“Not at all, Sergeant.” She put the report down. “Will you sit?”
He shook his head. “I’m behind my time after coming from your place in Finsbury Circus. The inspector sends his compliments, and can you come at once?”
“Where?”
“To Kensington and the gardens with the maze.”
“Again? Now, look here.” Julia pushed back her chair. “If the inspector is using Miss Allingham a second time to—”
“A parkkeeper found Margot Miller dead in the shrubbery. Someone slashed her throat.”
* * *
The curious had lined up four deep at the Queen’s Gate entrance to the horticultural gardens, kept back by a cordon of constables.
“Stand aside, now,” Sergeant O’Malley said. “Make way for the doctor.” He signaled a pair of coppers to clear a path for Julia.
“Doctor?” Someone laughed. “Makes a change, doesn’t it, mate?”
Julia edged through the crowd, murmuring, “Excuse me.”
Inside the gardens, Inspector Tennant and a police sergeant holding his helmet stood at the entrance to the maze.
“Doctor Lewis, this is Sergeant Armstrong from Kensington Police Station.”
“Sergeant.” She nodded to the pale, sandy-haired officer.
“Margot Miller’s body is just inside the maze,” Tennant said.
Armstrong and the inspector followed Julia into the green corridor. Margot’s body lay ten feet inside the hedges. She was crumpled on her left side, her face in profile, with one arm extended above her head. Her bonnet had come off, spilling auburn hair into a pool of blood. A wound, dark with congealed gore, had sliced into the side of her neck. Margot’s facial muscles had frozen into the stiff grimace of death; little of the beautiful woman Julia had glimpsed was visible.
The doctor removed a black, vulcanized glove from her bag and pulled it on, covering the sleeve of her coat to just below the elbow. She knelt, raised the bottom of the victim’s skirts, and felt her calf muscles.
“Rigor mortis is just easing off.”
“Time of death?” Tennant said.
“In this cold weather, it’s difficult to pinpoint, but eighteen hours. Possibly longer.”
“So, yesterday, late in the afternoon. Roughly?” Sergeant Armstrong asked.
She nodded. “I’ll know more when I complete my examination.”
Gently, Julia pushed Margot’s hair away to get a better look at the wound. Then her eyes dropped to the victim’s waist. She rested her hand on Margot’s mounded stomach and winced.
“I think she was with child.” Julia sat back on her heels and stripped off her rubber glove. “Many months into her pregnancy, I’d guess.”
“That’s consistent with our information.” Tennant slipped his hand under her elbow to help her rise.
“A possible motive,” Armstrong said. “A married lover, maybe?” He waved to a pair of constables to bring the stretcher forward.
Julia and Tennant stood aside to allow the policemen through. The officers shifted the remains of Margot Miller to the pallet, covered her body, and carried her out.
Julia asked Tennant, “Where are they taking her?”
“Kensington Police Station.”
“Will I conduct the postmortem there?”
