The jurymen were inspecting the items laid out on the exhibits table: a box of bones, the leather travelling bag and business cards, and other assorted fragments of clothing that might or might not have been associated with the deceased. There was also, Frances noticed, a coal sack, printed with the name of ‘Geo Bates’, a local supplier. It was morning, and the little hall was illuminated by sunlight flooding in through the windows, but even in the absence of gas the hall was uncomfortably warm and getting warmer by the minute. The odour of the material on the table, which resembled the contents of a refuse bin, was very apparent, and Frances hoped the proceedings would not last long.
Mr Wylie and Charlotte Pearce, who was heavily veiled, though easily distinguishable to anyone who knew her by her height and clothing, arrived together accompanied by their new solicitor Mr Rawsthorne, who had been appointed to watch the case in view of what was regarded as their betrayal by Mr Marsden. They greeted Frances and all expressed the hope that the day’s proceedings would result in important progress.
Mr Marsden, his face fixed in a permanent sneer, arrived in company with Lionel Antrobus. The latter gentleman, though serious as ever, took a moment from conversation with his solicitor to favour Frances with a sharp nod, and Marsden, seeing the action, made a whispered comment to his client which was undoubtedly not to her credit.
Inspector Sharrock had been obliged to take time from his busy day to attend the inquest, a circumstance that clearly did not please him, since he fidgeted constantly and obviously wanted to be somewhere else. The press was also there in force since the public always enjoyed stories that involved a skeleton, and there was the usual throng of the idle and curious.
Mr Luckhurst, walking with a bravely energetic limp, arrived unaccompanied, greeted Frances with as much of a smile as was appropriate under the circumstances and invited her to sit beside him, which she did.
Mr Gillan of the Chronicle came late, hurrying from another assignment, and, thwarted by Mr Luckhurst from finding a seat next to Frances, looked disappointed and lurked as near to her as he could, with a suspicious lean to his posture that suggested he was trying to eavesdrop.
‘I know this can hardly be called a social occasion,’ Luckhurst confided, ‘but even so, when in company one always looks for some intelligent conversation, and if it comes from a handsome young lady then so much the better.’ Frances was about to commiserate with him for having to manage with her society and not the hoped for beauty, when Dr Thomas announced the opening of the proceedings, and the jurymen took their places.
The coroner began by advising the jury that the nature of the remains meant that there was more than the usual difficulty in establishing the identity of the deceased. They would hear a number of witnesses on that point and must pay them close attention and consider what they said very carefully before making a decision.
The newspapermen awaited the evidence with rapt expectation and sharpened pencils.
The first witness to be called was a waggoner who testified to discovering the bones amongst the builder’s debris in the brickyard, having seen them partially spilling out of the coal sack. The bones and the sack were, he was sure, the same items currently displayed on the evidence table, and he also thought the pieces of cloth and leather were those he had seen at the site. He was followed by the foreman of the demolition men who said that he often saw animal bones, sacks and pieces of old clothing in houses being demolished and never thought anything of it. He had seen coal sacks in the cellars of the Queens Road houses before work had begun. Some of them had smelled bad, and he had assumed they held dead dogs or rubbish. He was as sure as it was possible to be that everything was put on the wagon with the rest of the rubble. It was not a part of his men’s duties to sift through rubbish.
Inspector Sharrock testified to supervising the team of policemen who had searched through the heap of rubble in the brickyard and extracted the remains, which he had taken charge of and passed to Dr Bond of the Westminster Hospital.
The coroner then notified the jury that the owners and landladies of the lodging houses had yet to be traced and called Dr Bond to give evidence.
Dr Bond, lecturer on forensic medicine and assistant surgeon at the Westminster Hospital, was a dignified and gentlemanly looking man of about forty, with a luxuriant and firmly pointed moustache. He stated that he had received from Inspector Sharrock a number of bones, together with a coal sack and some fragments of rotted clothing, all of which he had been told had been extracted from the same heap on the Shepherd’s Bush brickfield. ‘Apart from a few very small bones, which I believe to be those of rats, all the remains were human. When I laid them out in their correct positions I saw that I had most of the larger bones of a skeleton, and there were no duplicates. In other words there was no evidence that I was dealing with more than one skeleton.
The size of the bones was compatible with them all belonging to the same individual. The deceased was undoubtedly male, about five feet six to eight inches in height and aged between thirty-five and forty-five. There was no evidence of any disease. There was a healed fracture of the right tibia.’
‘How long before death would you say this injury occurred?’ asked Dr Thomas.
‘I am afraid the condition of the remains makes that very hard to determine. I would not at this stage wish to provide an estimate. I have, however, received some more bone fragments from the police this morning, which, if they are part of the same skeleton, could enable me to do so.’
‘After the injury was healed, would the man have continued to suffer pain?’
‘That is possible. Even a healed fracture may cause pain many years later, especially in inclement weather.’
‘What can you tell the court about your examination of the teeth?’
‘The dentition was poor, and many of the teeth were decayed. This man only rarely attended a dentist. On the left side of the lower jaw there were signs that there had once been an abscess that had necessitated removal of the wisdom tooth. The upper wisdom teeth had been extracted many years previously, but I believe the lower left was operated on more recently. The lower right was very much decayed but still in place. There were a number of other teeth missing. These might have been old extractions or, more likely, simply worked loose during the lifetime of the deceased.’
Mr Luckhurst, who had been listening to the evidence with great concentration, suddenly looked very thoughtful. Frances looked at him quizzically, but he said nothing, only took a notebook and pencil from his pocket and began to write.
‘Were you able to arrive at a cause of death?’ asked the coroner.
‘Not conclusively,’ said Dr Bond, ‘but there was damage to the vertebrae that suggested to me that the deceased may have suffered a broken neck. Whether that was due to accident or a deliberate injury it is impossible to determine, but some considerable force was involved.’
‘What kind of accident or injury could have produced this?’
‘A fall down a flight of hard steps is one possible cause, or external violence with a strong twisting of the neck.’
‘When do you believe death took place?’
‘If the body was not buried, and I see no evidence that it has ever been, it would have been exposed to the action of the elements, together with insects and vermin, which would have broken down the tissues more rapidly than if it had been sealed in a coffin. The bones were dry; there was no flesh or connective tissue. This person has been dead for a minimum of two years and more likely longer.’
‘Did you find anything that was incompatible with the remains being those of Edwin Antrobus?’
‘No, neither did I find incontrovertible proof that they are.’