Love of a Raven

Chapter 35: Twice the Murder

"What happened? Did it find something?" Galvin quickly asks while I lift him into my arms.

"He found a murder at 40 Berner Street." I reply curtly and began running to the crime. We arrived in seconds and I noticed two figures fleeing to Commercial Road.

Could they be the twins? I told them to stop killing people! I'll have to have a word with them once I'm done here with Galvin because he will want to hear from everyone in this vicinity before he goes home. With that in mind, I set him down on his feet and scan our surroundings.

The area is dark on one half while the other has light coming from a building with several men lounging around it. There was a man with a two-wheeled cart and a pony driving away from whatever is on the darker end. I look towards it and see a body lying on the ground when I smell the scent of fresh blood emanating from it. My eyes focus on the body where I notice a recently made cut on the victim's neck.

"What do you see, Garrick?" Galvin whispers to my right.

"Another woman dead, her neck slashed but nothing seems to be missing this time." I mumble to him when I pick on the sounds of footsteps rushing towards us. "We need to hide. I'm taking you up on the top of the building."

I turn towards Galvin and lift him up once again. He grabs hold of the lapels of my jacket before I leapt into the air then land on the top of the building. Setting Galvin back down, I immediately look over the edge to witness a man crouching over the cadaver. Even this high up from the man, I can hear him as clearly as though I were standing right next to him.

The first thing he describes is how the body looked with her body lying near the side, face turned to the wall, the head up the yard and the feet to the street. Her left arm was extended and in her left hand was a packet of cachous while her right arm was over the belly, but the back of the right hand and wrist was clotted with blood. The legs were drawn up with the feet close to the wall. Interestingly enough, the body and face were warm and the hand cold.

Next, he talks about her cut throat. She had a silk handkerchief round her neck, and it appeared to be slightly torn. He is certain that it was cut because it corresponded with the right angle of the jaw. The throat was deeply gashed, and there was an abrasion of the skin about one and a quarter inches in diameter, apparently stained with blood, under her right brow.

There was another man who thinks that the woman might have been pulled backwards on to the ground by her neckerchief before her throat was cut. The first man concurs that the victim was likely on the ground when she was killed by a slash left to right across the neck. A bruising on her chest also suggests that she was pinned to the ground during the attack by her assailant. Except, I don't think either of the two gentlemen is correct.

"Is that all, Garrick?" Galvin ponders as I stare down at the two doctors and beat cop. They seem to be almost done. . .

"Yes, that is all. But, I want to take a look at the body myself." I murmur and watch the three men walking away from the body.

"Why do you want to see it? We have all that we need from what you heard from the two doctors." Galvin asks while I stand upright.

"One of the doctor believes that the victim was pulled backwards to the ground and was killed after. The other thinks she was under her attacker, but neither seem likely." I answer as I lift Galvin into my arms again.

Taking one last look around, I jump over the edge and land next to the dead body. I set Galvin down then stride closer to the victim, crouching in front of her. On her neck is the neckerchief that the doctor mentioned, but it doesn't look as though someone used it to force her down on the ground. There's the gash on her neck and it's one clean cut across.