Her Saving Grace Read Free

servant girl would wear. She had pinned her hair up under a flat cap and to give her feminine figure more bulk, she added a black greatcoat to the ensemble.
    She headed out of the family home th rough the front entrance and true to her prediction, the streets were empty.

Chapter Two
    Dr Worthington’s surgery had a small painted sign out the front, so she was certain that she had the right place. She tried the door but it was locked and while she had the tools to pick it, it was time consuming so she went around to the back, where fortune favoured her with an ajar casement window. She unhooked the stay, pulled it wide and climbed through.
    The second door that she tried proved to be the one she wanted and she was almost overcome when she saw the bones on the table, the pale moonlight reflecting off the remains.
    She closed her eyes, strengthened her resolve and entered the room, closing the door behind her.
    As expected, there were oil lamps in here so she took a taper, ignited it from the dying fire and used it to light one of the lamps. Then she turned the handle which pulled the wick up, creating a larger and brighter flame.
    The bones appeared to have been boiled in baking soda already, which had removed all the flesh, but they had not yet been bleached.
    She headed for the desk and began to rifle through the papers she found there. One pile seemed to be devoted to living patients, while the other, much smaller pile, documented the doctor’s findings on the bones and what procedures he had performed on them.
    194 bones had been discovered, meaning that twelve were missing and the good doctor had listed them. Damaris felt that they were inconsequential bones, such as the phalanx bones of the hands and feet, and two carpal bones from the left wrist, which were small and unlikely to hold any clues or evidence related to the death. The doctor posited that they had been washed away by the recent flooding which had revealed the bones, and Damaris had to agree that it was a very real possibility.
    The skeleton was male and the estimated height of the victim was 5’6” to 5’11”, aged approximately 40-60. The notes said that those details would be refined once the bones were cleaned.
    The next entry detailed the skull fracture; to the temporal bone, just above the superior temporal line, had been broken with a long, straight instrument, approximately two inches in diameter.
    Worth ington then went on to detail how he had removed the remaining flesh (with baking soda) and his intention to bleach the bones further.
    Despite her unease, Damaris picked up a magnifying glass and approached the table, where the remains lay. They were roughly laid in their correct anatomical positions and bringing the lamp close, she could see more detail. She could clearly see where the skull had been fractured and she was almost overcome with grief again.
    Still, the details that she had weren’t enough to prove that it was him, so she moved onto the rest of the bones, painstakingly looking at each one. She noticed that the hyoid bone had been snapped in two and wondered how that was related to the head injury.
    As far as she could remember (and that was usually very well) the hyoid was a hard bone to break, due to its position in the neck. Just about the only thing that could break it was strangulation from the front, where the attacker’s thumbs would press on the bone, snapping it.
    Was he bludgeoned and strangled? Why use two different methods to subdue him?
    She set those thought s aside for now, knowing that she had to make haste. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for but when she examined the right leg, she knew that she had found her proof. She continued to examine the remaining bones, making her way up the left side of the body, just in case she found something else pertinent but before she had made it past the left knee, a scrape outside the door alerted her to the fact that someone was coming.
    The lamp must have given