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The indentations of all wounds were of a triangular nature, approximating those that may be caused bythe corner of a brick. Brick dust found after combing the victim’s hair further supports this supposition.
    Florence jumped to her feet. “What nonsense is that? She was beaten about the head by a policeman with his truncheon!”
    Pike said nothing but observed Florence with his hands folded loosely on the desk, his expression unchanged. He had surgeon’s hands, Dody noticed—long, elegant fingers with neatly trimmed fingernails, not the meat cleavers one would expect of a policeman.
    Dody tugged the side of her sister’s dress until Florence dropped back to her seat. “I don’t see your signature here as a witness, Chief Inspector,” Dody said.
    “Regrettably, I was called away.”
    Florence pursed her lips. “I have a friend who saw with his own eyes Lady Catherine being beaten about the head by a policeman.”
    “That is a serious accusation, Miss McCleland. May I ask who this friend might be?”
    “The Honourable Mr. Hugo Cartwright, Lady Catherine’s nephew,” Florence said haughtily.
    Pike leaned back in his desk chair. “Ah yes, and the heir to her fortune.”
    The sisters exchanged glances.
    “You were not aware?”
    “Now you mention it, I suppose it stands to reason,” Florence replied. “He is her only living blood relative. But this is all very convenient for you, isn’t it, this autopsy result? The police are off the hook and you think you have licence to throw mud around at whomsoever you wish. You are now sayingthat Hugo took advantage of the chaos and bludgeoned his aunt to death with a brick in order to receive his inheritance.”
    “People have been murdered for less, miss, and this wouldn’t be the first murder committed under the cover of a public disturbance.”
    “I’d like to be present when you accuse Hugo of this to his face. He won’t stand for it, you know. I hope you have a good solicitor, Mr. Pike,” Florence said.
    It was hard to imagine the pathetic, grief-stricken creature Dody had bandaged in the drawing room having any such fight in him at all. Antagonising Pike with wild threats would get them nowhere. She pressed her foot into Florence’s shin.
    “If Mr. Cartwright did indeed witness events as you describe them, he did not report it,” Pike said. “That in itself is a punishable offence.”
    “Indeed he
did
report it,
Mr.
Pike.” Florence retorted, her chin raised. Dody knew that by addressing him with his civilian title, Florence wished Pike to know she considered him not worthy of his rank. “But the beastly policeman refused to take his statement or write his name down, even. Hugo tried to stop the attack on Lady Catherine but couldn’t move fast enough on account of his injured foot, which had been callously stamped upon by a charging police horse.”
    Dody detected a hastily suppressed flicker of amusement in Pike’s face. Florence must have noticed it, too, for she bristled. “Mr. Pike, you need—”
    Pike cut her off. “I have every intention of following the incident up with Mr. Cartwright, and I will personally go through the witness reports again, looking for his name.”
    Florence frowned, not reassured at all.
    “Then in the meantime, sir,” Dody said, “I would like permission to examine Lady Catherine’s body for myself.”
    Florence drew a breath and appeared surprised; this was not something they had discussed.
    “Is there something in the report that prompts you to make this request, Doctor?” Pike asked.
    “Yes, as a matter of fact, there are several things.”
    “First is the evidence of the brick dust. When a body comes to the slab straight from the ice chest, the hair is always damp. Combing it for dust would be difficult, if not impossible.”
    “But if the hair had dried?”
    “It would also be stiff with blood—how can one expect to remove brick dust from that?” As she spoke, Dody pictured a case she’d studied in