“But how would it be administered?” Joanna challenged. “The poison surely could not be placed in Levy’s drink. It would be far too difficult to accurately calibrate the dose and the time it would require to take effect. Remember, it was important to Moran that Levy’s death appear to be natural or accidental.”
My father went back to pacing as he searched for yet another answer. His silent lips appeared to be moving with his brain when he came to an abrupt halt and turned to us. “An injection! A doctor would know of poisons and how to inject them. Then there would be no doubt as to dose and the time for it to take effect.”
“Capital, Watson! Absolutely capital!” Joanna cried out. “An injection it was. And I know when, where, and how it was done.”
“Based on what?” I asked.
“The narrow strip of rubber tubing,” Joanna replied. “Come, and I will demonstrate for you.”
We followed her back into the bedroom and over to the cushioned chair where the rubber strip had been discovered by Toby Two. Joanna reached for the strip and held it up to the light. “At first I could not place it, but now I can.” She moved to my father and wrapped the rubber strip around his upper arm, then pulled it tight. “Well, Watson, what comes to mind?”
“A tourniquet!” my father burst out. “I myself used a similar tourniquet years ago, when I was in practice and drawing blood from my patients.”
“Precisely!” Joanna said. “And the good Dr. Moran used this tourniquet on Benjamin Levy’s arm to allow a vein to reveal itself so that the poison could be injected. The rubber strip must have slipped beneath the cushion where Moran could not find it.”
“Which may be yet another reason why Moran wished to keep the investigation away from the bedroom,” I conjectured. “Moran must have been greatly concerned by the loss of the tourniquet, but apparently he did not have much time to search for it after he had given the injection.”
“The clue was sitting right before my eyes,” Joanna admonished herself. “But I did not make the connection at first and should have, for I too witnessed the use of rubber tourniquets while a nurse at St. Bartholomew’s. I may have been thrown off by its use here to administer a deadly poison.”
“I wonder what poison Moran chose,” I pondered.
“Perhaps an autopsy would help in that regard,” my father suggested. “The poison might even be extracted from Levy’s tissue by an experienced pathologist, such as yourself.”
I held up a hand to dampen their enthusiasm. “With the evidence we now have, which is all circumstantial, I seriously doubt an autopsy would be permitted.”
“Why not?” my father demanded.
“Because the evidence is not strong and Levy’s Jewish faith does not allow autopsies,” I said. “They believe the body must be returned to the Maker in the same condition it was given.”
“Do they make exceptions?” Joanna asked at once.
“Rarely,” I replied. “And only when it is ordered by the court, which is not likely to occur here.”
Joanna grumbled audibly. “We have to at least examine the body.”
“That too presents a problem,” I said. “For the Jewish religion requires that the body be buried within twenty-four hours of death.”
“So he is not yet buried.”
“But he will be shortly.”
“Then we must hurry.”
“For what purpose?”
“To examine the body of Benjamin Levy before it starts out on its final journey.”
10
Greenbaum’s Funeral Home
The preparation room at Greenbaum’s Funeral Home was as quiet, I daresay, as a cemetery in winter. The air was so still a speck of dust would hang in suspension. On the table before us lay the body of Benjamin Levy, neatly wrapped in a white shroud.
We had been allowed to view the corpse only because the owner of the funeral parlor, Mr. Aaron Greenbaum, felt a deep debt to Sherlock Holmes and my father. Years earlier they had assisted Mr. Greenbaum in the mystery entitled The Missing Coffins, which remained in the files at 221b Baker Street, but had not yet been published. Mr. Greenbaum had approached Holmes to solve a riddle in which someone or a group was stealing newly purchased coffins from his funeral parlor. The police were of little help and believed the most likely candidates were other funeral homes or thieves who sold the coffins on the black market. It was neither. It was the coffin maker who had sold the coffins to Mr. Greenbaum. The thief would quickly alter them with different finishings and change of upholstery, then sell them back to Greenbaum’s Funeral Home. To Sherlock Holmes the case was so trivial he insisted my father not bring it to publication. To Mr. Greenbaum the solution saved him from bankruptcy, for which he was eternally grateful. He was now more than willing to stand by our side in case we required more from him.
As we gazed down at the shrouded corpse, my father inquired, “Why the shroud?”
“It is part of our Jewish burial ritual,” Mr. Greenbaum replied. “You will note that the shroud has no pockets. That is to signify that we brought nothing into this world and will carry nothing out.”
“As was done for Lord Jesus Christ,” I commented.
“And for the same reason.”
Joanna said, “I trust the shroud can be temporarily removed.”
“Down to the waist would be appropriate, if that would suffice,” Mr. Greenbaum proposed.
“Quite,” Joanna agreed.
Mr. Greenbaum lowered the white shroud and, while departing, said, “You must hurry for the rabbi will soon arrive to assist in the final preparation.”
He stepped over to the door and closed it silently behind him.
We quickly moved in for a closer inspection of the corpse. Benjamin Levy had been a tall, lean man, fair complected and in his middle years, with carefully trimmed hair, beard, and mustache, the latter of which was free of dried vomit. His expression seemed placid.
