"A handsome girl," Thorndyke commented--"a dark-haired blonde. What a
sin to have disfigured herself so with that horrible peroxide." He
smoothed the hair back from her forehead, and added: "She seems to have
applied the stuff last about ten days ago. There is about a quarter of
an inch of dark hair at the roots. What do you make of that wound on the
cheek?"
"It looks as if she had struck some sharp angle in falling, though, as
the seats are padded in first-class carriages, I don't see what she
could have struck."
"No. And now let us look at the other wound. Will you note down the
description?" He handed me his notebook, and I wrote down as he
dictated: "A clean-punched circular hole in skull, an inch behind and
above margin of left ear--diameter, an inch and seven-sixteenths;
starred fracture of parietal bone; membranes perforated, and brain
entered deeply; ragged scalp-wound, extending forward to margin of left
orbit; fragments of gauze and sequins in edges of wound. That will do
for the present. Dr. Morton will give us further details if we want
them."
He pocketed his callipers and rule, drew from the bruised scalp one or
two loose hairs, which he placed in the envelope with the sequins, and,
having looked over the body for other wounds or bruises (of which there
were none), replaced the sheet, and prepared to depart.
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