Death and the Black Pyramid Read Online Free PDF Page A

had seen the night before being shouted at by William Gorringe was flying down the stairs at top speed, a jug in her hand, the contents of which was spilling out all the way down the staircase.
    â€˜Oh help!’ she was shouting. ‘Oh help! Somebody help.’
    The landlord appeared from the area of the kitchen. ‘What is it, my girl?’
    â€˜The gentleman in 103 . . .’ she gasped out.
    â€˜What about him?’
    â€˜He’s dead, Mr Tyler. Oh, Sir, it’s horrible.’
    John stepped forward. ‘I’m an apothecary. Can I be of any assistance?’
    Tyler looked him up and down. ‘Do you have a medical bag with you?’
    â€˜No. I am here for social reasons. But I have one or two bottles of physic that I always carry.’
    â€˜Perhaps you had better bring them.’
    â€˜If the man is dead they won’t do him a lot of good,’ John replied shortly.
    They climbed the staircase in silence, ascending to the second floor, the one below John’s bedroom. The door to 103 stood ajar and the Apothecary realized with a start that it was the very door from which he had seen the mysterious cloaked figure emerge. He decided that for the moment he would keep the information to himself.
    Inside it was still dark for the curtains were drawn. Crossing to them, John pulled them back and autumn sunlight, piercingly bright, flooded the room. He heard Tyler the landlord give an exclamation behind him and, wheeling round, saw the body for the first time.
    William Gorringe lay on the bed in a sea of his own blood, a sea which had spattered onto the walls and even the ceiling. To say that he had been bludgeoned to death would have been an understatement. The man had received so many blows to the head that he was virtually unrecognizable, his face reduced to a lump of flesh, his eyes dislodged from their sockets by the severity of the beating he had sustained. Taking a deep breath John leant over the body and stared at what remained of the head.
    The brains were oozing through in a mass of grey matter, hair sticking in it just to make the scene more unpleasant. Slowly, the Apothecary let his eyes wander downwards and saw that Gorringe had several blows, including one to the knees, which were bent up slightly as if the man had been asleep when the attack began. John made a mental note to ask the landlord – who was on the landing making the most terrible retching noises – about spare keys to the rooms.
    He straightened up and crossed to the window, noticing that it was closed and that the catch had been slipped through on the inside. Staring downwards he saw that below him was the stabling yard. So it would have been possible for a man to have taken a ladder and made his way upwards and closed the window after he had come in. John’s mind turned to the figure he had seen down the landing and he fervently wished that he had had both the time and the foresight to get a better look.
    He turned once more to the body, thinking that Gorringe must have met his death at the hands of a madman or, at the very least, someone in an uncontrollable frenzy. He had a dozen or so separate wounds, the majority of which were to the upper regions. But his chest had also been viciously attacked and John wondered what implement could have been used. Possibly a heavy stick or a piece of piping. But a search of the room, albeit quick, revealed nothing. Whoever had killed William Gorringe had taken the weapon with them.
    Outside in the corridor the landlord – very whey-faced – was waiting for him. John looked grim.
    â€˜We’ll have to lock this door until the Constable comes. You have a spare key?’
    â€˜Yes, of course. The girl uses it in the morning when she goes in with the hot water.’
    â€˜And I presume that was what she was doing earlier?’
    â€˜Yes, poor soul. She walked in on that scene of carnage.’
    It was a good description, John thought.