Ranklin told him – tactfully omitting that he’d learned about the stage, too. O’Gilroy lit a cigarette and frowned with thought. “Drew an ace, then, did ye? Where’s that leave us?”
“It confirms that the story could be true . . .” But now he thought about it, that was just about all. There was no proof, but they weren’t in the legal-proof business, and this was a story that simply wasn’t susceptible of proof anyway.
“We’ve done better than anyone expected,” he pronounced firmly. They had ten minutes before the next train back to London and he went to find an evening paper.
A downpage headline read:
BODY FOUND IN THAMES
Could be missing witness
A hospital mortuary is not about death. Whether you believe in oblivion or the hereafter, death can still be something awesome, as both light and shadow may be awesome. There was no awe about this chilly, shabby windowless room, with a line of unlit bulbs dangling over a row of what looked like wooden butcher’s tables. It was businesslike and workaday, summed up by a mop and bucket propped in one corner. The business of the room was being conducted by three men under a lit bulb over one of the tables; two others sat on a bench in the shadows, talking quietly, waiting their turn. The business was not death, but the living consequences of dying and it had a smell like a butcher’s shop spiced with formalin.
As a soldier, Ranklin had seen corpses before, but they had looked less formal than this naked one stretched on the tabletop. It had the yellow-white colour of fat on raw meat, and was torn, with ragged purple cuts. It had lost a foot, an arm to the elbow, and most of the face was gone. Just torn pale flesh like veal and patches of white skull showing through. There was no blood and the body looked oddly clean; the filthy river had seen to that.
A man Ranklin assumed was a police surgeon, with shirt cuffs removed and jacket sleeves hooked back, was taking measurements and entering them in a notebook. Standing back across the table from him, and guarding a smaller table covered with jars and metal bowls, was a younger man in a long white apron. Ranklin came up beside him and whispered – whispers seemed appropriate: “Was that how he went into the river?”
The surgeon’s assistant barely glanced at him. “I doubt it. It’s scraping along the barges that does it. And it looks like he got caught in a propeller, too. It’s pretty usual with one who’s been in the river a day or more.”
“Can you tell if he drowned?”
“If there’s enough river water in his lungs.”
“And were any of the injuries on him before he went into the water?”
The assistant turned to take a proper look at him. “Are you with the police?”
But then two men came in, both without topcoats so they had probably been around the hospital for some time. Inspectors McDaniel and Lacoste, seemingly professionally united. Both gave him a non-committal but thorough police stare.
He stepped forward and held out ah and. “Captain Ranklin, War Office.” It was time to be moderately honest.
McDaniel introduced himself and Lacoste. “Didn’t know you were concerned.”
“Oh, you know, anarchism, international matters and all that – if it’s Guillet. Is it?”
“Had you seen him before?”
“Only in court,” Ranklin said more moderately than honestly.
“Would you care to identify him?”
Ranklin smiled lightly and shook his head.
“Nor Inspecteur Laroste.” McDaniel gave a reasonable stab at a French pronunciation. “And he knew him from Paris.”
“Then how will you . . . ?”
“The clothes are French and cheap and I’ve sent some lads round to his hotel to see what size he wore and if the cleaners have left any of his fingerprints there.” He glanced at the body. “Left hand, I hope.”
The youngish man in the apron said: “You’re lucky. After a few days the skin on the fingers can peel right off.”
“I know,” McDaniel said evenly.
Ranklin asked: “Was he floating?”
“Must’ve been, for the river police to spot him.”
That probably meant he was dead when he went into the river; in drowning, you swallow enough water to sink, and only surface again a couple of days later when putrefaction gases build up.
But nothing was certain, as the young assistant pointed out: “The shock of hitting the cold water could have killed him, then there’ll be very little river water in the lungs. So it could be suicide.”
Almost in unison, McDaniel and Lacoste shook their heads.
“You never know,” the assistant insisted.
“That’s right,” McDaniel agreed. But his expression didn’t.
The surgeon stepped back. He was a placid, late-middle aged man with smooth white hair. “Do you want to take fingerprints before I start cutting, Inspector?”
“If you please, doctor.” McDaniel waved and the two men from the shadows came forward with their equipment.
The surgeon lit a large cigar, which slightly surprised Ranklin but certainly improved the immediate neighbourhood. “I can’t give you much at this stage, Inspector.” He consulted his notebook. “He was five foot ten tall, and his live weight would be around eleven stone. Ummm, say seventy kilograms,” he converted for Lacoste. “Does that fit your missing witness?”
The two inspectors conferred by look, and McDaniel nodded. “Could well be. I know it’s tricky, but can you suggest any time of death?”
The surgeon shook his head firmly. “After this time and the water, temperature’s no help. I’ll probably end up saying between twelve and twenty-four hours ago.”
McDaniel hadn’t hoped for enough to be disappointed. “Anything yet on cause of death?”
“If he drowned, I may be ready to testify to that. That apart, I don’t see any obvious bullet or stab wounds, but there’s thirteen separate cuts on the body, not counting the ones that took off his arm, foot and face. I think they all happened after he was dead, but I may change my mind when I’ve had a look inside. Now, is there anything special you want me to look for?”
“Apart from identification, he’s not my case. But we don’t think he went into the river on his own accord.” A small nod from Lacoste backed this up. “We don’t think he’s the type for suicide.”
Ranklin had to stop himself nodding as well.
The surgeon said: “People often fall into the river drunk.”
McDaniel looked to Lacoste; this time he got a shrug. Ranklin might have helped here: when he last saw Guillet the man hadn’t been drunk and hadn’t been drinking in that direction. Still, that wasn’t evidence anyway.
“And when a man falls,” the surgeon went on, “he just falls. He often hits something before the water, like the wall or a moored boat. So there might well be broken bones, or a fractured skull, even with a genuine accident.”
“You mean you might not be able to tell even if he’d been hit over the head first?”
“I’ll do my best, but quite possibly not, unless it were well before.”
McDaniel nodded heavily. “Like I say, not my case even if there is a case.”
The surgeon smiled sympathetically. “Can I get back to him now?”
“Please do, sir.” McDaniel went for a word with the fingerprint men, who were packing up their equipment.
He came back looking satisfied. “We should know in a couple of hours. And have a medical preliminary by midnight. No point in hanging around here.”
Lacoste said: “I think we should return to Ma’mselle Collomb now.”
McDaniel turned to Ranklin: “Now you know everything we do, sir. I’m sure your people can get any of our reports through Special Branch at the Yard. So if there’s nothing more we can do for you . . .”
“No, no. Thank you.” But Ranklin’s mind was churning. They had picked up Berenice Collomb, then. Perhaps the hotel had recalled her coming round the night before the trial opened – had she been fool enough to try the next night, too? In fact, had she succeeded in getting to Guillet and . . .