The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin Page B

for oneself—from the ancient Greek. I never liked the postmortem stuff, to be honest. I’m a doctor, not a pathologist: it’s my job to save lives.”
    “Lives may be saved if we can find out who did this.”
    Millingen looked dubious. “A dark alley, in the middle of the night? You can rule out witnesses. Those dogs make enough noise to wake the dead. Anyway, this is Pera, not Stamboul.”
    “Efendi?”
    “It would take more than murder to get the Perotes out of their own houses on a dark night. Haven’t you noticed—the people here are colder than a Scotch welcome?”
    “But the cause of death—and the time. You reached a judgment?”
    Millingen frowned. “Yes, I did. It was somewhat spectacular—the trunk was hacked open, from stomach to sternum. But he was actually killed, I suspect, with a blackjack: a powerful blow to the base of the neck. He was almost certainly unconscious when they cut him open. Spatchcocked, you might say, like a widgeon or a teal.”
    “But why?”
    “Purest speculation: whoever killed him wanted to attract the dogs. Quite decent plan—although it’s the dogs, ironically, which help me suggest a time of death.”
    “How’s that, Dr. Millingen?”
    “The teeth marks. Some are older, which caused a loss of blood when the body was still fresh. Then an overlapping set of marks, sometimes a parallel set. The dogs tend to feed by night, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Last night the body was pulled apart. And of course there are other indications, like the state of decomposition, desiccation of the eyeballs, and such. He couldn’t have been killed much later than the night before last; possibly, I suppose, a little earlier. I’ll be suggesting a time of death between noon Monday and, say, six o’clock on the Tuesday morning.”
    Not good, Yashim thought: that put him and Lefèvre together, alone, at a time when he could have been killed.
    “How soon can you make your report, Dr. Millingen?” He hoped it sounded casual.
    Millingen smiled. “Between you and me, it could be tomorrow. But the ambassador’s given me a week.” He glanced down at the coin on his desk. “I wish you luck, Yashim efendi. These sort of crimes are the hardest to resolve.”
    Yashim nodded. He liked Millingen’s air of detachment: it was a professional air. The manner of a man trained to notice things. “Dr. Millingen, you’ve been among the Greeks. You have some experience of their—ambitions.”
    Millingen frowned. “I know many Greeks, of course. But their ambitions? I’m afraid I don’t quite—”
    “No, forgive me,” Yashim said. “There’s a society, a secret society, I’ve learned a bit about recently. The Hetira. I wondered if you’d heard of it?”
    “Umm.” Millingen reached forward and picked up the Morean coin. “Secret societies.” He shook his head and chuckled. “The Greeks are a very charming people. But…I got to know many of them years ago, in the Morea. They were all involved in the struggle for Greek independence, of course—I went to Missilonghi with Lord Byron.
    “What was it that Lord Byron used to say? The Greeks don’t know a problem from a poker. The truth is, they’d intrigue over a potato—and when I say they were involved in the struggle, I don’t mean they went out to win it. Most of the time they fought each other. Very disappointing. Byron wanted them to be like classical Greeks, full of the Platonic virtues; and they aren’t. Nobody is. They’re a good people, but they’re like children. A Greek can laugh, cry, forget, and want to kill his best friend all in the space of an afternoon!” He leaned back and smiled. “When I was a boy, we used to make ourselves dens in the bushes. We’d have Bonaparte marching through the garden, and we’d be ready to take him on—and his army. That’s the Greeks all through. They make themselves secret worlds. It’s politics, if you like—but it’s play, too.”
    He held the coin between finger and thumb