“What do you make of his final expression?” Joanna asked me.
“I would say with some certainty that Mr. Levy did not accidentally choke to death,” I replied.
Joanna nodded. “Had that occurred he would have been terrified in his last moments.”
I nodded back, again struck by the woman’s insight into criminal death. “Might I ask how you came to know this?”
“It was noted in the monograph I read on suicide,” Joanna explained. “If Mr. Levy had in fact choked on aspirated vomit, his face would show horror at his impending death.”
“Correct,” I said, and hurried to the corpse’s head where I opened one of its eyes and pulled down on the lower lid to expose its inner surface. “He did not strangle for I see no petechiae.”
Joanna asked, “What are petechiae?”
“They are tiny hemorrhages on the conjunctiva caused by a great increase in the pressure within the small vessels,” I elucidated. “When one is attempting to cough up an object completely blocking the airway, it markedly increases the venous pressure and this causes tiny blood vessels in the eye to burst. The absence of these petechiae is strong evidence that the cause of death was not sudden asphyxiation.”
“Your expertise in matters of pathology will be most helpful here, John,” Joanna said. “What else can you tell us?”
Carefully I looked about his face for evidence of trauma, but found none. But that was not the case when I examined his posterior neck. There was a definite bruise mark just below the left ear. “I fear Mr. Levy was struck on the cervical spine prior to his death.”
“Could it be the result of a fall?” my father suggested, viewing the bruise. “Remember, Mr. Levy did imbibe heavily and may have been unsteady on his feet.”
“That is unlikely, Father,” I answered. “The position of the mark, high up beneath the earlobe, would be difficult to reconcile with a fall backward.”
Joanna leaned in to study the finding close-up. She appeared to be taking a very long time to observe a simple bruise that had been recently inflicted. “What do you believe
caused it?” she finally asked.
“At first I thought it might have been made by a blunt weapon, such as a club,” I replied. “But such an instrument would have resulted in far greater subcutaneous bleeding than we see here.”
“What if the blow was delivered by Moran from behind?”
“It is too narrow to be caused by a clenched fist,” I said.
“But what if the hand were extended and held sideways, such as in an open-handed blow?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “That would account for it.”
“And you will observe the blow is on the left side of Levy’s neck,” Joanna noted. “This indicates that the blow was delivered by a left-handed person.”
“So?”
“Christopher Moran is left-handed.”
“He is indeed. I recall he carried his walking stick in his left hand.”
“And when he reached for his gold watch for the time, he did so with his left hand.”
My father inquired, “But why did Moran have to deliver such a blow? Mr. Levy was already quite drunk, according to witnesses.”
“Perhaps he was not so inebriated that he would hold still for a needle stick,” Joanna ventured. “But let us continue with our inspection of the corpse, for the time allotted to us is running short.”
Quickly she turned her attention to the corpse’s face. “Please note how precisely trimmed his beard, hair, and mustache were. There is not a hair out of place. And see how carefully manicured his fingernails appear,” Joanna said, and pointed to the corpse’s hands folded onto his chest. “Here was a very neat man, almost obsessively neat. Yet we are asked to believe he would wrap a vomit-doused scarf around his neck, for public display no less.”
“Moran must have placed it on him,” my father said.
“Of course he did,” Joanna went on. “It was all part of a setup to show that Benjamin Levy had thrown up his gastric contents and accidentally aspirated the foul liquid into his lungs. And I suspect Moran knew that no autopsy would be performed here, so his diagnosis of death by accidental asphyxiation would stand since there would be no further scrutiny.”
“So clever,” my father murmured.
“Indeed, but perhaps not clever enough,” Joanna said. “Let us put the icing on this cake by finding the site of injection.”
I stepped forward and was able to unbend the corpse’s arms without force since their rigor mortis was already subsiding. As Joanna and I pressed in for a better view, our arms and shoulders touched and remained together. Her closeness and warmth caused a passionate impulse to surge through every part of my body, and I lost all concentration. I could not help but steal a glance at her loveliness before suppressing the impulse and returning to the task at hand.
“Is something amiss?” Joanna asked.
“Just arranging my thoughts,” I murmured. “We should begin with the antecubital fossa.”
It was the inner surface of the elbows that we were most interested in, for that is where the veins are quite prominent and easy to inject. But the areas were clear and free of any puncture marks.
“Anything yet?” Joanna asked.
“Nothing,” I pronounced. “Both the antecubital fossa and the back of the hands are unblemished.”
“Unexpected,” Joanna said, then she too carefully examined the corpse’s arms, and came to the same conclusion.
“What now?” I asked.
“We have not excluded injection,” Joanna told us. “We simply have not yet discovered the injection site. And now we must depend on your father’s medical expertise. In your clinical experience, Watson, if you could not find an arm vein to inject, where would you go next? Let us assume it was an emergency and you had to either inject a medication or draw blood for a laboratory test. Where would the next most reliable site be?”
“To the femoral artery or vein,” my father replied at once. “It is in the groin area and easily accessible.”
Joanna shook her head. “It would be too risky there. Levy would have to be undressed and redressed, and that would be burdensome and time-consuming. And again there would always be the chance of being discovered.”
