“Hardly ideal, but I didn’t want to lose any evidence that hasn’t already been destroyed,” Blanchard said. “Petit took photographs of the clothes on her first.”
“Do you have another of these?” She indicated the Mylar blanket. Blanchard pulled one from his satchel and spread it on the ground. Agnes laid the coronation gown out on it, carefully spreading the delicate fabric of the skirt and arms. Beside it she laid the heavy coat and boots. Underwear occupied a final tiny heap.
“Quite something,” Blanchard said, nodding to the dress.
Agnes had to agree. The white silk was delicately pleated from a high waistline. Stones—diamonds, she corrected herself—were embroidered into a floral pattern across the bodice and down the skirt.
“What is that?” she said, pointing to a flaw in the fabric.
“What you didn’t see last night.” Blanchard motioned for her to join him beside the body. He pulled the foil covering down to expose the chest area. It didn’t take a medical degree to see the small incision below her breast.
Agnes glanced from the dress on the floor to the woman in front of her. “She was stabbed twice? In the back and chest?”
“No,” Blanchard said. “This is the exit from the injury to her back.” He pulled surgical gloves from his satchel and handed a pair to Agnes, then grasped the corpse by the shoulder and motioned for her to assist him. Together they rolled Felicity Cowell onto her side to expose her back. Suddenly Agnes wished she hadn’t walked into this room.
“The edges of both entry and exit are clean,” Blanchard said. “Something about seven inches long. We have a deep, precise wound. A thin sharp blade that entered from the back here”—he used his free hand to indicate the wound they had observed the night before—“and passed through the chest cavity before reaching the chest wall, which it pierced.”
Agnes nodded, stifling a shudder. She’d seen enough. Gently they returned the corpse to its back.
Blanchard pulled his gloves off and brushed the hair from his forehead. “Her attacker struck with force, either through strength or fury. The location of the wounds combined with the lack of blood and other presentation that I observed indicate rapid cessation of heart function. Near-immediate death.”
“Someone who is an expert at wielding a knife?”
“Not necessarily. Force and luck may play a role equal to expertise. An expert might strike carefully to be assured the blade would slip through the ribs. Fury could do the same job, driving the blade against the ribs, forcing it to slide past.”
Agnes stepped away from the table and Blanchard re-covered the body with the foil blanket, then the canvas.
“You said that she was seated when struck.”
“Technically she may have been standing,” he said. “Although the angle of the blade was a clean stroke down. If she was standing, her assailant would have to be much taller than her.”
“Like Petit?”
“Taller even than him.”
“Or standing on something.” Agnes paused. “Like a bench?”
“Not on that bench, at least in my opinion. She fell too near it. And the position of her legs makes it appear that she was seated and pushed forward.”
Agnes sat on a nearby chair. “She was sitting like this? And shoved forward?”
Blanchard considered. “I don’t know how near the front edge she was sitting, or what her posture was.”
Agnes tried to imagine what it would feel like to be pushed. Different than falling since a natural collapse happened from the shoulders down. She tried it. Head and shoulders settling in on themselves toward the chest. Arms in and finally toppling forward headfirst. She straightened.
“She didn’t strike her head?”
“I see what you are getting at and no, not what I believe you mean by the head. She didn’t roll forward and hit the top of her skull. She landed on the side of her face in the lower quadrant. The cheekbone and below.”
“And her wrist was broken under her? Broken because she fell on it?”
The doctor nodded. Agnes considered the sequence of injuries. Head erect, not tucked down, propulsion forward, not a collapse down. She hunched her shoulders and relaxed. “Give me a push.”
Blanchard touched her between the shoulders.
“Not there, push where the blade entered. I need the direction of motion.”
She sensed Blanchard eyeing her, judging where to strike and hesitating.
“I’m ready for you. And you don’t have a knife. You won’t hurt me.”
He pushed forward with his knuckles and Agnes knew that wasn’t what Felicity Cowell felt, but it did propel her forward and she gave in to the motion. As she slid from the chair instinct kicked in. She stumbled to her feet. Dissatisfied, she glanced around until settling on the mound of cloth sacks in the corner. She moved them to the floor in front of the chair.
“Do it again.”