The Interpretation Of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

his dexterity, there can be no doubt; the wounds all
proceed from right to left.'
        'His dexterity?'
        'His right-handedness, Detective.'
        'But how do you know he knew her?'
        'I do not know. I suspect.
Answer me this: in what posture was Miss Riverford when she was whipped?'
        'I never saw her,' the detective
complained. 'I don't even know cause of death.'
        'Ligature strangulation, confirmed by
the fracture of the hyoid bone, as I saw when I opened her chest. A lovely
break, if I may say, like a perfectly split wishbone. Indeed, a lovely female
chest altogether: the ribs perfectly formed, the lungs and heart, once removed,
the very picture of healthy asphyxiated tissue. It was a pleasure to hold them
in one's hands. But to the point: Miss Riverford was standing when she was
whipped. This we know from the simple fact that the blood dripped straight down
from her lacerations. Her hands were undoubtedly tied above her head by a
heavy- gauge rope of some kind, almost certainly attached to the fixture in the
ceiling. I saw rope threads on that fixture. Did you? No? Well, go back and
look for them. Question: why would a man who has a good sturdy rope strangle
his victim with a delicate silk? Inference, Mr Littlemore: he did not want to
put something so coarse around the girl's neck. And why was that? Hypothesis,
Mr Littlemore: because he had feelings for her. Now, as to the man's height, we
are back to certainties. Miss Riverford was five-foot-five. Judging from her
wounds, the whipping was administered by someone seven to eight inches above
her. Thus the murderer's height was between six foot and six-foot-one.'
        'Unless he was standing on
something,' said Littlemore.
        'What?'
        'On a stool or something.'
        'On a stool?' repeated the coroner.
        'It's possible,' said Littlemore.
        'A man does not stand on a stool
while whipping a girl, Detective.'
        'Why not?'
        'Because it's ridiculous. He would
fall off.'
        'Not if he had something to hold on
to,' said the detective. 'A lamp, maybe, or a hat rack.'
        'A hat rack?' said Hugel. 'Why would
he do that, Detective?'
        'To make us think he was taller.'
        'How many homicide cases have you
investigated?' asked the coroner.
        'This is my first,' said Littlemore,
with undisguised excitement, 'as a detective.'
        Hugel nodded. 'You spoke with the
maid at least, I suppose?'
        'The maid?'
        'Yes, the maid. Miss Riverford's
maid. Did you ask her if she noticed anything unusual?'
        'I don't think I -'
        'I don't want you to think,' snapped
the coroner. 'I want you to detect. Go back to the Balmoral and talk to that
maid again. She was the first one in the room. Ask her to describe to you
exactly what she saw when she went in. Get the details, do you hear me?'

 
        On the corner of Fifth Avenue and
Fifty-third Street, in a room no woman had ever entered, not even to dust or
beat the curtains, a butler poured from a sparkling decanter into three
etched-crystal goblets. The bowls of these goblets were intricately carved and
so deep they could hold an entire bottle of claret. The butler poured a quarter
inch of red wine into each.
        These glasses he offered to the
Triumvirate.
        The three men sat in deep leather
armchairs arranged around a central fireplace. The room was a library
containing more than thirty-seven hundred volumes, most of which were in Greek,
Latin, or German. On one side of the unlit fireplace stood a bust of Aristotle
atop a jade- green marble pedestal. On the other was a bust of an ancient
Hindu. Over the mantel was an entablature: it displayed a large snake curled
into a sine wave, against a background of flames. The word charaka was engraved
in capital letters underneath.
        Smoke from the men's pipes caressed
the ceiling high above them. The man in the center of the three made a