Page 37 of Disturbing the Dead
“For a Victorian?”
“You guys aren’t exactly going to the gym three times a week.”
“Many men do exactly that, Mallory.”
“Yeah, for a rousing game of cricket.”
“Cricket is not played in the gymnasium.”
“You know what I mean. You’re swimming and such, not pumping iron.”
He frowns at the unfamiliar term.
“Weight lifting,” I say.
His brows shoot up. “Why would we do that? We are not sideshow strong men.”
“The point is that Sir Alastair is in really good shape, suggesting he didn’t just stand around the digs giving orders. He was in there heaving shovelfuls of earth.”
“You keep saying ‘really good’ shape, which suggests that this sort of musculature is a positive and even attractive trait.”
“Fine, he’s in strong physical condition. Better?”
I bite my lip as I see the wheels turning in Gray’s mind. Oh, I know what he’s thinking. Like I said, the guy has an ego, and he’s weighing his own “physical condition” compared to Sir Alastair’s. I could tell him he’s fine, being more active than most Victorian men, and he also has the kind of physique that naturally fills out with muscle. But I’m going to amuse myself by letting him stew on that.
“The point,” I say, “is that the smallish figure Mr. Awad saw doesn’t seem like they’d have been able to strangle a man of Sir Alastair’s size.”
He snaps out of it. “Yes, of course, and I have already solved the answer to that riddle. It’s the reason I left him partially unclothed.”
He spreads Sir Alastair’s shirt farther apart. I wince when I see the man’s stomach. An ugly bruise mars his abdomen.
“Punched in the gut.” I get a closer look at the bruising. “Looks like two bruises.”
“I am postulating a fist and then a boot.”
“The attacker hits him in the stomach. Sir Alastair doubles over. A kick to the same spot takes him down and disables him enough for the killer to get the rope around his neck. Sir Alastair is on his knees, and so the angle helps the killer get a grip and pull upward.”
“There is also a bruise on his back, suggesting the killer braced a foot against Sir Alastair’s back while tightening the rope. That would explain why the rope dug in so deep. It also means that we cannot presume a strong—or male—attacker.”
“A punch to the stomach doesn’t need to be hard if it catches someone off guard. Add in the kick and then the bracing, and a woman of average strength could do it.”
I walk down the length of the body. “Rigor mortis is still active, which aligns with time of death being sometime between midmorning and early afternoon. Midafternoon would be the latest because the killer needed time to unwrap the mummy and wrap the body, and we believe Selim saw them in the tunnel around four. I would say, though, that we’re likely looking at death in the late morning, probably before Lady Christie and the children returned, which would make it easier to pull off.”
“The children are out, the staff is busy preparing for the evening, and Sir Alastair goes into his artifact room and never comes out.”
I nod. “Which no one notices because he’s known for coming and going as he pleases.”
The door opens. McCreadie pops his head in. “Annis’s coach is here.”
“And I believe we are ready for it,” Gray says. “Come, Mallory. Our evening is finally at an end.”
I’m back at the town house and up in my room, getting ready for breakfast. I couldn’t sleep even if I tried, and also, if Gray and McCreadie are having breakfast together, I want to be there. They’ll be discussing the case, and my position is still precarious enough that I need to stay front and center in the investigation, lest they forget that I no longer have housemaid duties.
When I look in the mirror, the situation is not as dire as I feared. The dress can be salvaged. There is one bit where the lace caught and ripped, but otherwise, a sponging will do the trick. That’s the advantage to dark lace—it looks remarkably good even after being dragged through a tunnel.
The biggest mess is me, with a dirt-smeared face and a hairstyle gone haywire. I can see why no one wanted me walking through the New Town. I’d likely be arrested for solicitation. Well, not that anyone would think I’d actually be soliciting looking like this, but they’d presume I was heading back to the Old Town after a night of hard-core carousing—possibly involving mud wrestling.
I’m unpinning my hair when someone raps at my door.
