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back and forth between us.
    “We’ll need to identify her,” said Luckworth, speaking to his partner.
    “That won’t be difficult,” I said.
    “No, it won’t,” Grayling said. “Based on her clothing, which is well-made of good fabric and from a seamstress, she comes from a well-to-do family. We can observe her shoes—”
    “Or Miss Stoker can tell us her name,” I said, perhaps a trifle too loudly. I looked at the young woman in question, who’d been peering into the shadows as if looking for something. Or someone.
    Grayling shot me a disgruntled look as Luckworth turned to my companion. “Well?” he said grumpily.
    “I believe this is one of the Hodgeworth sisters. Lecia or Mayellen. Of St. James Park.”
    Luckworth grumbled under his breath and wrote down the name as I took the opportunity to move toward the knife, which had heretofore been left unexamined. It still lay on the floor where the young man had dropped it at Miss Adler’s command. The blood had long dried on the blade and handle. I resisted the urge to pick it up to examine it.
    “Look at this,” I said, forgetting Grayling and I were at odds. “Do you see this?” I crouched once again and lifted Miss Hodgeworth’s wounded arm to show him the incision. “Now look at the blade.”
    Grayling knelt to get a closer look. The museum’s light glinted over his hair, highlighting occasional strands of copper and blond in the midst of dark mahogany waves. “That blade couldn’t have made this incision. The cut is too smooth, and—”
    “The blade is dull and too thick,” I interrupted. “It would have made the skin jagged.”
    “Precisely,” he murmured, still looking down at the wound. Grayling fished in another vest pocket and withdrew a gear-riddled metal object hardly larger than a pince-nez. It clinked as he settled it over one eye, fitting an ocular lens into place. Leather straps held the device over his temples and around the crown of his head; it looked like the inner workings of a clock with a pale blue glass piece through which one eye could see.
    I’d never seen an Ocular-Magnifyer of that type before; this particular device seemed not only to magnify the objects,but to measure them as well. Grayling lifted his large, elegant fingers to his temple and turned a small wheel attached to the gears. I heard soft clicking sounds as it measured the wound on Miss Hodgeworth’s wrist.
    Uncle Sherlock often complained about the lack of care taken at crime scenes by the authorities. They trampled over grounds and moved objects and, in his words, “wouldn’t notice a weapon unless it was pointed straight at them.” But even he would have found little to fault in Grayling’s handling of this crime scene, except, perhaps, for the use of such fancy gadgetry. My uncle was a medievalist when it came to such devices.
    “What’s that there?” said Luckworth as he approached, noticing his partner’s task for the first time. “Wastin’ yer time with the numbers again, Brose? Why aren’t you questioning the witnesses here? They found the girl. Witnesses and people, not mathematics, is going to solve this case—and all of the others on your desk. I’m tired, and I want to get back to m’bed.”
    Grayling stood, and his face appeared ruddier than usual. He didn’t look at me, but spoke to his partner in a stiff voice, one greenish-gray eye still magnified behind its lens. “Bertillon’s process has already proven useful in three cases—”
    “In Paris ,” Luckworth said. “Not here in London. Waste of blooming time—pardon me, Miss Holmes,” he added. “Hasn’t helped us to find Jack the Ripper, now, has it? Or the bloke who done away with the Martindale girl.”
    “I thought the Martindale girl hanged herself.” I stood abruptly. “Are you saying she was murdered too?”
    Grayling’s teeth ground together, and he shot Luckworth a glare as he yanked the magnifyer off. Then he looked at me for a moment. “There was no