“Good afternoon, Mr Scorpe,” said the deputy coroner.
The solicitor gave him a small secondary bow and set about arranging his library. Then he unloaded the contents of the briefcase. Finally, he signified his readiness to allow the inquiry to proceed by donning with a flourish his huge, black-framed spectacles.
Malley leaned towards the deputy coroner’s ear.
“Perhaps you’d like to hear the doctors first, sir, so that they can get away.”
Dr Thompson agreed to the concession with prim nervousness. It was the first decision he had been called upon to make that afternoon, the first chance of trying out his voice. He thought it sounded squeaky and resolved to try for more sonority next time.
At a sign from the sergeant, Dr Heineman bounced to his feet and took the oath in a cheery, mittel-European voice. He was a man of brisk and decided manner. His short hair stood up like a brush; it and his high, eloquent eyebrows gave him an air of being the bearer of encouraging tidings. He wore a smartly cut black jacket over a pale pink pleated shirt. His bow tie was of the jaunty, pre-fabricated kind. It was bright green.
Dr Meadow absorbed these details with blank, slowly ranging eye. Then he slumped carefully in his chair and took a peep under the table. It confirmed his suspicion. The pathologist was wearing spats.
“Doctor, you conducted a post-morten examination of the body of the deceased at Flaxborough General Hospital, I understand.” The deputy coroner tried not to look at the green tie.
“Igsectly. Thet I hev done. Yes.” And off went Heineman on a rapid recital of his findings, most of which, if one were to judge by the eagerness of his tone and aspect, were eminently to his taste.
The deceased, he said, was a well-nourished male person aged about sixty. There was some evidence of circulatory deterioration, but no more than was to be expected in a man of his age. All organs were in a comparatively sound condition, and he had been unable to detect by standard pathological techniques any significant degree of physical regression attributable to the age factor.
He had been able to eliminate the possibility of intervention in the form of incision, ligature, toxin or concussion.
The deceased had ingested between six and seven ounces of protein and carbohydrate, with traces of mineral compounds, not more than one hour previous to death. No part of the contents of his stomach was inconsistent with normal nutritional processes.
The bone structure of the body appeared to be sound, apart from a healed fracture, many years old, of a bone in the left forearm.
No natural teeth survived in either the lower or the upper jaw.
He had observed a bruise, together with adjacent abrasion, minor in character, in the upper area of the left hip. There were several smaller bruises distributed over both legs. On the left shoulder was an abrasion, while on the right knee...
“Correct me if I am wrong, doctor,” broke in the deputy coroner, made daring by boredom, “but I take it that what you are listing now are the body’s superficial injuries—the incidental injuries?”
Heineman pretended to find the interruption incomprehensible. He turned upon Malley a look of sweetly helpful inquiry: it implied that the sergeant was Dr Thompson’s keeper and was trained to translate his utterances into rational language.
Thompson frowned. “You do not suggest, do you, doctor, that the injuries you have been describing were contributory to this man’s death? That is all I am asking.”
Heineman looked at the ceiling, then at Inspector Purbright. He gave Purbright a knowing smile, glanced back to his notes, and went on with the report as if no one else had spoken.
He was now happily exploring the complex world of Winge’s cranium.
Purbright understood singularly little of this part of the pathologist’s evidence, but as he listened and looked to see what others were making of it, two things became clear. Heineman had made some discovery by which he was genuinely intrigued. And Meadow—who up to then had affected absolute indifference—was paying careful attention to what Heineman was saying.
Mr Scorpe, too, seemed gravely interested, but since that particular expression was habitual with him—it had been called his ‘working face’—Purbright could not be certain that he really found the matter significant.
Dr Thompson offered no further interruption. Only when the pathologist had sat down, beaming his congratulations to the audience on their having enjoyed such a marvellous lecture, did he enquire, with malevolent ingenuousness, whether Dr Heineman was not in a position to suggest a cause of death.
Heineman’s eyes popped with amused surprise.
“Cows of dith? But drownink! What ilse?”
“Thank you, doctor. You might have mentioned it earlier.”
The deputy coroner wrote something on the sheet before him. He looked up.
“Would anyone like to ask Dr Heineman any questions? Inspector?”
Purbright shook his head.
“Dr Meadow?”
Meadow declined. Fastidiously.
“Mr Scorpe—you represent the family of the deceased, I understand...”
Scorpe bobbed his great solemn head. “If you please.”
“Is there anything you would care to ask the witness?”
Scorpe rose menacingly and re-arranged some of his books, like sandbags before a redoubt. “A couple of points, doctor, if you wouldn’t mind...”
“Pliss!”
Scorpe looked down at the carbon copy of Heineman’s report with which the helpful Malley had provided him.
“You say that you found clear indications of a certain neurological condition known as Grosserbayer’s Syndrome.”
Heineman nodded. He looked very affable.
“This condition being, in the language of the layman, a disturbance of the brain...”
“Of the cintral neerwus system,” Heineman corrected, one finger raised.
“If you please. A disturbance of the central nervous system. Thank you.” Mr Scorpe swept off his great spectacles. “And could you tell us, doctor, what are the special characteristics shown by a person suffering from this, ah...” On went the spectacles again, but just long enough to consult notes. “...this, ah, Grosserbayer’s Syndrome?”
Dr Heineman bowed. “Of course!” He prepared to make a count of his fingers. “One—he will hev drobbles controllink the belence...”
“Trouble controlling his balance, yes.”
“...particularly in moments of striss or enkziety. At such times. You see? Two—very probably he will hev parapsychotic re-ektions to sixual stimuli. Three—a well-ricogniced sympton of Grosserbayerism is the patient’s euphoric, I could even say halucinaaaatory, estimaaaation of his own physical potintial.”
Mr Scorpe silently digested this for some seconds before attempting a translation.
“In other words, doctor, the unfortunate man not only would lack what we sometimes call moral control, but would have an exaggerated idea of his own vitality?”