“What do you mean, Miss?”
“Was she struggling, or twitching in any way?”
Lily’s eyes grew wide at the thought of possible further horrors, but she said firmly, “No, Miss. Her body was perfectly still, and she just looked as though she was asleep… swinging up there, like a rag doll.”
“And you saw no signs of a struggle in the apartment? No chairs turned over or tables upset?”
“No, Miss.”
“What about signs of a burglary? Any drawers opened? Anything missing?”
Lily thought for a moment. “I can’t say as I noticed, Miss. But everything seemed fine to me, when I walked in through the front door. I took my coat off and I was going to hang it on the coat stand by the door when I heard the creaking. Everything seemed normal.”
Victoria nodded. Then Lily added, “But I think… I’m not sure… because I was so shocked by what was in the bedroom…I think that a couple of cupboards were open.” Her eyes grew wide again as another thought occurred to her. “Do you think a burglar did this to her?”
“I doubt it.” Victoria was quick to reassure her. “Miss Treborne probably left the cupboards open herself. She was probably looking for something.” Victoria then thought to ask, “Lily… why did you ring the Duchess? How did you have her number?”
“The Duke gave it to me. Some time ago.”
“The Duke?” Victoria was confused. She thought that Peter had reported that the Duke was dead.
“Miss Adeline’s brother,” Lily explained. “He used to visit now and then. I don’t think he really gets on with his sister. I think he disapproves of her. One day, about a year ago, he said to me, ‘Lily, if anything happens to my sister – anything untoward – you must ring her mother immediately.’ I think he knew that the war was about to start, and he was going to be away.”
“What did he mean ‘untoward’?” Victoria was astonished.
Lily became confidential. “I shouldn’t really say anything, Miss, but as Miss Adeline is gone… well… she lived a right rackety life, you know.”
“Go on.”
“Well, she spent a lot of money on clothes, booze and… well… drugs. She was always a bit addled – no matter what time of day. I think she used to get a special supply of drugs. There were rumours that someone used to come, late at night, with packages.”
“Did anyone ever see these deliveries?”
“Mr Jenkins said he saw a man slip out of the back stairs door to the second floor one night, when he was late doing his rounds, but the man pulled his hat down over his face, so Mr Jenkins couldn’t see him.” Lily thought for a moment and then said, “I think Miss Adeline was quite lonely. She hardly ever went anywhere, except to shop for clothes, and she had very few visitors. I don’t think the Duke would have come at all but for the fact he was stationed over the road before the war, at the Duke of York’s Headquarters, and it was easy for him. He’s on leave at the moment, and he came twice this week. On Monday, and the night she died. He arrived about six o’clock. Miss Adeline had asked me to stay a bit later and prepare a supper for them. Just cold cuts and potatoes, which I left covered over in the kitchen. So, I left about ten minutes after the Duke arrived. Apart from that, I never saw anyone visiting.”
“But Miss Treborne must have gone out to a great many society functions,” Victoria observed. “After all, it was her job to write about them.”
Lily shook her head. “I never heard her say that she was going out to a function. I suppose she could have gone out to parties in the evening, when I wasn’t here, but she would have told me. She used to tell me everything… her opinions about everything… used to drive me mad. I didn’t listen half the time. I was just trying to get on with my work and she would follow me around telling me things. Like I said, I think she was lonely.”
Victoria was puzzled. “So, all she ever went out for was shopping? You are positive about that?”
“Yes, Miss. She would say to me, ‘Lily, I’m going out,’ and off she would go. Then she’d come back a couple of hours later with some expensive item of clothing, a handbag, or some shoes.”
“Well, thank you, Lily, you’ve been most helpful. Now you must get some more rest before you go home. Can you write down your address for me, in case the police want to interview you later?”
She furnished Lily with a pencil and a notebook and watched the girl write her details down.
Most curious, Victoria thought to herself. Whoever heard of a society columnist who never actually went to any of the events she wrote about?
