A Rip Through Time(81)

He turns to Gray. “Would you be a good chap and deliver her to your examination room?”

“Is that where you want her?” McCreadie says. “At Dr. Gray’s and not in the police office dead room?”

Addington shivers. “Why ever would I wish to examine her there? Dr. Gray’s offices are so much better supplied and so much more convivial. We have this arrangement for a reason, McCreadie.”

“I am only making certain,” McCreadie murmurs. “So I might convey your decision to my superiors, who are of the opinion that this case may be different.”

“How? She’s dead. Murdered. Nothing different in that. I shall await her at Dr. Gray’s offices.”

So this is how Gray gets away with examining bodies. They have an arrangement with Addington, who lives in the New Town and wants the prestige of being the police surgeon but not the inconvenience of carrying out autopsies in an actual police station. Cleverly done.

“Dr. Addington,” Gray says as the other man begins returning to his coach. “Might I beg your indulgence in allowing me to examine the body at the scene. For my studies.”

“Of course, of course. She’s not going anywhere, is she? Just move her out of the way so my coach can pass.”

Gray opens his mouth to argue, but Addington plows on, “Then I’ll nip by your house in, say an hour? Oh, and as I have missed my morning tea, could you please have your housekeeper fix me a tray? And if you could have that delightful little maid of yours bring it by, I would be most obliged.” He winks at Gray. “I haven’t seen her in a while, and I miss the sight of that delectable girl.”

He strides away, whistling, without waiting for a response.

“Please tell me he wasn’t talking about Alice,” I say.

McCreadie snorts a laugh. “No, thankfully. He meant you.”

“He failed to see me standing right here?”

“Dr. Addington fails to see anything he doesn’t want to see. Including, half the time, the proper cause of death.” McCreadie slants a glance at me. “Before you ask, he has not been in his position long. The former police surgeon was an excellent fellow, very deserving of the office. But he retired, and Dr. Addington has connections that saw him elected despite his incompetence. However, it does allow us to take advantage.”

I turn to Gray, but he’s already at the body, where she’s been moved to let Addington pass.

McCreadie winks. “Time for our not-a-lesson to resume.”





TWENTY-EIGHT


And so I am back in Gray’s good graces. He doesn’t say so. Doesn’t join McCreadie in apologizing for questioning my attack story, either. His apology comes in action, and from the moment he heard about the feather, the mistrust began to ebb, and I am once again his assistant.

He examines the body while taking time now to explain what he’s doing and also keeping an eye on his pocket watch. At the last possible moment, the victim is loaded onto a cart.

And that’s when the victim’s sister shows up.

The timing is not accidental. While McCreadie seemed to be completely focused on Gray’s examination, he was multitasking, having already gotten a preliminary ID on the body and sent officers to track down next of kin. They found the sister and brought her to the scene, and I … I will say little about that except that I truly hope the killer is not in the crowd to feed off her grief.

Obviously, I’m horrified at the thought of bringing next of kin to the actual crime scene, but McCreadie is following procedure, where efficiency is the key—get the body identified as quickly as possible. To his credit, when he realizes the sister has arrived, he hurries to the cart and covers the body himself, exposing only her face. I cringe at possible trace contamination from the blanket, but his heart is in the right place, and trace transfer is hardly a concern in a world that doesn’t test for trace yet.

As for me, I help in the only way I can—by staying far from the cart and leaving the poor woman to her grief.

I’m bent examining the peacock feather when Gray strides over to scoop it up, making me wince. Again, I remind myself that without fingerprint or DNA testing, there’s no concern with handling evidence, but I still inwardly squirm.

“It is the same, yes?”

“If not the exact one, then its exact match,” I say. “There’s something on the bottom of the quill, where it’s been cut off. Hacked off, it looks like. A black staining, like ink.”

“Because it is ink,” he says.

“Ah, right. Hard to find peacock feathers just lying about, so he made do with a peacock-feather pen. Would the dyeing make it cheap or expensive?”

“Cheap,” he says. “A substandard feather, dyed.”

“Also ragged,” I say. “Probably not a new pen, then. Where would one purchase a used peacock-quill pen?”

His lips twitch. “Now you wish to take poor Findlay’s job, too? Shall I lose you to Hugh?”

“I was speculating,” I say. “But if you are not interested in theorizing…”

An unmistakable glitter lights his eyes. “I am far too interested in theorizing, as Hugh would tell you. Not that he complains about me playing detective. He’s happy enough for my deductions, though it doesn’t keep him from grumbling about them.”