a process certain to waste several more minutes, and hurried on in the gooddoctor’s wake. There was, of course, one thing you could always safely say about Sergeant Cecil P. Arnot, and that was, setting human nature aside, the man knew his job. If he claimed that the signs of disturbance had been minimal, quite unsuspicious, and in keeping with the situation as he saw it, then this just had to be so. Sod him.
For one wacky instant, as Kramer passed through the double doors of the old-fashioned post-mortem room, with its high ceiling and quaint skylight, he expected to hear lightning strike, and to see the prone form rise jerkily from the marble table. Then the tall, aristocratic figure on the left of the head, and the hunched, shaggy-haired dwarf on the right, dissolved back into two district surgeons, intent on examining a neck. The air still crackled, however, when Kramer stepped forward to introduce himself.
Myburgh looked up and nodded, tight-lipped; he was, as the Colonel had guessed, young and intelligent-seeming, with more than a resemblance to a celebrated Cape heart surgeon, which was bound—once he’d saved enough for a city practice—to stand him in good stead.
Mildly surprised by his reception, Kramer turned to Strydom and found him equally distant, as though withholding something you didn’t say in front of natives.
“Doc? What gives?”
“Er—I’m afraid you somewhat misled me, and that has—um—resulted in an embarrassment of a professional nature.”
“You called me a bloody fool,” Myburgh reminded him.
“For which I have already apologized, even though when I said ‘you fool,’ I was really referring to myself, Dr. Myburgh. But, Tromp, isn’t it true you said that scrawny bloody constable and the deceased were the same build?”
“No, I only said the same size, meaning height,” Kramer replied, taking his first look at the corpse and hearing his voicetrail. “Because Erasmus was average, around the 150-to-160-pound mark.…”
“
Was
,” echoed Strydom, prodding the dead paunch. “
Was
being the operative word. What would you care to place his weight at now? Another fifteen? Another twenty, perhaps? Maybe more?”
“Around 180, 185. Christ, how did he get like that?”
“Not through being a nervous wreck,” Strydom said cynically.
“But.…”
“Ja, Tromp?”
“This means he must have been living very easy and drinking his bloody head off, night and day. Look at that tan, too, and the new haircut.… Hell, I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I,” murmured Myburgh.
“You don’t? This bastard was supposed to be on the run, Doc, with blokes in every—”
“I meant that I still don’t understand what Van Heerden has to do with this. Will you explain, sir?”
But a reply from Strydom wasn’t immediately forthcoming. He was engrossed in a calculation that he crossed out impatiently—and then returned to, repeating it twice over, with what appeared to be the same result. He slipped the notebook into his pocket, gave a cheery, meaningless smile, and suggested they begin the examination without further ado. His explanation could, if it was still required, be given later, he said.
Kramer, feeling acutely aware that the bluff held more than either he or Myburgh imagined, managed to contain his curiosity. He gave his attention instead to the equally placid, equally inscrutable features of the late Mr. Erasmus, and thought it a shame that he hadn’t been strangled a nice deep purple. Hanging, with its kindly attitude to the complexion, wouldn’t have been his choice at all. Two other things struckhim, one snide and one ironical, which also helped to provide temporary distractions. The first was that Erasmus had an appendix scar exactly like the little white line on the Widow Fourie’s sweet, peach-fluff belly, and finding it here smattered of very poor taste on the thief’s part. And then there was the wince Kramer gave when the body, into which he’d dreamed of
For one wacky instant, as Kramer passed through the double doors of the old-fashioned post-mortem room, with its high ceiling and quaint skylight, he expected to hear lightning strike, and to see the prone form rise jerkily from the marble table. Then the tall, aristocratic figure on the left of the head, and the hunched, shaggy-haired dwarf on the right, dissolved back into two district surgeons, intent on examining a neck. The air still crackled, however, when Kramer stepped forward to introduce himself.
Myburgh looked up and nodded, tight-lipped; he was, as the Colonel had guessed, young and intelligent-seeming, with more than a resemblance to a celebrated Cape heart surgeon, which was bound—once he’d saved enough for a city practice—to stand him in good stead.
Mildly surprised by his reception, Kramer turned to Strydom and found him equally distant, as though withholding something you didn’t say in front of natives.
“Doc? What gives?”
“Er—I’m afraid you somewhat misled me, and that has—um—resulted in an embarrassment of a professional nature.”
“You called me a bloody fool,” Myburgh reminded him.
“For which I have already apologized, even though when I said ‘you fool,’ I was really referring to myself, Dr. Myburgh. But, Tromp, isn’t it true you said that scrawny bloody constable and the deceased were the same build?”
“No, I only said the same size, meaning height,” Kramer replied, taking his first look at the corpse and hearing his voicetrail. “Because Erasmus was average, around the 150-to-160-pound mark.…”
“
Was
,” echoed Strydom, prodding the dead paunch. “
Was
being the operative word. What would you care to place his weight at now? Another fifteen? Another twenty, perhaps? Maybe more?”
“Around 180, 185. Christ, how did he get like that?”
“Not through being a nervous wreck,” Strydom said cynically.
“But.…”
“Ja, Tromp?”
“This means he must have been living very easy and drinking his bloody head off, night and day. Look at that tan, too, and the new haircut.… Hell, I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I,” murmured Myburgh.
“You don’t? This bastard was supposed to be on the run, Doc, with blokes in every—”
“I meant that I still don’t understand what Van Heerden has to do with this. Will you explain, sir?”
But a reply from Strydom wasn’t immediately forthcoming. He was engrossed in a calculation that he crossed out impatiently—and then returned to, repeating it twice over, with what appeared to be the same result. He slipped the notebook into his pocket, gave a cheery, meaningless smile, and suggested they begin the examination without further ado. His explanation could, if it was still required, be given later, he said.
Kramer, feeling acutely aware that the bluff held more than either he or Myburgh imagined, managed to contain his curiosity. He gave his attention instead to the equally placid, equally inscrutable features of the late Mr. Erasmus, and thought it a shame that he hadn’t been strangled a nice deep purple. Hanging, with its kindly attitude to the complexion, wouldn’t have been his choice at all. Two other things struckhim, one snide and one ironical, which also helped to provide temporary distractions. The first was that Erasmus had an appendix scar exactly like the little white line on the Widow Fourie’s sweet, peach-fluff belly, and finding it here smattered of very poor taste on the thief’s part. And then there was the wince Kramer gave when the body, into which he’d dreamed of
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