Free Summon Up the Blood by R. N. Morris

to investigate them. And yet – the image seemed to be saying to him – he would find himself the object of their scrutiny.
    And somewhere in that crowd of phantoms, one man closed his hand around a cutthroat razor.
    Before he left for the evening, Quinn wrestled the telephone from Macadam one more time to make a call.
    ‘Am I speaking to Doctor Bugsby?’
    ‘You are. To whom am I speaking?’
    ‘You are speaking to Detective Inspector Quinn of the Special Crimes Department.’
    ‘Good evening to you, Inspector Quinn. How may I help you?’
    ‘You recently conducted a post-mortem examination of a body found at the London Docks in Shadwell.’
    ‘Ah, yes. The exsanguinated corpse. A very nasty business.’
    ‘May I ask you, did you make any test for opium poisoning?’
    ‘Why would I do that? It was obvious how the victim died. Massive haemorrhaging caused by a deep wound at the neck, which severed the external carotid artery.’
    ‘I was merely wondering whether the victim might have been drugged before he was bound and cut. And whether he was conscious or unconscious when he met his fate?’
    ‘It doesn’t make a difference to the cause of death.’
    ‘No. However, it may have made a difference to his sufferings. I have another reason for asking, however. We found a cigarette case, in which there were traces of opium-soaked tobacco. I wonder whether it is possible to tell if the victim may have smoked opium-soaked cigarettes.’
    ‘Impossible to say. All I can say for certain is that I saw no obvious signs of opium poisoning. However, given the extraordinary state of the cadaver, that is perhaps not surprising. And anyhow, the post-mortem changes in cases of opium poisoning are not marked. We might look for some turgidity in the cerebral vessels. But in this case, the almost entire lack of blood in any vessel would have confounded any such observation. Occasionally we see some subarachnoid effusion of serum at the base of the brain or around the spinal cord. There was none. You should know that there is no direct chemical test for the presence of opium and the only indirect test we have is highly unreliable. Certainly, the amount of the drug absorbed from smoking a cigarette would be too small to be conclusively detectable. Neither would it have been enough to render the victim unconscious, though it may have altered his perception of the experience.’
    ‘I see. Thank you, Doctor.’
    ‘Was there anything else, Inspector?’
    ‘When I examined the body, I was struck by the depth of the indentations left by the rope.’
    ‘Yes. He was tightly bound.’
    ‘I wondered if you recovered any material from those wounds.’
    ‘Material?’
    ‘Fibres, for example, such as might help us to identify the type of rope used to bind the victim.’
    The line crackled emptily. Either the doctor’s answer had been swallowed up by the interference, or he had said nothing.
    ‘Doctor?’
    ‘That would be useful to you, would it?’
    ‘It may prove to be. One cannot be sure.’
    ‘Very well, I shall go back and look again at those wounds. I confess that the focus of my previous examination was on the numerous atypical features that the corpse exhibited. Perhaps I allowed myself to be distracted by them.’
    ‘If you discover anything, please be so kind as to send it to the forensics laboratory here at New Scotland Yard.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Doctor, have you ever seen a case like this before? I mean, the blood. The draining of the blood.’
    ‘No. I have not.’
    ‘Do you have any expertise in criminal psychology, doctor?’
    ‘I know enough to say that you are dealing with a madman.’
    ‘My feeling, Doctor, is that one victim will not be enough for him.’
    ‘That is my feeling too, Inspector.’ There was another long crackle of static. At the end of it, Quinn heard: ‘. . . luck, Inspector.’ The line went dead.

A Domestic Interlude
    S ilas Quinn lived in a four-storey lodging house just off the