The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

, don’t touch it. Leave that to the experts.”

He pocketed his handkerchief and sauntered off.

James Dashwood got a long-distance telephone call from Isaac Bell.

“Lillian Lent, the girl killed in the Common, was she cut up?”

Dashwood wondered how the Chief Investigator had caught wind of the murder of a lowly prostitute two hundred miles from New York, but he was not surprised. “No. Just strangled.”

“Do you know that for sure, James?”

“I saw her at the morgue with my own eyes, Mr. Bell. Only strangled.”

“No mutilation?”

“No blood.”

Dashwood listened to the telephone wires hiss. He waited, silent, knowing that the Chief Investigator did not clutter thinking time with small talk.

“How did you happen to be at the morgue?”

“You had your Anna Waterbury killed in New York, Mr. Bell. I figured it was worth checking for a connection. I spoke with the coroner. He confirmed there wasn’t a mark on Lillian except for the bruises on her throat.”

Again, a long silence. Finally, Bell asked, “Did you check her fingernails?”

“That’s the one strange thing. She didn’t scratch him.”

“Any broken nails?”

“Several, but none that looked freshly broken.”

“No skin under them, no blood?”

“No.”

“Might she have been wearing gloves?”

Dashwood said, “She was not a girl who could afford gloves. Besides, she died quick. It looks like her neck was broken.”

“Broken?” asked Bell. “By a blow?”

“No. The coroner said it happened while she was strangled.”

“A strong man.”

“Probably. But she was a tiny little thing. Wisp of a girl.”

“But otherwise not a mark on her?”

“No cuts.”

“Thank you, James. It was a long shot. Send me your full report. Immediately.”

Isaac Bell hooked the earpiece, jumped to his feet, and paced the detectives’ bull pen. Fact was, he could pace from 42nd Street to the Battery and back, but none of his leads, if they could be called leads, had gone anywhere. As time passed, it looked increasingly unlikely that his detectives would turn up a witness who saw Anna with whoever got her inside the flat where she died. Equally unlikely was the prospect of finding a witness—other than the procurer he had already interviewed at Grand Central—who saw her with any man anywhere during her weeks in New York.

He told the Van Dorn operator to place a long-distance call to the Philadelphia field office.

“Helen, I want you to go to Waterbury, Connecticut. Get Anna’s mother to talk to you. Find out if the girl kept a diary. If she did, read it.”