***
When Tollman and Billy arrived back in the downstairs kitchen, without Jenkins, who had gone off, grumbling, to start the inventory of back door keys, Mrs Bailey and Beech were deep in discussion about sport.
“My husband’s aggrieved cos there ain’t going to be no more cricket – anywhere. I mean, Lord’s Cricket Ground is a military depot now, Trent Bridge is a hospital, Headingley too…”
“There’ll still be some club cricket though,” Beech interjected.
Mrs Bailey was dismissive. “If they can get the men… anyway, that won’t satisfy Mr Bailey. He lives for his top-notch cricket, does Mr Bailey. Whereas I am partial to a bit of horse racing – and that’s disappearing as well! I knew it would be the death knell when the King announced he wasn’t going to go to Ascot and then they said they were moving the Derby and the Oaks to Newmarket! I mean, what’s the use of that! I could put me best hat on and go down to Epsom for the day and enjoy the races. I ain’t going to go all the way up to Newmarket! Most of the racecourses have been taken over by the Ministry of Munitions now and made into training camps and all sorts.”
“Well, Mrs Bailey, if you like the gee-gees, you must have had some good conversations with Major Sutcliffe then,” said Tollman casually, pitching into the conversation.
“Who says I did?” Mrs Bailey seemed amused at the thought.
“Well, no one, but Mr Jenkins said that the Major is obsessed with horses and I would have thought he might have struck up a chat or two.”
“Gaarn! Major Sutcliffe don’t know nothing about horses!”
“Oh?” Tollman raised an eyebrow.
“Nah!” Mrs Bailey’s scorn was mounting. “I was brought up around horses. My dad was a saddler in the big stables up at Camden Lock. Thousands of horses passed through there every week, when London was mainly horse-drawn transport. I spent my childhood helping my dad out and there ain’t nothing I don’t know about horses. Nothing. I said to the Major once, being friendly like, ‘So what kind of polo pony have you got then, Major? Is it a Manipuri or maybe an Arabian, only I hear they’re the best?’ So, he looked at me like I’ve slapped him in the face and says, ‘It’s none of your business, my good woman!’ and huffs off. Well, I said to myself, he don’t know nothing about polo ponies. He’s avoided me ever since.”
Tollman began to scribble furiously in his notebook, his face set in what Billy called ‘Mr Tollman’s dog with a bone look’.
Mrs Bailey uncharacteristically lowered her voice and leaned forward. All three men, without thinking, leaned forward as well. “And I’ll tell you something else…” she said in a loud whisper, “I would lay odds that the Major has never served in the military in his life, either.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What You Can Learn From a Dead Body, Eh?”
The three women stood and stared at the body of Adeline Treborne. After Sissy’s firm announcement that she did not die from hanging, Caroline was unsure as to where to begin. Mabel ventured a suggestion.
“I think I should photograph the body before we move it.”
“Good idea,” said Caroline. Then she seemed to awaken from her agony of indecision and said, “I must close that window!” As she moved over to do so, she asked, “Sissy, tell me why you made that statement, please?”
“Well
,” Sissy began, gaining confidence through being the most experienced in matters of death. “The two bodies I dealt with had terrible facial distortions – swollen, like. The faces were red, the eyes bloodshot and bulging and, in one of the cases, the tongue was swollen and blue, sticking out of the mouth. Also, the second case I saw, the lady had been hanging up for the best part of a day and her neck was stretched and her head was pushed to one side. You couldn’t straighten it. Also, she had blood coming out of her ears and nose and the corner of her mouth. There’s also the matter of the bladder and bowels…”
“Yes!” said Caroline and Mabel in unison and all three women looked at the floor directly beneath where the body had been hanging. There was nothing. No staining. But there was a smell of evacuated bowels in the air and Caroline suddenly said, “Sissy, help me roll the body on to one side.”
“Oh, she’s started rigor mortis, Doctor,” noted Sissy, as she rolled the body of Adeline Treborne towards her and realised that the neck and shoulders were completely stiff.
