Murder on the Home Front by Molly Lefebure

muscled arms, “It couldn’t have taken much of his strength to kill that poor little woman.”
    We were told Dobkin had died quietly and bravely, praying ardently.
    And that was the end of Harry Dobkin, and the epilogue to the famous Baptist Chapel Cellar Murder, which made medicolegal and CID history, brought promotions to several detectives, set the Guy’s Hospital Department of Forensic Medicine off to a flying start, and added one more great murder story to the list of great murder stories marching gruesomely, but with horrible fascination, down the weirdly echoing corridors of time.

CHAPTER 11
    The Wigwam Murder
    We must now go back to the beginning of October and those days when DDI Hatton was in the throes of arresting Dobkin, and was receiving all those wordy notes: “Divisional Inspector, Dear Sir…”
    That was in Southwark, among sooty warehouses and gray old streets. In Surrey, against a background of autumn-tinted trees and windy heathland slopes, another outstanding murder drama came to light.
    On October 7, CKS got a call from the Surrey police, saying that a body had been found buried on Hankley Common, near Godalming, and they were anxious for Dr. Simpson to come at once. We canceled all other appointments, and by midday we were driving fast in the direction of Godalming.
    Hankley Common was a former beauty spot: all heathery slopes, broken with graceful spinneys of birch and oak, and surrounded by wide vistas of wooded countryside and windswept sky. The army, noting its loveliness, had of course taken it over as a battle-training ground. Camps had been built in the neighboring woods, and every day young men were taken out and toughened up amidst a welter of antitank obstacles, mortar ranges, field telephones, and trip wires.
    We arrived at Hankley Common to find a large party of policemen, headed by the Chief Constable of Surrey and Superintendent Roberts, and fortified by Dr. Eric Gardner, the pathologist, awaiting us in a muddy hollow. Greetings were exchanged, and then off we set to climb a windy ridge which reared itself, rain swept and dismal, ahead of us.
    (It is odd how it invariably begins to rain when one reaches the scene of a crime. Up till that time, for instance, it had been quite a bright sunny day.)
    As we struggled up the ridge, Superintendent Roberts told us how the body was found. The previous day two marines, busy training, had discovered an arm sticking out of a mound of earth on the top of the ridge and had immediately reported this to the police. The body had been left buried until the pathologists could arrive.
    The top of the ridge was gained, and there was the mound of earth with a withered arm sticking out from the side of it. Rats had gnawed away parts of the fingers. We stood contemplating it, shivering a little in the wet wind, and trying to warm ourselves with cigarettes, while the Chief Constable, Dr. Gardner, Dr. Simpson, and Superintendent Roberts held a quick consultation. Below us a party of soldiers were busy at mortar practice, their shells whirling and whining over our heads every few minutes.
    The two pathologists now took shovels and began very carefully uncovering the rest of the body. They had not been long at the job before a great stench of rotting flesh set everybody else busily judging the direction of the wind and then moving accordingly. The pathologists continued to dig, oblivious of everything but their task, and I was obliged to stay beside them, taking from them specimens of beetles, maggots, earth, and heather, which I placed in the famous buff envelopes. And so the work went slowly on, until there lay exposed the sprawling, badly decomposed body of a girl.
    The body was clothed in a green-and-white summer dress, light summer underwear, woolen ankle-socks, and a headscarf which lay loosely around the neck. The head had been battered in by some heavy, blunt implement.
    It was decided to move the body to Guy’s, and there was some discussion as to