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take the view that he should cut down the
deceased immediately, and I have to say that it is my belief that he acted
correctly."
    Fitzduane
looked at the grimacing figure on the screen.   He had an impulse to wipe away the blood and mucus that so disfigured
the face.   He tried to make his voice
sound detached as he spoke.   "He
must have been dead, surely.   I checked
his pulse when I found him, and there was nothing — and just look at him."
    The
pathologist cleared his throat.   "I
must point out, Mr. Fitzduane," he said, "that given the position of
the hanging body, I doubt that you could have carried
out an adequate examination.   The absence
of a pulse alone, especially considering a normal layman's limited experience,
is by no means a sufficient determination of death."
    "Are you
saying that he could have been alive when I found him — even without a pulse
and looking like that?"
    "Yes,"
said Buckley in a matter-of-fact voice, "it's possible.   Our investigations, based upon when he was
last seen in the college, when the rain stopped and so on, plus, of course,
your own testimony, indicate that the hanging must have taken place between
half an hour and an hour of your finding him.   He could have been alive — just — in the same way that a victim of
drowning can survive a period of total immersion and can be brought around by
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."
    As Buckley
spoke, Fitzduane tried to imagine giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to that
bluish face.   He could almost feel those
distorted lips stained with spittle, mucus, and blood.   Had his revulsion killed the boy?   Had it really been so impossible to cut the
body down?"
    "For what
it's worth," said Buckley, "and this is not a scientific opinion,
merely common sense, he was almost certainly dead when you found him.   And anyway, I fail to see how you could have
cut him down single-handed, since the evidence stated, as I recall, that you
had no knife of similar item.   In
addition, there would have been the probability of further damage to the boy
when the body dropped.   Finally, if any
trace of life did remain, the brain would have been damaged beyond repair.   You would have saved a vegetable.   So do not harbor any feelings of guilt.   They are neither justified nor
constructive."
    Fitzduane
smiled faintly at Buckley.
    "No, I'm
not a mind reader," said the pathologist.   "It's just that I've been down this road many times before.   If suicides realized the trauma they inflict
on those who find their damaged remains, some might think twice."   He turned back to the business at hand.
    "Our
friend here," he said, "is a classic example of a victim of asphyxial
death resulting from suspension by a ligature.   You will note the cyanosed complexion and the petechiae — those tiny red
dots.   The petechiae are more pronounced
where the capillaries are least firmly supported.   Externally they show here as a fine shower in
the scalp, brow, and face above the level of compression.   You will observe the tongue, lifted up at the
base and made turgid and protruding.   You
will observe the prominent eyeballs.   You
will observe that the level of the tightening of the ligature — the blue nylon
rope in this case — does not circle the neck horizontally as would tend to be
the case in manual strangulation.   Instead, it is set at the thyrohyoid level in front and rises to a
suspension point just behind the ear.   The impression on the body tissues, incidentally, conforms exactly to
what you see here.   Such would not be the
case if he had been manually strangled beforehand or indeed hanged
elsewhere.   There are invariably
discrepancies.
    "Now,
hanging normally causes death in one of three possible ways:   vagal inhibition, cerebral anoxia, or
asphyxia."
    Fitzduane made
a gesture, and Buckley paused.
    "Forgive
me," said Fitzduane.   "I'm
familiar with some of these terms, but I think it would be wiser to consider me
an ignorant