“So, I notice, Sissy. But not yet in the leg muscles,” Caroline observed, prodding the thighs. “I would say that this woman has been dead about four or five hours. Ah…” she trailed off as it became apparent that the smell was coming from beneath the body. “Evacuation of the bladder and bowels means that she died in her bed, not at the end of a rope. Mabel, I think we need photographs of this. Sissy, you’d better put her back down again, while Mabel sets up her camera. Photography does not appear to be a speedy job.”
Sissy and Caroline stood to one side and Caroline began to make notes, while Mabel brought in her equipment and set everything up. “Ready,” she said eventually, and Sissy once more rolled the body to one side. Then Mabel took photographs of the floor beneath the light fitment and of the light fitment itself, with the piece of cord still attached. Then, finally, a picture of Adeline Treborne flat on her back, the corpse’s face now beginning to set into a grimace as creeping rigor mortis tightened the facial muscles.
“Right. Now, Sissy, I think we need to strip the body and start the proper examination. If you could do that for me, please, while I put my surgical gloves on.”
“Yes, Doctor. Should we keep the clothing? Only I may have to cut the straps of the nightdress.” Sissy began struggling to get the silk nightdress straps around the already rigid shoulders.
“Yes, keep the clothing for the police. There’s some waxed paper in one of the baskets to wrap the nightdress in. Mabel, could you give Sissy some scissors, please?” Caroline was now sorting out her surgical instruments.
The nightdress was duly cut and pulled off the body and Mabel said, “What’s that on her foot?” They all looked at a bulging vein on the victim’s right foot. Caroline spread the big toe and the one next to it apart and peered at it through a magnifying glass. “There is a puncture in between the toes. My guess would be that either Adeline Treborne has been injecting herself with drugs or someone has administered drugs to her in this way. I think I should take some blood.” She began preparing some syringes. “I’m going to have to cut into her femoral artery to get it, as her arms are beginning to stiffen. But, before I do that, could you just roll her over again, Sissy?”
Sissy obliged and now that the body was naked, they could see that the skin on the woman’s back and buttocks was purple. “Well, she definitely died on her back, Doctor,” pronounced Sissy.
“Yes, pronounced lividity,” Caroline agreed. “But there are also the beginnings of lividity in the lower part of her legs and in her feet.” Her lower limbs did indeed have a touch of purple about them.
“Wouldn’t that suggest that the body was moved some time after death but within the six-hour mark?” ventured Mabel.
“Can I ask what that means, ladies?” asked Sissy. “Only I like to learn new things.”
Caroline smiled at Sissy, her admiration for the older woman gaining momentum every minute. “Well, you know that lividity, the purple staining, happens when the blood pools in the part of the body that is lowest, after death?”
Sissy nodded and Caroline continued, “Well, if you change the position of a body within six hours of death, then it will change the pattern of lividity. Which means that this lady was dead for almost six hours before she was strung up. It was not enough to completely change the pattern of lividity, but it was enough to show that the body had been moved.”
“Well I never,” Sissy marvelled. “The next time I’m called out to a body I shall note anything suspicious like this, so I can tell the undertaker. They’re supposed to report anything dodgy to the police. You can’t rely on the doctors to spot it. No offence, Doctor,” she added hastily.
Caroline laughed. “None taken, Sissy. If you hadn’t been here, I should not have known what I was looking at, probably! Mabel, we need another photograph or two. Relax, Sissy, until Mabel’s ready.” Once again, they stood to one side while Caroline made more notes and Mabel’s camera was set up. Then the body was rolled to one side to show where the blood had pooled in the lowest point of her body after death.
“Can you take a photograph of the foot and then one of the lower limbs too, please, Mabel?”
Mabel frowned. “We need a standard by which to judge the lividity in the lower limbs because it may not be apparent in the photograph without a comparison.”
“Got you!” Caroline quickly took off one boot, hitched up her skirt and rolled one stocking down and off. Then she laughed and laid on the bed next to the body, with her own white limb next to the corpse’s legs, providing a perfect contrast. Sissy was filled with admiration at such bravado.
