Page 37 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Dora gingerly touched the blood– it was sticky and where it had been smeared it was turning brown.

The ‘accident’ had been hours ago. Could he have hit the edge of the nightstand?

It had a curved edge to the top– hardly a surface to create such a wound and the candlestick on it hadn’t been disturbed.

She then noticed something that had been kicked under the bed with his slippers: a single ice skate.

The metal blade was made to strap onto a boot.

What on earth was that doing out in the middle of summer?

She pulled on the trailing strap to bring it into the light.

The wickedly pointed end was bloodstained even though it had been lying beyond the reach of the spill from the head wound.

‘I think he hit his head on this,’ she said, holding it up for Moss to see. ‘Or should I say, I think it was used to hit him.’

Moss looked from the skate to the man on the ground. ‘Damn it all!’

‘Mr Moss, I don’t know exactly what you think you are investigating here but you need to talk to Dr Sandys and me. We have a killer at large and between us we hold different parts of the puzzle that might lead to identifying him.’

Noise at the front door of the cottage heralded the arrival of medical aid.

‘In here!’ called Dora.

Jacob hurried in, took a quick look around then moved to Wright’s side. ‘Moss, keep everyone out of here. There’s quite a crowd gathered outside.’

Of course there was. They couldn’t stand on the road and shout about medical aid without the neighbours emerging to see what was going on.

‘Miss Fitz-Pennington has assisted me before in an emergency. I’ll call if we need more help. Dora, see if you can get us hot water and linen for bandages.’

As Wright’s little kitchen range was cold, the quickest way to get what was needed was to send the neighbour to fetch the necessary from her cottage.

The dame seemed pleased to be part of the drama and hurried off to oblige.

Dora found spare sheets in a closet and set to ripping one up into strips.

Returning to the bedroom, she saw Jacob listening to Wright’s heart.

When he sat up, she put the tray of water, clean rags and the bandages next to him and he began bathing the wound.

‘This wasn’t an accident, Jacob. I found that ice skate under the bed. Just one.’

He took a quick look at it. ‘Lethal. And there’s blood on it. And here, these bloody marks form a star– that’s not natural spillage.’ He was right: by Wright’s hand, a six-pointed star had been daubed on the floorboards, possibly with the tip of the skate as the wood looked scratched.

‘Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Indeed it does. I’ll tell you later. There seems no injury to the spine. We can lift him to the bed. Moss! In here!’ The man hurried in. ‘You take his feet, I’ll take his shoulders, Dora, you hold his head steady– keep the pad pressed to the wound. On the count of three.’

Dora flicked back the covers so they could put him on the under sheet then did as she was bidden. She went to the other end to take off his boots.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Moss.

‘Blow to the head causing severe trauma. I suspect a skull fracture,’ said Jacob. ‘We think the weapon was the ice skate. Swung from its laces it would make a lethal kind of bolus.’

‘That’s bloody insane– pardon my language, miss.’

‘It’s damned justified in the circumstances,’ she shot back.

‘As he’s not recovered consciousness,’ continued Jacob, ‘I’m concerned that he might have a bleed on the brain. I’ve seen it in soldiers who take glancing blows to the skull or are struck by bullets or shell fragments.’

‘Can you do anything for him?’ she asked.

‘Some surgeons have had success with trepanning to drain the excess of blood between skull and brain, but that was in military hospital conditions where there were colleagues on hand to assist.’ He briskly checked Wright for other injuries as he talked.

‘I’m not willing to start boring into a patient’s skull when I don’t know if the treatment would hasten his death or do more harm.

He has the physical responses of someone in a comatose state. ’

‘Then what can we do?’ asked Moss.

‘Contact his family and they can bring in their own medical experts. If a procedure is to be undertaken, it should be their people doing it.’

‘That would take days!’ protested Dora. ‘I can tell you think something drastic might need to be done before then.’

‘Dora, he cannot give consent– and I don’t feel qualified. I mention it as something I’ve seen work, not something I’m prepared to do myself.’

‘But at Berwick…?’

‘Berwick was a battlefield and you do in those circumstances things which you wouldn’t elsewhere.’

‘Then there’s nothing that will bring him out of this?’

‘Time might prove the cure. Send a message express, Moss. I’ll arrange some of the local women to nurse him. He mustn’t be left alone.’

‘His friends might want to do him that service,’ suggested Moss.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’ said Jacob, giving him a grim look. ‘No, let’s leave him in the hands of neighbours– we can trust the good wives of Town End– and tell his friends to pray for his recovery, but from a safe distance.’

Footsteps outside brought another gentleman into the bedroom, Knotte at his shoulder.

‘Mr Scambler, this is Dr Sandys,’ said Moss. ‘Dr Sandys, the local apothecary. Knotte, let you and I leave the medical men to their work while we tell the others what has happened.’