Instead, she had taken a notepad from her carry bag along with a pen and was making notes of Mr. Brimley’s observations the same as myself.
“There are other bruises and scrapes around the shoulders and arms that are to be expected as well from the fall you described,” Mr. Brimley commented, then asked, “What else might you be looking for, Mr. Brodie?”
“Another wound perhaps.”
Mr. Brimley rounded the table and then adjusted his glasses as he leaned in for a closer inspection.
“There is a mark here on the other shoulder and then lower across thepectoralis major.” He looked up. “That would be thechest muscle, you see here,” he pointed with a metal instrument that he’d taken from his bag.
“It’s faint, but it’s there, the skin has been broken as if the victim might have encountered something sharp. You did say there was a struggle.”
He pointed to a mark on the shoulder that seemed to align perfectly with the mark on the young man’s left chest muscle.
“It would seem that his attacker might have had a knife.”
I had moved closer and added a diagram that I knew Brodie would want, illustrating the faint marks that did seem to faintly resemble a cross mark.
It was quite superficial and had not cut deeply. Yet, that might account for the blood Brodie had seen on the balustrade on the landing at Marlborough House.
Mr. Brimley continued his examination of the body for any other marks or wounds. It was no surprise that there were a good number of bruises.
“Blood will continue to make those marks under the skin for a short while even after death. That accounts for the bruising that you see,” Mr. Brimley continued to explain.
“Unfortunate. So very young, just beginning his life.”
“Is there anything else, you can tell us?” Brodie inquired.
“Everything I see is consistent with the fall you described.”
“And the cut to the skin on the chest and shoulder?”
“Obviously a fresh mark, perhaps made if the young man fell against something in the course of the fall.”
“Aye,” Brodie replied with a thoughtful expression.
We had been there more than an hour by the clock at the wall and Mr. Bascomb had returned.
“Will that be all? May I inform Sir Huntingdon that the matter is concluded?”
“Of course,” Brodie replied, and thanked him.
“The poor man was so young,” Lily commented after we found a driver and parted ways with Mr. Brimley. “Who would want to harm him?”
That was precisely what we needed to learn.
“What was meant by that note?” Lily then asked. “‘Now there are two?’Two dead? Or that there will be two more murders?”
Eleven
Clever girl.I had thought the same about that note. It was a chilling prospect and made it all the more important that we find who was responsible.
But who? What was the motive?
I stood back from the chalkboard as I tried to make some sense of what we had learned.
We had returned to Mayfair the previous evening after our visit to the mortuary at St. James’s. Lily had stayed over, and we had compared notes that we had each taken.
We had then taken supper, and she had retired for the evening, while Brodie and I discussed what we had learned that day.