Caroline continued the examination of the corpse, making notes as she went. “No marks of any kind on the head, scalp or face. No contusions or abrasions. So, no signs of an attack.”
Mabel had spotted something, and she was approaching the corpse’s feet with a scalpel and glass jar. “There’s some white powder residue on most of the toenails. Is it all right if I collect it?”
“By all means. I’ll write it down. Have you noticed that the toenails, fingernails and lips all look blue? Sissy, would you say that was normal with a corpse?”
Sissy peered at the hands and feet and then looked at the face. “I’d say it was more unusual that the mouth is blue, Doctor. If she had hanged, those lips would be very red or dark purple due to the blood congesting in the face. But those blue lips remind me of someone who’s died of a chest complaint – you know, like pneumonia or TB.”
“Sissy, you’re a genius,” said Caroline matter-of-factly. “Exactly what I was thinking. If this lady died from a drug overdose – a drug that depressed her breathing – then her lips would show lack of oxygen like this. What do you think, Mabel?”
“I would say that, judging from the colour of that vein in her foot and the other factors, she was injecting heroin and she gave herself way too much, which caused her to slowly asphyxiate and her heart stopped.”
“Well I never,” Sissy said. “What you can learn from a dead body, eh? But who strung her up… and why?”
“Mm. I’m afraid Miss Treborne’s body is not going to tell us that… and yet…” Caroline had another idea. “Sissy, can you try to completely lift her body off the bed? Lift her as though you were trying to make her stand up?”
“I’ll give it a try, Doctor.” Sissy went around to the side of the bed and rolled the body towards her. Then she sat up the naked corpse. “We’re lucky that she ain’t stiffened up too much yet,” she commented, then she put one arm under the body’s far armpit, which Caroline could tell was not easy as the shoulders had stiffened to a degree that the arms were clamped firmly to the torso. Then, with a great deal of shuffling of the body on the bed and a few huffs and puffs from Sissy, she managed to get the corpse upright and on its feet. Eerily, the neck muscles had stiffened and the head remained upright. Sissy appeared to be holding a shop window mannequin and the late Adeline Treborne d
id not look lifelike at all. Sissy, on the other hand, was beaming in triumph at completing her task.
“Are you strong, Sissy?” Caroline asked.
“I think I am, Doctor.”
“Then can you try to lift the body up, as high as you can? Can you try that?
Sissy took a deep breath, grasped the body firmly round the waist and lifted with all her might. She managed to get the body about three feet off the ground before she had to concede defeat and let it drop.
“Yes, as I thought,” said Caroline, furiously scribbling some more notes. Mabel and Sissy looked nonplussed. “You can put the body back on the bed now, thank you, Sissy. You’ve been a tremendous help.” Caroline turned to Mabel and explained. “This proves that even a strong woman would not have been able to lift the dead weight of Adeline Treborne and put her in a noose. It must have been a very strong man.”
“Or two people,” commented Sissy, which caused Caroline’s eyes to widen at this fresh thought and she added yet more to her notes.
“Now, we had better get started on the surgical stuff, otherwise rigor will take over and we will find it impossible. Sissy, do you want to stay for this or would you rather not?”
“I’ve never done it before, but I’m game for anything!” said Sissy brightly.
“You really are a gem.” Caroline was so impressed. “Perhaps you could help Mabel by passing her jars and bottles while she collects stuff. She may need an extra pair of hands.”
“Righto.” Sissy stationed herself behind the basket holding all the storage vessels that Mabel would need. She noted the sheaf of labels in the corner. “Do you want me to write on the labels and stick them on as well, Doctor?”
“Oh, could you? That would be a tremendous help.”
Sissy chuckled. “As long as you spell out any difficult words for me.”
“Right! Time for the first incision!” Caroline picked up a scalpel. “Where do you want me to start, Mabel?”
A Death in Chelsea Page 4