“I positively adore that official archiater of yours,” Vance said to Markham. “Such detachment! Here are you stewing most distressingly over the passing of one damsel fair and frail, and that blithe medicus[23] is worrying only over a sluggish liver brought on by early rising.”
“What has he to be upset over?” complained Markham. “The newspapers are not riding him with spurs. … And by the way, what was the point of your questions about the torn dress?”
Vance lazily inspected the tip of his cigarette.
“Consider,” he said. “The lady was evidently taken by surprise; for, had there been a struggle beforehand, she would not have been strangled from behind while sitting down. Therefore, her gown and corsage were undoubtedly intact at the time she was seized. But—despite the conclusion of your dashing Paracelsus—the damage to her toilet was not of a nature that could have been self-inflicted in her struggle for air. If she had felt the constriction of the gown across her breast, she would have snatched the bodice itself by putting her fingers inside the band. But, if you noticed, her bodice was intact; the only thing that had been torn was the deep lace flounce on the outside; and it had been torn, or rather ripped, by a strong lateral pull; whereas, in the circumstances, any wrench on her part would have been downward or outward.”
Inspector Moran was listening intently, but Heath seemed restless and impatient; apparently he regarded the torn gown as irrelevant to the simple main issue.
“Moreover,” Vance went on, “there is the corsage. If she herself had torn it off while being strangled, it would doubtless have fallen to the floor; for, remember, she offered considerable resistance. Her body was twisted sidewise; her knee was drawn up, and one slipper had been kicked off. Now, no bunch of silken posies is going to remain in a lady’s lap during such a commotion. Even when ladies sit still, their gloves and hand-bags and handkerchiefs and programmes and serviettes are forever sliding off of their laps on to the floor, don’t y’ know.”
“But if your argument’s correct,” protested Markham, “then the tearing of the lace and the snatching off of the corsage could have been done only after she was dead. And I can’t see any object in such senseless vandalism.”