The Edinburgh Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking at him. He had not truly expected any great revelation; hoped for it, perhaps, but not expected. The savagery of the man’s death had seemed to call for the effort nevertheless, and for all Christison’s brisk manner, he was known to be one who treated all who came under his knife, whatever their former standing, with the same disinterested, precise attention.
    “There’s a certain amount more we might deduce, I suppose,” the professor was saying. “His hands, for example: this was a man who worked with them, but not by way of heavy labour. A craftsman, perhaps. Something along those lines.”
    Christison glanced at Quire, who was nodding.
    “You had already arrived at a similar conclusion, I see,” Christison said.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Very good. I am delighted that the application of logic and observation is not a habit entirely absent amongst the guardians of our safety. What else? I can tell you he was but a recent convert to the pleasures of the bottle, for all that its scent has attached itself to him. His stomach was awash with alcohol—whisky, I would say—when I opened it up, so there can be little doubt that he was intoxicated when he died, but his skin and his organs show none of the signs we might expect in an habitual drinker. Only recently fallen upon hard times, perhaps.”
    Christison shook the excess water from his hands, then took up a towel and rubbed them vigorously.
    “As to the cause of his death, I have nothing to offer beyond the obvious. In my experience, God did not see fit to furnish we humans with the natural equipment to inflict this kind of damage, and we must therefore suspect an animal of some sort. The marks on the arm in particular are clear. There are indentations on the cervical vertebrae that I would take for the results of teeth as well. Muscles, larynx, trachea all torn or displaced. Blood vessels severed. This was brutal, brutal work. Quite horrible. Quite remarkable.”
    For a moment, his detachment faltered, as he cast a somewhat uneasy glance towards the covered body.
    “I’d say it was the work of a wolf, if we’d not rid ourselves of such vermin two centuries gone. And they were never what you might call frequent in the streets of Edinburgh, to the best of my knowledge.”
    “Not a blade, then, or an axe?”
    “Certainly not. This unfortunate had his flesh torn, not cut. Do we have a wild beast of some sort loose in the Old Town, Sergeant?”
    “I don’t know, sir. Of some sort, perhaps.”
    “I’ve never seen a dog running about the streets that looked a likely perpetrator of a crime such as this.”
    “No. Nor I,” Quire said quietly.
    The professor carried the tools of his trade with all the care of a minister of the Kirk bearing the paraphernalia of communion. He laid them out once more on the trolley, and then began to place them one by one into a polished wooden box.
    “Well, I do hope you resolve this conundrum,” he said. “I’d not want to be looking fearfully over my shoulder the next time I’m on the Old Town’s streets after dark. Though if a beast is responsible, perhaps we must call this poor man’s end misadventure rather than crime, eh? Not a matter for the police, some might say.”
    “Some might,” shrugged Quire. “Still, he’s likely got a family, wondering what’s become of him. They deserve to know. And those still alive deserve protection, if it’s a thing that might happen again unless prevented. Seems to me that’s what the police are for.”
    “Laudable,” Christison said. “Have you a name for him, then?”
    “I’m not sure of that yet. It might be he’s John Ruthven. That was the matter that kept me busy earlier: consulting the roll of electors. There’s a John Ruthven at an address in the New Town.”
    Christison cocked a sceptical eyebrow.
    “I’d not have taken him for a householder with such a distinguished abode. Not with those hands, or with the apparel in which he was found.”
    “No. Nor