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supposed they must take what they could get. When Rayley had asked Viktor Prakov, the bald man
who headed the palace police, if they could examine Mrs. Kirby before his unit, the man had readily
agreed. “Since the woman was English…” Rayley had said vaguely, which was all it had taken for
Prakov to nod. Examine anything you want, seemed to be his unspoken response, just so in the end
you turn her body back to us. And so they had been escorted to this distant part of the kitchen and left
alone. In the larger rooms, the staff was finishing the final cleaning from the evening meal and a
young maid had most considerately brought them a tray of pork sandwiches as they worked.
“Funny that a place this size doesn’t have a proper morgue, isn’t it, Sir?” Davy asked.
“Very odd,” Trevor agreed. The Palace may function like a city, but it was a city which
strained to maintain the illusion that no one within it ever died. His request to do the autopsy within
the Palace infirmary had met with an abrupt refusal, as had his next suggestion, that they might conduct
their exam within the woman’s own bedroom. So instead Mrs. Kirby had been carried here, stripped
bare among the rolling pins and ladles, then wrapped in a tablecloth. None of them had particularly
liked the woman, but Trevor doubted anyone present would have wished her this ignoble end.
At least they had plenty of room. Tom was examining the body with Davy’s help, as they
systematically lifted each limb and section, going over it with a magnifying glass. Tom called his
observations out to Trevor, who served as secretary, while Emma and Rayley stood at another table
going through the woman’s clothes and the boxes of her possessions, which they had snatched from
her room in an effort to take possession of any potential evidence before the palace police. Emma
had draped the gypsy costume over a chair and was studying it dubiously.
“This loop of cloth on the hip,” she said. “What purpose would you guess it to serve?”
“It appears to have been designed to hold some sort of weapon,” Rayley said, glancing up from
a box of books and papers.
“So I thought,” Emma said. “It’s on the left hip where an officer wears his sword.”
“The loop isn’t large enough to support a sword,” Rayley said. “More likely a dagger of some
sort. Was there one with her when she was found?”
“I don’t see anything of the sort,” Emma said. “This costume is quite elaborate. Look at the
way this vest ties and all the buckles on the britches. How on earth would a woman begin to know
how to get into such outlandish clothing?”
“How on earth would her killer have gotten her into it so quickly is a better question,” said