He took off his long, black, expensive overcoat and handed it to his secretary. She, in turn, passed the coat over to Frost who screwed it into a ball, dumped it on a chair and sat on it. He shook a cigarette from his packet.
‘Please don’t smoke,’ snapped Drysdale, glad to have the chance of putting this oaf in his place. Methodically he examined every inch of the body, murmuring the results of his findings to the secretary whose pen translated the great man’s words into the loops and whirls of Pitman’s shorthand.
After fifteen long minutes, ignoring Frost’s repeated and over-loud signs of impatience, he straightened up to deliver his verdict. ‘She’s been dead approximately thirty-six hours.’
‘That’s what Dr Maltby said,’ grunted Frost.
The pathologist smiled thinly. ‘Delighted to have my opinion confirmed by such an expert. The pattern of the bloodstains indicates she was standing upright when she was attacked. The killer would have come at her from behind . . .’
Frost wriggled in the chair. The overcoat buttons were biting into him. ‘He was waiting for her behind that door, doc. There’s a couple of lovely blood puddles there if you want to have a paddle.’
Drysdale allowed himself a brief look, then carried on. ‘The killer would have clamped his hand over her mouth – you can see the thumb pressure mark on the left cheek?’ He moved away to allow Frost to inspect this if he wished, but Frost declined with a flick of his hand. He didn’t need a pathologist to point out something he had noticed as soon as he entered the bedroom.
The pathologist shrugged. ‘The killer then stabbed her three times in the abdomen with a knife. The blade would be single-edged, non-flexible, about 6 inches long – and – and razor sharp.’
‘Something like a kitchen knife, doctor?’ asked Gilmore who had returned after giving instructions to the door-knocking team.
‘Could very well be,’ accepted Drysdale.
‘There was a similar attack last night . . . an old lady in Clarendon Street. He left a knife behind.’
‘Clarendon Street?’ barked Drysdale. ‘Why wasn’t I called?’
‘You can have first crack at her as soon as she dies,’ replied Frost, ‘but at the moment she’s still alive.’ He related the details.
‘If you let me examine the knife,’ said Drysdale, ‘I’ll do some tests to confirm whether it could be the same weapon used to inflict these wounds.’
Frost scribbled a reminder about the knife on his discredited car expenses. ‘I’ll get it sent over. Carry on, doc. I’m sure you and your secretary want to get back to your bed . . . er, beds.’
Not noticing Frost’s lewd wink to Gilmore, Drysdale continued. ‘The killer jerked back her head, pushed the tip of the blade into her throat just there.’ His thumb pointed to the left-hand side of the gaping wound. ‘He twisted the knife so the blade was horizontal – that’s why the wound is much wider at that point, then slashed open her throat from left to right.’
Frost yawned openly. The pathologist was making a damn meal of this. She was stabbed from behind and dumped on the bed. He’d deduced that himself within seconds. ‘Would he have got blood on his clothes?’
‘Yes. Possibly on his upper left arm, but almost certainly a considerable amount of blood from the throat would have gushed on to his right hand – the knife hand – and the sleeve of his coat or whatever he was wearing. He also stepped into the pool of blood when he carried the body across to the bed. You can see the imprints on the carpet.’
‘You mean the ones Forensic have ringed round in chalk? Yes, we did spot them, doc.’
‘How did blood get there?’ asked Gilmore, pointing to a patch of discoloration on the left-hand sleeve of the black dress. ‘That doesn’t fit in with any of the wounds.’
Annoyed that he had missed it, the pathologist studied the mark. ‘That’s where he wiped the blade clean of blood.’ He straightened up. ‘That’s all I can tell you for now, Inspector. You’ll have a full report when I have completed the post-mortem.’ He looked around the room. ‘Has anyone seen my overcoat?’
The body had been carefully placed in a cheap coffin and man-handled down the narrow staircase for transport to the mortuary. The Forensic team had departed with their spoils and Frost, alone in the empty bedroom, sat moodily dragging at a cigarette and staring down at bare floorboards. All the bedding had been stripped from