well for that and if in life she had resembled in many particulars a real live woman, in death she had all the attributes of a real dead one. As the corpse of a murdered woman she was entirely convincing. Her wig was matted and secured to her head at an awful angle by the concrete. Her clothes clung to her and cement to them while her legs had evidently been contorted to the point of mutilation and her outstretched arm had, as Barney had foretold, a desperate appeal about it that was most affecting. It also made it exceedingly difficult to extricate her from the hole. The legs didn’t help, added to which the concrete had given her a substance and stature approximate to that of Eva Wilt.
‘I suppose that’s what they mean by rigor mortice.’ said Dr Board, as Dr Mayfield desperately tried to steer the conversation back to the joint Honours degree.
‘Dear Lord,’ muttered Professor Baxendale. Judy had eluded the efforts of Barney and his men and had slumped back down the hole. ‘To think what she must have suffered. Did you see that damned hand?’
Dr Mayfield had. He shuddered. Behind him Dr Board sniggered. ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,’ he said gaily. ‘At least Wilt has saved himself the cost of a gravestone. All they’ll have to do is prop her up with Here Stands Eva Wilt, Born So and So, Murdered last Saturday carved across her chest. In life monumental, in death a monument.’
‘I must say, Board,’ said Dr Mayfield, ‘I find your sense of humour singularly ill-timed.’
‘Well they’ll never be able to cremate her, that’s for certain,’ continued Dr Board. ‘And the undertaker who can fit that little lot into a coffin will be nothing short of a genius. I suppose they could always take a sledgehammer to her.’
In the corner Dr Cox fainted.
‘I think I’ll have another whisky if you don’t mind,’ said Professor Baxendale weakly. Dr Mayfield poured him a double. When he turned back to the window Judy was protruding once more from the hole. ‘The thing about embalming,’ said Dr Board, ‘is that it costs so much. Now I’m not saying that thing out there is a perfect likeness of Eva Wilt as I remember her…’
‘For heaven’s sake, do you have to go on about it?’ snarled Dr Mayfield, but Dr Board was not to be stopped. ‘Quite apart from the legs there seems to be something odd about the breasts. I know Mrs Wilt’s were large but they do seem to have inflated. Probably due to the gases. They putrefy, you know, which would account for it.’
By the time the committee went onto lunch they had lost all appetite for food and most of then were drunk.
Inspector Flint was less fortunate. He didn’t like being present at exhumations at the best of times and particularly when the corpse on whose behalf he was acting showed such a marked inclination to go back where she came from. Besides he was in two minds whether it was a corpse or not. It looked like a corpse and it certainly behaved like a corpse, albeit a very heavy one, but there was something about the knees that suggested that all was not anatomically as it should have been with whatever it was they had dug up. There was a double jointedness and a certain lack of substance where the legs stuck forwards at right angles that seemed to indicate that Mrs Wilt had lost not only her life but both kneecaps as well. It was this mangled quality that made Barney’s job so difficult and exceedingly distasteful. After the body had dropped down the hole for the fourth time Barney went down himself to assist from below.
‘If you sods drop her,’ he shouted from the depths, ‘you’ll have two dead bodies down here so hang on to that rope whatever happens. I’m going to tie it round her neck.’
