Read Murder for Free Online Page B

arguments deduced from the nature of Elizabeth Camp’s wounds suggest not that she was murdered for her money – for a robber would not have waited to inflict supererogatory injuries such as those the dead woman’s head exhibit – but that she was assassinated by somebody who found a revengeful satisfaction in battering her even after his first blows had killed her.
    The post-mortem examination was concluded yesterday by Mr. Thomas Bond, the eminent Westminster Hospital surgeon. When seen by a “Daily Mail” reporter yesterday, Mr. Bond said that the pestle found on the railway lines between Putney and Wandsworth was undoubtedly a weapon with which Miss Camp’s injuries could have been inflicted.
    “Miss Camp was killed by five or six blows from the pestle,” went on Mr. Bond. “The so-called stab in the forehead was not a stab at all, but the result of a blow from the pestle. I frequently notice that a blow on the forehead or on any portion of the body under which there is a good bone support gives the appearance of a stab wound. The skin is broken cleanly against the bone beneath, and always looks as if it had been cut. I have even known of an appearance as of stabbing in the cases of people who came to their death from a fall on the pavement, the bruise where the forehead struck the stone being so clean cut.” Questioned further, Mr. Bond said that the stomach of the victim showed that Miss Camp had not partaken for several hours before her death of anything more than a cup of tea and a roll. He also said that the fact of the body being warm when discovered at Waterloo meant nothing more, in the case of a stout young woman like Miss Camp, then that she had been killed within the preceding twenty-four hours. Mr. Bond said that so far as he knew no analytical examination of the pestle had yet been made.
    The coroner’s inquest will be opened this morning.

10

London. February, 1897
Dr Bond
    ‘And you’re sure she didn’t put up a fight?’ Superintendent Robinson asked, leaning against the desk. ‘She was a solid woman. Thirteen stone.’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘I know the doctor who examined the scene thinks differently, but with all due respect to him I would say she had no time to offer resistance, or indeed, to even cry out.’
    The pestle that had killed the unfortunate Miss Camp sat on the wooden desktop between us, still coated with her blood and strands of her hair.
    ‘There were four blows, perhaps six,’ I continued. ‘I imagine the attack was frenzied and took no more than a minute in total. That is a heavy weapon and the first blow – to her forehead – would have stunned her. Why would he pause, allow her to recover and fight back, and then attack again? That logic aside, the placement of the injuries on her skull would indicate a furious flurry of strikes while she remained in much the same position: with her assailant standing above her. Are you any closer to discovering who that might be?’
    The murder of Elizabeth Camp two days before on the seven-forty-two train from Hounslow to Waterloo had grabbed the attention of the population, which didn’t surprise me. She had not been sexually assaulted, and because her jewellery was still present when her body was found – one arm stickingout from under the blood-splattered carriage seat – the motive was obviously not robbery. The idea that this could happen to a respectable woman travelling alone in a railway carriage in the early evening had struck fear into the female population, especially given the fevered nature of the attack.
    ‘We’re trying to track down the sister’s husband, a fellow called Haynes, but I can’t see what motive he’d have. He and his wife have been living apart for several months at least. Miss Camp’s fiancé says she had never mentioned to him any animosity between her and her brother-in-law.’
    ‘She did burn some letters a few days ago, though,’ Sergeant Leonard, a slight but hardy young man, cut in.