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Authors: Robin Adair
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and bone from it pressed in on the dura mater—the tough, fibrous membrane outermost of the three coverings to the brain and the spinal cord. To continue, the skull was fractured and the comminuted—very well, pulverized—portion of bone forced into its cavity, at least a quarter of an inch within the internal surface of the frontal bone.”
Owens pointed to the front of the skull. “When the brain was examined, the anterior part of the left hemisphere, corresponding to the external injury, was covered with a thin layer of extravasated blood—that is, forced out from blood vessels to diffuse through surrounding tissue. I don’t imagine you would wish to see the specimen of fluid found there of a semi-purulent—suppurating—nature?”
The patterer shook his head. So many new thoughts were running through his brain that once again he was not paying full attention to the doctor, who was now saying, “… it is somewhat extraordinary that the ball did not do more damage.”
Dunne whispered, “What ball?”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow. “What ball? My dear sir, the printing press doubtless crushed the skull nastily, but it alone did not kill him. Oh, dear me, no. He was probably dead before that. Shot, sir, shot! Here’s the ball.”
Dunne leaned against the one vacant dissection table, his mind weighed down by this amazing new knowledge, his hand with the ammunition that Owens had casually tossed him. It weighed about an ounce but felt like a cannonball.
He heard the doctor explain that the powder burns on the left side of the face were not, of course, from musket use, but from a weapon held close to the head. The killer would have been either left-handed if shooting from behind, or right-handed if firing from in front. The only certainty: The shot came from low down.
Dunne hurriedly thanked Dr. Owens then left the hospital, hoping to catch Captain Rossi at his office. The business could not wait until tomorrow.
That was Sunday. Which meant church. And cricket, of course.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
È sempre bene
Il sospettare un poco in questo mondo.
(It is always better, in this world,
To be a little suspicious.)
—Lorenzo Da Ponte, libretto for Mozart’s Così fan tutte (1790)
S EVEN BLOCKS BACK ACROSS THE TOWN FROM THE HOSPITAL, ON George Street, magistrates’ courts and a police office now stood under an elegant dome at the southern end of an area called Market Square, which had been laid out eighteen years earlier.
Admiring the building for which he was headed, the patterer mused that, ironically but in the best traditions of the colony, this home of thieves had been designed by a criminal, a pardoned forger named Francis Greenway.
The courts had risen, but the cluster of milling people through which Nicodemus Dunne worked his way still had unfinished business in the area. When the locals had completed their day’s duties, there would be an almost carnival atmosphere in and around the markets, which stayed open until late on Wednesday and Saturday nights. As well as stalls offering fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry, there were general stalls to tempt visitors, who were also entertained by jugglers, dancers, gypsy musicians, wandering food-sellers and peddlers. And there would be, of course, pickpocketers and pimps procuring for the town’s many brothels.
Some of the crowd were already bent on having a drink or more at nearby hotels. They would “work and burst,” a wry saying that meant that after a week’s labor they would spend all their earnings on one long binge.
Others would pause to be entertained—rather than educated as the authorities intended—by the sight of wretches sentenced either to the large wooden pillory or to the stocks nearby. Dunne saw that this time the four stocks, wooden frames with holes for imprisoning ankles and wrists, were empty. Sometimes the stocks were even used as flogging restraints, when the iron triangles were too busy.
The
Owens pointed to the front of the skull. “When the brain was examined, the anterior part of the left hemisphere, corresponding to the external injury, was covered with a thin layer of extravasated blood—that is, forced out from blood vessels to diffuse through surrounding tissue. I don’t imagine you would wish to see the specimen of fluid found there of a semi-purulent—suppurating—nature?”
The patterer shook his head. So many new thoughts were running through his brain that once again he was not paying full attention to the doctor, who was now saying, “… it is somewhat extraordinary that the ball did not do more damage.”
Dunne whispered, “What ball?”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow. “What ball? My dear sir, the printing press doubtless crushed the skull nastily, but it alone did not kill him. Oh, dear me, no. He was probably dead before that. Shot, sir, shot! Here’s the ball.”
Dunne leaned against the one vacant dissection table, his mind weighed down by this amazing new knowledge, his hand with the ammunition that Owens had casually tossed him. It weighed about an ounce but felt like a cannonball.
He heard the doctor explain that the powder burns on the left side of the face were not, of course, from musket use, but from a weapon held close to the head. The killer would have been either left-handed if shooting from behind, or right-handed if firing from in front. The only certainty: The shot came from low down.
Dunne hurriedly thanked Dr. Owens then left the hospital, hoping to catch Captain Rossi at his office. The business could not wait until tomorrow.
That was Sunday. Which meant church. And cricket, of course.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
È sempre bene
Il sospettare un poco in questo mondo.
(It is always better, in this world,
To be a little suspicious.)
—Lorenzo Da Ponte, libretto for Mozart’s Così fan tutte (1790)
S EVEN BLOCKS BACK ACROSS THE TOWN FROM THE HOSPITAL, ON George Street, magistrates’ courts and a police office now stood under an elegant dome at the southern end of an area called Market Square, which had been laid out eighteen years earlier.
Admiring the building for which he was headed, the patterer mused that, ironically but in the best traditions of the colony, this home of thieves had been designed by a criminal, a pardoned forger named Francis Greenway.
The courts had risen, but the cluster of milling people through which Nicodemus Dunne worked his way still had unfinished business in the area. When the locals had completed their day’s duties, there would be an almost carnival atmosphere in and around the markets, which stayed open until late on Wednesday and Saturday nights. As well as stalls offering fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry, there were general stalls to tempt visitors, who were also entertained by jugglers, dancers, gypsy musicians, wandering food-sellers and peddlers. And there would be, of course, pickpocketers and pimps procuring for the town’s many brothels.
Some of the crowd were already bent on having a drink or more at nearby hotels. They would “work and burst,” a wry saying that meant that after a week’s labor they would spend all their earnings on one long binge.
Others would pause to be entertained—rather than educated as the authorities intended—by the sight of wretches sentenced either to the large wooden pillory or to the stocks nearby. Dunne saw that this time the four stocks, wooden frames with holes for imprisoning ankles and wrists, were empty. Sometimes the stocks were even used as flogging restraints, when the iron triangles were too busy.
The
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