Page 70 of Dead Serious Case 4 Professor Prometheus Plume

With care, I run my gloved fingers over the back of his head, feeling his scalp and checking for any additional wounds that might suggest he’d been struck or knocked out first.

“Anything?” Danny asks.

I block out the rest of the chatter in the room and focus on him. “No.” I shake my head. “Obviously, he’ll need a thorough post-mortem, but my initial conclusion is that there are no other contributing injuries and he most likely died from massive blood loss resulting from a severed carotid artery.”

“Are you qualified to do that?” Mr Greyson raises his voice in challenge.

“Yes,” I say flatly.

“Shouldn’t we get a second opinion?” the other man adds with a frown.

“You want a second opinion?” Martha blinks, then adds, “He’s dead.”

Undeterred, Greyson carries on. “Where’s that doctor? What’s his name? Walsh?”

“Did someone call for a doctor?” Dr Walsh enters the room with Ellis not too far behind him. He stops dead, hugging a heavy crystal decanter of amber-coloured liquor to his chest and clutching a half-full glass in his free hand. “Blimey,” he slurs. “You lot take this very seriously, don’t you?” Then his eyes narrow on the corpse and he sways slightly. “Is he alright?”

“This is who you wanted for a second opinion?” I can’t resist saying to Mr Greyson as Dr Walsh collapses into the chair nearest the desk and drains his glass.

“Ellis?” Danny calls out. “Did you call the police?”

Ellis winds his way through the crowd of guests and actors but remains a safe distance from the body. “I managed to get through to them on the landline, but the snow’s been coming down heavy since this morning. All the lanes are blocked and it’s dark out. Most of the narrow roads that lead in here aren’t lit. So, we’re pretty much snowed in. They can’t get to us. They said they’d wait until first light and if the snows let up in the night, they’ll try and clear a path to us. If not, they’ll have to hike through the woodland and over the fields to get to us. Either way, we’re on our own until sunrise at the earliest.”

“Okay.” Danny nods.

“I told them you were here though,” Ellis adds helpfully.

“We’ll need to secure as much of the crime scene as possible.” Danny picks up the transparent bags and hands them to me.

“Wait a minute,” the actor in the military uniform pipes up from the back. “Who are you and why are you in charge?”

“Oh no, it’s alright, Major Dick.” Ellis manages a smile although I can tell it lacks his usual enthusiasm. “This is Detective Inspector Danny Hayes with Scotland Yard, and his partner, Tristan, is a forensic pathologist.”

“How many times, young man?” He sighs. “It’s Richard, not Dick.”

“Be that as it may,” Mr Greyson interjects, “how do we know you aren’t the killer and you’re not destroying evidence?”

“Because Tristan and I were the last to leave the dining room and by the time we left, Ellis, Essie and Martha, Mr Pennington, and the Nakatomis were all in the lobby. That pretty much excludes both Tristan and me from the suspect pool.”

“That’s all true,” Martha pipes up.

“I think you can probably exclude Dilys from the suspect pool too,” I say as I examine each of Professor Plume’s hands and bag one hand to preserve any trace evidence on his skin or under his nails.

“Why?” Mr Pennington says. “Not that I particularly believe she did it, but still.”

“You can’t eliminate her completely at this point,” I acknowledge and bag the other hand. “But it’s extremely unlikely. I can’t speak to motive, that’s Danny’s area. But from a physical standpoint, she’s frail and tiny, maybe four and a half feet tall? Professor Plume is over six feet. He has no defensive wounds on his hands, and there’s no way she could have overpowered him. Like I say, it’s not a hundred percent, but something to bear in mind.”

I look over at the ghost of Professor Plume, who still seems to be in shock and not saying anything. I need to get him alone and see if he can tell me anything about his killer, but I’m not sure how to extricate myself from the guests.

“Ellis.” Danny looks through the assembled crowd. “Looks like we’ve got all the guests in here and all the actors, plus you and Rosie. Who else is in the house?”

“Me,” a deep voice speaks and we all look up to watch a large man walk into the room.

He’s huge and I don’t just mean tall. He’s really burly, built like an ex-marine or a bouncer.

“Who are you?” Mr Greyson demands.

“I’m John,” he states with aplomb. “The maid.”