'So what would make this one become a beggar?'
The doctor eyed him pityingly. 'Many things, Inspector. Family scandal, for a start. Bankruptcy. A faithless lover - or a straying husband -'
'I suspect this lady, whatever her station in life, was unmarried.'
'Indeed?'
'Observe the third finger of her left hand. Married women tend to bear marks of a thick wedding ring, the skin it covers is paler due to lack of exposure.'
'Of course, you are probably right.' Cranley smiled thinly. It was a matter of constant irritation to him that Inspector Faro usually was right. 'We will no doubt find that out when her identity is established. Incidentally, she is not virgo intacta, but she has never borne a child. That we do know.'
In the days that followed, Faro went about his routine work at the Central Office praying that there would be no major crisis while Superintendent Mcintosh was away attending a family funeral in Caithness. Sergeant Danny McQuinn, who Faro had learned to rely on, was also absent, seconded to Aberdeen on a murder enquiry.
Rifling through the new reports each day, he noted with relief that the Queen was safely tucked away in Balmoral Castle, absorbed by visitors for the last of the autumn shoot.
There had been a flurry of anxiety when unconfirmed rumour hinted that she might be contemplating a brief private visit to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Even such unpublicised royal one-day visits were calculated to give Edinburgh City Police nightmares, light security measures and extra police duties were only a small part of the expenses involved in the protection of a monarch whose popularity had steadily declined during her long widowhood.
Faro sighed. He hoped Her Majesty would change her mind. She frequently did.
As for the newspapers, they had been having a field day. With no sensational crimes for some time, they were quite overjoyed at any item to raise their sales.
'Body found in Wizard's House. A Third Tragedy. Is Major Weir's ancient curse still active? Does his evil spirit still malevolently guard his ancient abode of magic, seeking to avert the threat which hangs over the future of the historic West Bow?'
For some time, the Edinburgh Improvement Commission had been urging that the West Bow be demolished to make room for more salubrious modern dwellings.
'Especially,' they argued, 'as the evil reputation of Major Weir's house has caused it to remain empty for the most part of two hundred years, and has made even the poorest families shrink from sheltering under its roof.'
However, even when fears of witchcraft and black magic began to disperse in the more benevolent wake of the Age of Reason, and Major Weir's house was regarded with less terror by neighbours, all attempts at finding a tenant with strong enough nerves to inhabit it failed miserably.
Some fifty years earlier, in the 1820s, William Patullo, an old soldier of reprobate and drunken habits, moved in with his wife. They moved out again the next day after a terrifying ordeal in which it seemed that all the powers of hell had been loosed upon them. As they spread the story of their discomfort far and wide, the shades of superstitious terror closed in once more.
In more recent years, the house had served as a gunsmith's shop. The business had failed for not even a shopkeeper could stay for long.
Undeniably, two deaths and an accident had followed the Improvement Commission's decision, but they could hardly be classed as tragedies. The first death could not have come as a surprise. The demolition contractor was a man in his eighties, who breathed his last in his own bed, surrounded by his devoted and weeping family.
Even Detective Inspector Faro would have been hard-pressed to find anything remotely suspicious in such a peaceful end. Especially after a talk with the family physician, a golfing friend of Vince's who had expected his long-ailing patient to expire several years earlier. The funeral over, the eldest son, who had inherited the business, fell on the turnpike stair and broke his leg.
An unfortunate accident but hardly classifiable as 'a second tragedy'. Another death, however - the unidentified corpse of a beggar-woman - breathed new life into the old terrors and superstitions.
The press, hungry for sensational news items, were not unhappy at this resurrection. ('What fearful sight had stopped her heart and brought about this untimely end?') As they dusted down and reprinted once again details of Major Weir's infamous life, Edinburgh citizens shuddered and took to the other side of the road to avoid the menacing shadow cast by the newspaper-designated 'house of death'.
When Faro was handed the Procurator-fiscal's report with the Police Surgeon's usual request for an 'unidentified and unclaimed' corpse, his questions were once again greeted with a certain lack of enthusiasm.
'I can find no evidence of anything other than heart failure,' Dr Cranley told him.
'You are quite satisfied with the post-mortem?'
'If I wasn't, Inspector, then I would hardly be making this request. I regret having to disappoint you,' Dr Cranley added heavily.
'I think "disappoint" is an inappropriate word, doctor.'
Dr Cranley sniffed. 'Come now, Inspector. I realise with few murders on hand at the moment you must regard it as your duty to be on the look-out for anything remotely suspicious -'
'Let me assure you, sir,' Faro interrupted, 'murders are a commodity I could well do without. I don't invent them for my own amusement.'
Cranley smilingly dismissed Faro's protest and indicated the document on his desk. 'Then perhaps you would be so good as to sign the paper, Inspector, so that no more time might be lost.'
As Faro hesitated, Dr Cranley continued, 'I must urge you to be brisk about it. You surely realise more than most the value of this still-fresh corpse for my students. It is rare indeed that we get the chance of such an excellent unmarked specimen. One,
