Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

Detective, if I may, and do remember I was there at the time, the key was still in the lock, which makes it impossible to pick unless you remove the key first. Also, and this was what convinced the police, the latch was in the locked position, and had torn out the wood from the doorframe. Two hundred year-old door frame, I may say. Damn shame.” He pointed at a slight discoloration in the wood around the latch. “You can still just see where it was repaired.”

I nodded. If Henry had been satisfied that the door was locked, I was satisfied too. I turned back to the desk, then glanced at the two chesterfields by the fire. The desk was not quite dead center, and the fireplace and the chairs were at a slight, diagonal angle. I looked at the major and pointed at the black leather chair behind the desk. “That’s where he was sitting?”

He nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Shall I demonstrate?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, in two long, thin strides he was behind the desk, arranging the chair and placing himself in it.

“He was seated, like so, up against the desk as though he had been writing or reading. And in fact, he had on the desk in front of him an open tome on the history of the Scottish clans. He was slumped forward slightly, like so…” He leaned forward and allowed his jaw to sag onto his chest. “His left hand was upon the book and his right hand was hanging down by his side. And the revolver was just there…” He pointed a couple of feet from the chair. “:ying on the carpet. I shall never forget it. Such an eerie sensation. The oddest things seem to become so important, tiny details stand out, don’t they?”

I was staring at the two chesterfields and asked, absently, “Like what?”

He didn’t get up. He stayed in the chair, staring at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know, foolish things. I remember worrying that Charles would tread dirt and grass into the Wilton, which had just been laid new. Not this one, obviously, a previous one… And how red the blood looked on the old man’s shirt cuff.”

I turned to look at him. “It’s true, in those moment our senses are heightened. Which cuff?”

“Eh?”

“Which cuff did you notice the blood on?”

“Oh, yes, his right arm, hanging down. He had two or three large, round drops on his cuff.”

“Round?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Quite big and round.”

I smiled, moved to the desk and picked up the stapler. I handed it to him and said, “Pretend this is a gun and hold it to your head as though you are about to shoot yourself in the head.”

He looked a bit surprised, glanced at Charles, shrugged and held the stapler to his head. “Like this?”

“Yup.” The door opened. Dehan stepped in and closed it softly behind her. I smiled at her and carried on. “Charles, come here, a bit closer. Now I want you to run a movie in your head, slow motion, OK? Imagine he pulls the trigger. The revolver bucks, a cloud of GSR is instantly ejected by the weapon and covers his hand, his sleeve, his head and his shoulder. A nanosecond later, the slug impacts his temple, on the horizontal plane, kicks his head to the left and draws all the blood and gore into the wound with it, while the burning gases from the muzzle sear the edges of the hole and the skin around it. The slug then erupts from the left side of his head, creating a large exit wound and spraying blood and gore out over his left shoulder, the carpet, et cetera. The next instant, his head kicks back to the right, propelled by the force of the exit would, and simultaneously his hand drops to his side, releasing the gun, and then, after the heart has stopped beating, a small amount of blood will ooze from the wound, down the side of his face.”

Charles was looking at me with some distaste. “I see.”

“Now here’s the problem. With his right hand held up and to the right side of his head, how did he get large blood droplets on his right cuff?”

Charles’ eyebrows shot up and he looked down at the major, who still had the stapler held to his head. I carried on.

“Here’s another small problem. Let’s say that by some freak of physics, some drops of blood were kicked back onto the cuff. Within half a second, his arms had dropped down by his side, these large droplets are fresh, liquid. By the time, Major, you got to see them, they would not have been circular, they would have been tear-shaped, because the arms was hanging down. So how did they come to be circular?”

“My word…!”

I took the stapler from him and set it back on the desk. “But what we have is not a bullet wound on the horizontal plane. We have the bullet entering at an almost forty-five degree angle. So, Major, can I position you like this, reading a book…”

Dehan stepped over to the bookcase, pulled out a large tome, opened it and set it before the major. I took his hands and placed them with his left forearm resting on the desk and his right wrist as though he were ready to turn the page in a moment or two. Then I took the stapler and went and sat in the chesterfield on the left of the fireplace and pointed it at his head, as though it were a gun.

“If I were to shoot you from here, we would have just about the correct angle for the entry wound, you would have no GSR on your hand and cuff, the entry wound would not be scorched and, as you sagged forward, a few droplets of blood might