The «Canary» Murder Case / Смерть Канарейки. Книга для чтения на английском языке - стр. 15
“How do you suppose her dress became torn, doctor?” asked Vance.
“Oh, that? Can’t tell. She may have done it herself—instinctive motions of clutching for air.”
“Not likely though, what?”
“Why not? The dress was torn and the bouquet was ripped off, and the fellow who was choking her had both hands on her throat. Who else could’ve done it?”
Vance shrugged his shoulders, and began lighting a cigarette.
Heath, annoyed by his apparently inconsequential interruption, put the next question.
“Don’t those marks on the fingers mean that her rings were stripped off?”
“Possibly. They’re fresh abrasions. Also, there’s a couple of lacerations on the left wrist and slight contusions on the thenar eminence, indicating that a bracelet may have been forcibly pulled over her hand.”
“That fits O. K.,” pronounced Heath, with satisfaction. “And it looks like they snatched a pendant of some kind off her neck.”
“Probably,” indifferently agreed Doctor Doremus. “The piece of chain had cut into her flesh a little behind the right shoulder.”
“And the time?”
“Nine or ten hours ago. Say, about eleven-thirty—maybe a little before. Not after midnight, anyway.” He had been teetering restlessly on his toes. “Anything else?”
Heath pondered.
“I guess that’s all, doc,” he decided. “I’ll get the body to the mortuary right away. Let’s have the post-mortem as soon as you can.”
“You’ll get a report in the morning.” And despite his apparent eagerness to be off, Doctor Doremus stepped into the bedroom, and shook hands with Heath and Markham and Inspector Moran before he hurried out.
Heath followed him to the door, and I heard him direct the officer outside to telephone the Department of Public Welfare to send an ambulance at once for the girl’s body.
“I positively adore that official archiater of yours,” Vance said to Markham. “Such detachment! Here are you stewing most distressingly over the passing of one damsel fair and frail, and that blithe medicus[23] is worrying only over a sluggish liver brought on by early rising.”
“What has he to be upset over?” complained Markham. “The newspapers are not riding him with spurs. … And by the way, what was the point of your questions about the torn dress?”
Vance lazily inspected the tip of his cigarette.
“Consider,” he said. “The lady was evidently taken by surprise; for, had there been a struggle beforehand, she would not have been strangled from behind while sitting down. Therefore, her gown and corsage were undoubtedly intact at the time she was seized. But—despite the conclusion of your dashing Paracelsus—the damage to her toilet was not of a nature that could have been self-inflicted in her struggle for air. If she had felt the constriction of the gown across her breast, she would have snatched the bodice itself by putting her fingers inside the band. But, if you noticed, her bodice was intact; the only thing that had been torn was the deep lace flounce on the outside; and it had been torn, or rather ripped, by a strong lateral pull; whereas, in the circumstances, any wrench on her part would have been downward or outward.”
Inspector Moran was listening intently, but Heath seemed restless and impatient; apparently he regarded the torn gown as irrelevant to the simple main issue.