A Spider in the Cup (Joe Sandilands Investigation) Read Free

heads bent over the wet patch as the first gleaming surfaces were revealed, showing white against the black mud. At a signal from Hermione, Joel approached and carefully slaked the area with the contents of another bucket of water. The murky flow oozed away, revealing a pale arm. After a chorus of startled gasps, a silence fell and no one thought of telling Hermione to stop as the skilful movements of her trowel laid bare the remaining limbs. Two complete arms, two well-muscled legs and a torso lightly draped in a short, classical tunic were released to the sunlight by the action of Hermione’s whipping wrist, accompanied by carefully anticipated libations of river water from Joel. The digging pair worked on in harmony until a head appeared.
    With a growl of distress, Joel put down his bucket, unable to go on.
    Tendrils of hair curled about the neck and cheeks of the sleeping features. The shell-white ears were small and perfect. The straight nose was intact.
    The delicate jaw, as the jaws of the recently dead will do, sagged open at the touch of Hermione’s exploratory fingers. Flesh still covered the bones but the image of the gaping skull belowbroke through, striking a grotesque note and arousing in the living an ancient terror.
    With years of medical practice guiding her, Hermione tugged at a limb, pressed the livid white flesh and turned the head again slightly to inspect the mouth. Her unhurried, professional gestures calmed her audience. A horrified curiosity kept them firmly in place, huddled around the corpse. Hermione’s voice was deliberately emotionless as she spoke. “Not a child. A young woman. Perhaps twenty-five or younger. No broken limbs or obvious wounds.” Her words were controlled, but encountering the glare of challenging eyes and a reproachful silence from all, she added, “Though I think we have all observed the … er … anomaly.”
    All eyes were drawn to the right foot. Heads bobbed slightly as, once again, the toes were counted. One, two, three, four.
    “Do you think, Miss Herbert, that one of the spades may have severed her big toe?” Doris whispered.
    “No. I revealed the feet with my trowel. The toe was lost at the time of death, I’d say.” She examined the foot more closely. “A clean severance but no sign that healing had begun. Perhaps we’re looking at a suicide? Perhaps she fell off a boat and drowned? She’s not been dead for long.” She peered at the neck, frowned, and then eased up the fabric of the tunic with a delicate finger to check the abdomen. Spellbound, no one thought of looking aside. “I see no sign of putrefaction. I’d calculate two days, three at the outside.” She got to her feet. “No. Let’s not deceive ourselves. This is a burial. And, we must suppose, a clandestine burial. Murder? Most likely. We ought to inform the authorities at once. Colonel, could you …?”
    “I noticed one of those police boxes up on the embankment. I can phone from there.” The colonel’s moment had come. He shot off, a man on a mission, Burberry flapping.
    “Poor, poor little creature,” Hermione murmured. “She is, you see, rather small. No more than five foot two, I’d say.”

    “And so white,” murmured Doris. “I’ve never seen a dead body before. I thought at first it must be a bird—a swan perhaps. You do see them on the river sometimes.”
    “And now this pale swan in her watery nest
    Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.”
    Jack was whispering, round-eyed with shock. “Except that we didn’t hear her swan’s song. Not starting. Finished. Two days ago, you say? God, I feel such a fool!” He threw down his steel wand, his voice thick with emotion. “Here we are—mucking about like kids with our daft little devices! When, all the time she was … she was …”
    “Nothing more we can do, I think. We’d better all stay exactly where we are and wait for the police,” Hermione said.
    “Allus supposin’ they gets ’ere fast, miss,”