Locked In - a Portia Adams Short

The full short-story

Her final expression was one of horror, as if in her last few breaths my professor had decided against some rash course of action and had tried to take it all back.

Unfortunately, the method chosen for her death had precluded a change of mind—the cord taut around her neck, and her feet dangling a meter above the fine Persian rug.

It was this cord that captured my attention as I stood at the open door of the medical library, following my professor’s direction, to ‘remain outside the room.’ How was it holding the woman’s weight?

From my vantage point I could see one of her suede shoes near the window, adding to my suspicion that at some point before losing consciousness she had fought against her death, kicking off her shoe in her struggles. She had managed to work one of her hands up and under the cord and had pushed her index finger into the wedding ring she wore around her neck, causing the finger to jut at an odd angle, pointing upwards.

Behind me where I stood with my hands clasped at my back, the hallway buzzed with students and faculty in various states of distress and curiosity. The different perfumes of the many females were a distraction, as part of my brain sought to catalogue them even as the rest of my brain fought to ignore them.  From the din, I discerned a voice I knew and turned my head to ask, “Mr. Whiggins, where is the chandelier that is usually hanging in this library?”

“Eh?” asked the older gentleman. All heads now turned towards him. He was still clenching the tools he had used to pry open the locked door, at the direction of the headmistress. Whiggins was in his sixties, with thinning grey hair, tobacco-stained lips and a slight tremor in his hands from his recently diagnosed Parkinson’s disease.

“The chandelier?” I repeated, pointing above the Professor’s purple face.

He shivered, but answered, “I took it down last week fer repairs. One of the arms had broken off. It’s downstairs in me workshop.”

“How heavy is it?” I asked, looking up to the ceiling.

Whiggins glanced at the people around him before replying, “I dunno, ‘bout twelve stone I’d guess. You kin come down an’ see it if’n you like. It’s the biggest one in the building by far.”

“More than enough to support the weight of Mrs. Bell,” I murmured, turning away from the man and back towards the body, even as I heard more male voices coming down the hallway.

“Out of the way, now,” said a voice I recognized as belonging to Sergeant Michaels of Scotland Yard. “Benson, get these ladies in a room an’ start takin’ witness accounts. Simpson, I want pictures of the scene an’ I want ’em now, so get in there. Dawes, did you get someone from the coroner’s office yet? I want Beanstine if he’s there, but—”

The stout Sergeant stopped talking mid-sentence. I didn’t have to turn my head to know that it was because he’d seen me.

“Before you accuse me of stalking your crime scene, Sergeant, you should know that I attend this college, and therefore have every reason to be here.” My attention was still directed towards the body, my eyes following the cord upward again, fixated on it for some reason I couldn’t yet put my finger on. Mrs. Bell was wearing a long grey dress with very little embellishment save for two medals on her chest and a silver-plated pocket watch at her waist.

“Yanks,” Michaels muttered under his breath.

“Canadian, actually,” I replied, turning my smiling face towards him to correct him, well aware that he lumped all ‘colonials’ into the same bucket.

Glancing over his shoulder, I spied my downstairs tenant and friend Constable Brian Dawes, his brown hair flattened from his uniform hat, drawing the attention of not a few of the young women milling about in the hallway. His eyes were warm but worried. I could tell even from this distance that he was concerned about me—though whether for the Sergeant’s issues with my presence or for the dead body a few feet away, I knew not.