Read Online Victorian Maiden by Gary Dolman - Free Book Online

surely a good little girl. Now, at last, the world must have ended and her mama could come to fetch her to be an angel in Heaven too.
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Chapter 10

    To their disappointment and intense frustration, Dr Roberts had already had his grandfather’s body moved from its place of discovery in Elizabeth’s bedroom to a scrubbed-top table in what he called the ‘Surgery,’ a tiny room adjoining the Annexe’s scullery.
    As they entered this makeshift mortuary, Atticus kept his gaze determinedly focused on the little square, black and white tiles that made up the floor. The examination of corpses, and most particularly those that had died a violent or unnatural death, was thankfully a very rare part of their profession, but one he still left very much to his wife, who by contrast seemed to positively revel in it.
    â€œOh, upon my word,” Lucie exclaimed, pulling up a large, involuntary wave of nausea from the pit of her husband’s stomach.
    â€œWhat is it? What do you see, Lucie?” Atticus took a deep gulp of air, holding it fast in his lungs for one, two, three seconds, as pinpricks of sweat began breaking out across his brow. There was also, he noted, an ominous tightening in his gut.
    His wife glanced at him.
    â€œWell, Alfred Roberts is certainly dead, and likely has been for several hours. There is an awful lot of blood present, and most of it has dried on his skin and his nightclothes, or at least has thickened. There are many – very many – deep puncture wounds to his upper chest and neck, and still more to his face. As Dr Roberts told us, one of the blows pierced his left eye-socket and quite took out the eyeball.”
    Here, even she paused.
    â€œIt was a violent, I would say an almost frenzied, attack. I also suspect that he was suddenly overwhelmed by his assailant, because there is no sign of blood or injury to his hands or forearms. There almost certainly would have been if he had tried to defend himself.”
    â€œHe was suddenly overwhelmed?” Atticus repeated.
    â€œThat’s how it seems. There’s a heavily bloodstained knife lying next to the corpse too, one which could well be the murder weapon.”
    There was another, longer pause.
    â€œYes, the width of the blade appears at first glance to match the wound dimensions exactly. I can see fingerprints in blood on the handle too; small ones which would likely belong to a woman or a grown child. They are very clear; in fact, they are unusually clear. I can make out heavy scarring that would fit with the owner having spent their life in manual work – in a workhouse perhaps. Atticus, I will check of course, but I would wager our fees to a farthing that these are Elizabeth Wilson’s bloody fingerprints on the knife.”
    â€œLet me see it, Lucie.”
    Atticus glanced up long enough to take the knife gingerly between his forefinger and thumb.
    â€œIt’s an envelope knife; a very handsome one too. Yes, I see the fingertip prints you mentioned and I can see the scarring clearly. Let me see; there’s an inscription on it too – on the blade. It’s just about polished out but if I carefully smear just a little of the blood across it… yes, I can make out some of the words: ‘Presented to Mr Thomas Liddle,’ and: ‘Union Workhouse, Eighteen Eighty Four.’ The rest is illegible.”
    The inescapable weight of evidence crushed them into silence.
    Then Lucie said: “The case is easy then, Atticus. It was Elizabeth. So we shouldn’t be congratulating ourselves on helping to save a senile old woman from poverty at all. We should be trying to come to terms with the fact that we’ve unwittingly contributed to an old man’s murder, and maybe to our senile old woman being hanged for it too.”
    Atticus nodded gravely.
    â€œYou’re right, Lucie. Old Mr Roberts is dead and there’s no changing that.”
    He sighed helplessly. “And