation has him looking up in surprise, but his eyes only twinkle with amusement. “What shocks you more, Catriona? That the science is so old? Or that it is not the invention of the grand British Empire?”

“That it’s so old,” I say, honestly.

When I say that, his nod grants me a point for not falling into the trap of colonialist thinking. That’s when I notice his skin tone. Oh, I’d noticed obviously. When we first met, I’d noted it was brown, which had been no different from observing his height or eye color. Yet I hadn’t paused to realize that people of color might be less common here. I’m sure they’re not nearly as uncommon as Hollywood historical dramas would suggest, but we aren’t yet in the age of easy travel and immigration.

What would it be like to be a person of color in Victorian Scotland? Worse than being one in modern Vancouver, I presume, and even that’s not always easy, as I know from friends. How does the outside world treat him? How did Catriona treat him? I need to bear that in mind. If he seems cool or distant, there may be a reason. Right now, though, he’s relaxed, drawn into a topic that clearly interests him.

I continue, “If the science is that old, why don’t we already know all this? We’ve had five hundred years to figure it out.”

That smile quirks again. “Perhaps we do know it, just not in this corner of the globe. Or perhaps the need for it in this corner is relatively recent, as our judicial—court—system develops.”

“Or as the lawyers get better at their jobs, and police need to work harder to make their case.”

His laugh is sudden and sharp. “True enough.”