“And one would not require a tourniquet for the femoral artery,” I added.
“Then that leaves us with the next-best site, which would be the carotid artery,” my father said. “But that also would not require a tourniquet to reach.”
“Let us see.” Joanna immediately turned her attention to the corpse’s neck where she found a slender gold chain upon which rested a six-pointed star. “What does this represent?”
“It is called the Star of David,” I said. “Those of the Jewish faith wear it to remind themselves of their great king-warrior David.”
“Does it have supposed mystical powers?”
“Of that I am not sure.”
“I shall have to read on that subject,” Joanna said, and focused on the slender, linked gold chain. Quickly she reached for her magnifying glass and studied the links again. “Does the chain usually come with encrusted blood?”
“Never to my knowledge.”
Joanna used the magnifying glass to inspect the skin beneath the chain, but found nothing. Then she moved up to the edge of Levy’s short beard and carefully spread the outer whiskers apart. “Eureka! Here it is!”
My father and I took turns examining the puncture mark with Joanna’s magnifying glass. There was a small punctate lesion crusted over with clotted blood just inside the beard. It was the size of a pinhead.
“Thank goodness he was wearing his Star of David necklace,” I commented.
“Perhaps it does have mystical powers, after all,” my father mused.
“Whatever the reason, the necklace directed us to it,” Joanna said. “And the puncture site in Levy’s neck ties together the final two clues we were presented with. First, it tells us why Levy had a vomit-doused scarf around his neck at the time his body was found. It may have been placed there to convince the investigators that Levy’s death was caused by accidental asphyxiation. But I suspect Moran also put it there to prevent anyone from removing it and possibly noticing a puncture wound. After all, who would touch a vomit-laden scarf, much less remove it, except for the doctor who searched for a carotid pulse? And I can assure you the doctor did not carefully inspect Levy’s neck.”
“What was the second clue you mentioned?” I asked.
“The length of the rubber tourniquet,” Joanna answered. “At two feet, it was far too long to be used on the upper arm.”
“But it had to be that length for Moran to use it on Benjamin Levy’s neck,” I suggested.
“Exactly,” Joanna said. “But that also presents us with another unanswered question. Namely, Moran would not need a tourniquet to inject a pulsating carotid artery. So what was the purpose of the tourniquet?”
Her question was met with silence.
There was a brief knock on the door and Mr. Greenbaum stuck his head in the preparation room. “The rabbi is here,” he said urgently. “You must conclude.”
“We require a few more minutes,” Joanna requested. “Please inform the rabbi we are here representing the pathology department at St. Bartholomew’s. Since an autopsy is not permissible, we have been asked to inspect the body to ensure that no evidence of foul play is present.”
“Asked by whom? The police?”
“Say Scotland Yard and use Inspector Lestrade’s name.”
“Very well,” Greenbaum said, stepping away. “But please hurry.”
As the door closed, my father commented, “I do not believe Lestrade would appreciate your using his name and office, should he learn of it.”
“Oh, his ruffled feathers would be smoothed once we solve the case for him,” Joanna said, unconcerned, and then turned to me. “Now, John, we require your expertise in pathology here. In anatomical terms, which blood vessels would pop up or protrude if a tourniquet were tied around the neck?”
“Only the jugular vein would be visible,” I replied promptly.
>
“Could it be injected?”
“Easily,” I said. “And there would be several advantages to injecting the jugular vein rather than the carotid artery. First, the pressure in the carotid artery is very strong so a simple puncture wound could bleed excessively and leave a large ecchymosis or blood bruise on the neck’s surface, which would be obvious to even a casual observer. By contrast, the pressure in the jugular vein is quite low and, as we have seen, would not bleed at all or very little if punctured by a needle.”
“Would Moran be aware of this?” Joanna asked.
“Any physician would.”
Joanna took in the new information, and then asked, “You mentioned there were several advantages to injecting the jugular over the carotid. What is the second?”
“Time,” I said. “If one injects a poison into the carotid artery, it arrives in the brain in an instant and can cause an immediate, catastrophic event. Whereas injected into the jugular vein, the poison must travel down to the right atrium of the heart, then into the right ventricle before being propelled through the pulmonary artery into the lungs where it must circulate and be oxygenated. Only then will it be returned to the left ventricle of the heart via the pulmonary vein, and finally then will be expelled to reach all the body’s tissues where it will begin to act. Thus, injecting the poison into the jugular vein could give Moran minutes more to move Levy from the bedroom to the couch in the lounge.”
“Excellent! Very excellent, John!” Joanna said, clearly delighted. “Your expertise has proved to be invaluable. So now we have all the ends tied up, save for one.”
“Which is?”
“What poison did Moran use?”
“I hope you will permit me.” My father reached into his medical kit that he sometimes carried with him, even in retirement, and retrieved a long cardiac needle that was attached to a syringe. He palpated the space between the fourth and fifth ribs on the left side of the thorax, where he knew the left ventricle of the heart would be located, then jabbed the needle deep into the chest of Benjamin Levy. He was able to extract 10 ccs of unclotted blood. “Perhaps the answer lies here.”
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Page 11
