Page 32 of Murder at the Seven Dials
The night watchman gave a wave of his hand. “The one what showed up with you, Runner.”
Thornton rubbed his chin, attempting to hide his smirk. Hugh only shook his head. Sir had decided to fetch Hugh instead. The question was, how close had Sir been to Jewell House to hear of the murder so quickly? If the boy regularly prowled the area, he might have seen something himself.
Hugh stood next to give his statement, his rendition of events basic and brief. There was no doubt among those present that the woman had been murdered, or that the prime suspect was the Duke of Fournier. However, Lord Thornton signaled Dr. Oppler and stood just as Hugh was finishing up.
“Yes, my lord?”
“A question for the witness,” Thornton replied. Hugh braced himself; Thornton still looked moderately peeved to be sitting in on the inquest. Who knew what he was about to ask?
“You say you found the victim dressed and positioned as though the crime was committed while…in flagrante delicto,” Thornton said.
“That’s correct,” Hugh replied.
“Dr. Oppler, during your inspection of the corpse, did you confirm such activity took place?”
The doctor parted his lips, and as though mildly stunned by the question, took a moment to reply. “I did not think it necessary to conduct such an examination, my lord, considering the circumstances surrounding her discovery and…clear goings-on. Nor did I believe that her private relations before her death played any influence on her ultimate demise.”
She had been found in a duke’s bed, barely dressed. A woman of her ilk—an opera singer and member of the demimonde—was expected to carry out such assignations. Hugh found he agreed with the doctor in that whether she had been taking part in any sexual intercourse before her death did not matter.
However, if Thornton had bothered to ask the question rather than simply sit sulking, there was a good reason.
“Officer Marsden, was the duke found in the same telling manner?” Thornton asked.
Hugh frowned. Fournier had been fully dressed, and while rumpled and blood-soaked, he had not looked as though he’d been doing any sort of bedding. Then again, a man could very well remain clothed while being entertained by an unclothed woman. “No. He was found dressed and covered in her blood, which I thought more pressing at the time.”
“It isn’t your methods I question, Officer Marsden, but the decision of the coroner to not fully examine the body. With all due respect, Dr. Oppler, if she were a willing participant in some tryst, or if she were coerced, the signs would show not only upon her body, but the suspect’s as well.”
Damn it.Hugh wanted to cuff his friend across the jaw, and then clap him on his back. Several shallow slices to her forearms and hands had been catalogued, which indicated that she had tried to fight off her murderer. He’d noted her broken fingernails himself that night at Jewell House. His chest constricted, and he closed his eyes against the sensation of the seat falling out from underneath him.
Fournier’s body had been blood-covered, but there hadn’t been any visible gouges to his face, neck, or arms.
As Dr. Oppler defended his decision, Hugh had the intense desire to pummel something. Self-loathing ran like hellfire down his spine, and the roar of blood in his ears dimmed the tart back-and-forth between Thornton and the coroner. He’d been so blinded by the fact that Fournier, a peer of the realm, had been found, incomprehensible, with the body and the murder weapon that he’d failed to make the connection regarding the self-defense wounds.
How the bloody hell had he botched so fundamental an observation?
He could practically see the duchess’s smug grin already. Her involvement, her risky behavior and stubborn undertaking, had claimed the bulk of his time and attention. He’d been so wrapped up in defending his arrest of the duke, and to proving that her efforts were a silly waste of time, that he’d foundered in his own inquiry.
“Dr. Oppler, may I approach the corpse?” Hugh asked.
With a pointed sigh, the doctor nodded. Though Hugh had dealt with bodies over the last several years, he never quite grew used to handling them. He flipped up a side of the sheet, careful to keep Miss Lovejoy’s naked form underneath covered, and reached for her hand. The skin was unyielding and cold, the muscles and joints stiff.
The bruised cast to her nail beds matched her lips and eyelids. Hugh ran his thumb over the short, bluntly trimmed pointer finger.
“You groomed her nails,” Hugh stated. Dr. Oppler cleared his throat.
“I did. Her family is arriving on the morrow to claim the body for burial.”
Her body had been washed, her wounds sewn, her nails trimmed. A quick look at her long dark hair revealed someone had washed the gore from the locks and combed the tangles out. There was still a crescent of black grime under her nails, though it could have been dried blood.
“They were longer when I found her; torn and ragged from defending herself against her attacker,” Hugh admitted. Humiliation seared like a hot iron against his back where he felt Sir Gabriel’s eyes boring into him.
“Does the duke have wounds to match?” Thornton asked.
Hugh pulled the sheet back down. “None that I have seen.”
He would not have overlooked such scratches during the duke’s questioning in the hours after the arrest.
“Perhaps we should move on to Mr. Bernadetto,” Dr. Oppler said after Hugh had taken his seat again. He crossed a glance with Thornton, his friend’s expression one of apologetic self-satisfaction.
