Purple Death

Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old LaceCatherine Nickels tied her hair back, pulled on her scrubs and gloves and strode purposefully into the autopsy room. As chief forensic medical examiner for the town, thirty-eight year old Catherine had been called in to perform the examination of the body of the newly deceased Sam Gabriel. Her assistant, Doctor Gunther Schmidt was waiting for her. Gunther was Austrian by birth, of German parents, and had come to England ten years earlier to further his studies in forensic medicine. Tall and good looking in a Teutonic sort of way, Gunther had fallen in love with the country and its people and had been only too pleased to accept the job as Assistant Medical Examiner for Richmond when the post was offered to him. He'd been with Catherine for four years and the two of them worked together with a seamless ease that at times belied the meticulous professionalism that they applied to every case.

“Morning, Gunther”, Catherine greeted her assistant with a warmth that came from their close and at times intense professional relationship.

“Same to you,” he replied as he continued to wash down the body on the table in front of him ready for the process of autopsy to begin. “Looks like we have a small mystery on our hands today, according to the police.”

“What have I told you Gunther? There are no mysteries in forensics, simply answers that have yet to be found.”

“Of course Doctor, as you say, but this is a little out of the ordinary wouldn't you say?”

“Perhaps Gunther, perhaps,” was all Catherine would say as the two of them moved into their well-practised routine of opening up the deceased's remains. There was little or no verbal communication between the two specialists as the internal organs were swiftly removed from the chest and abdominal cavities, and the whirring of the high powered circular saw heralded the removal of the brain from its position within the skull. Within the next few hours various tests and procedures would be carried out on the various tissue samples taken by Catherine and Gunther, and if all went well they would soon be able to provide the police with the cause of death of the unfortunate Sam Gabriel.

As they left the autopsy room, the door at the end of the well lit corridor opened towards them to admit a tall dark-haired figure in a smart but slightly crumpled grey suit. Sean Connor passed through the entrance and moved briskly towards the two pathologists.

“Any word for me, Doc?” he asked Catherine.

“Sorry Inspector, not yet I'm afraid. If there was evidence of gunshot wounds or blunt force trauma I could give you a rough guess at the cause of death, but in this case he appeared to be a healthy and well-nourished man with nothing out of the ordinary to categorise in a visual scan of the organs. I've sent tissue samples and stomach contents to the lab for analysis, and we should have some preliminary answers for you by tomorrow afternoon.”

“As long as that eh, Doc?” Connor spoke with a smile on his face. He knew that Catherine Nickels was good at her job. If she could give him an answer sooner he knew that she would. Sean Connor trusted her to be meticulous. After all, a future prosecution could depend on the reliability and accuracy of her findings. He'd never try to rush the good doctor, though he might sound as if he would.

“As long as that, Inspector.” she retorted.

“I know it's not in your usual remit to do so Doc, but, if I were to tell you that your life depended upon taking a complete shot in the dark and giving me an inkling of what secret thoughts are going through your head about this one, what would you say to me? Come on, Doc, you must have a private opinion of some sort.”

“Inspector Connor,” Catherine grinned, “I do believe you're pushing me to speculate.”

“Maybe Doc, but go on, just tell me what you think it might be, please.”

“Listen Inspector Connor, as you seem to want to push me into a corner on this one, I'll tell you what went through my mind when I looked into the chest cavity of that poor young man a few minutes ago.”

“Yes Doc?”

“Well, there was no direct evidence of course, and I won't be sure until we get the test results back from the lab, but…”

“Oh, come on Doc, don't muck about.”

“OK. There was evidence of some kind of trauma in the trachea and oesophagus, as though he'd been struggling for breath, and I mean in a big way. The slight discolouration on his lips added to my feelings that we are dealing with a victim of asphyxia, and yet…”

“Are you saying he was strangled?”

“There's nothing to suggest that, I'm afraid.”

“Please Doc, you're holding back on me, I know you are.”

Catherine Nickels took a deep breath. Speculation wasn't her forte but Connor had pressed her and she had entertained a private speculative thought about the circumstances of this death as she'd looked at the victim's internal organs.

“If you were to press me, and I stress that this is just a wild shot in the dark, I'd say we're dealing with a case of poisoning of some sort.”

“Poison?” Connor was stunned.

“Like I said, we won't know until we get the results back from the lab, but I'd say we're dealing with some fast acting and highly lethal toxin, though I can't tell you how or when it was administered, not yet. Maybe the stomach contents will tell us something. There were no puncture marks on the body though, I can tell you that. Now, if you don't mind, Doctor Schmidt and I have notes to write up and other work to do.

“Yes, right, well, thanks Doc,” said Connor, turning and heading back for the door. “You'll let me know, right?”

“As soon as I know, you'll know Inspector,” she replied as she and Gunther disappeared through the door to her office.

As he climbed back into his car which he'd left parked in the tree-lined lane that ran along the back of the mortuary building, he picked up his phone, and dialled Lucy Clay's mobile number. She replied within seconds of the phone ringing.

“Any word from the widow yet Lucy?” Connor asked.

“Not yet Sir, we're still waiting. Anything on the cause of death yet?”

“Nothing definite yet Sergeant, but according to the doc, we could be looking at a good old Christie style mystery here, if she's proved right by the lab reports of course.”

“Sorry Sir, but you're talking in riddles?”

“Oh, yes, sorry Sergeant. Let's just say that in the case of Mr Sam Gabriel we could be looking at a case of good old-fashioned arsenic and old lace.”

“You've lost me now Sir,” Lucy spoke in exasperation into her phone.

“Forgive me Sergeant, I'm daydreaming of the books of my own youth. Poison, Lucy, that's what we could be looking at. Good old-fashioned poisoning, and you know what?”

“What, Sir?” was all the bemused detective sergeant could ask down the phone.

“In all my years on the force, I've never had a poisoning before. This could be something to really get our teeth into.”

With that unfortunate remark Connor brought the conversation to a close. Before Clay could respond, he shouted into the phone;

“See you back at the office,” and then broke the connection.

Sitting at her desk in the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) operations room at police headquarters, Lucy Clay looked in bewilderment at Detective Constable Harry Drew who just happened to be walking past, pointed an agitated finger at the phone to indicate whomever she'd been speaking to and shouted at Drew;

“He's gone crazy, absolutely b****y crazy.”

Constable Drew kept walking. He had nowhere to hurry to but he'd think of somewhere to get away from the demented Sergeant who sat staring at the phone in her hand, looking a little on the crazy side and muttering to herself,

“Old lace and arsenic, arsenic and old lace? What the hell does he mean by that?”

Unfortunately, Lucy Clay's education into classic Victorian style English literature was soon to escalate at an unheard of and decidedly unwanted rate.