Tour de Force by Christianna Brand Page A

and it was not for tourists to enquire how Toledo steel came to be made only in San Juan, or where were the foundries and workshops necessarily implied.
    â€˜The blade is five inches long,’ said Cockie, ‘and thin and sharp. It could penetrate the breast without undue force being used.’
    â€˜You mean that a man or a woman …?’
    â€˜Certainly,’ said Cockie. ‘Now, the point of penetration is fairly low on the left breast, over the heart, but not more than an inch from the central line of the breast bone. The kimono thing she was wearing has straight edges; it would be tied round her waist by the sash and form a sort of deep V. The knife hasn’t penetrated the stuff, it has gone between the two edges of the V.’ He added that they could make what they liked of that: and furthermore that she had nothing on under the gown.
    â€˜The coverlet under her is rumpled a bit, of course, and there are a few smears of blood on it. The disarrangement suggests that she was lifted on to the bed from the side away from the windows, which is a little odd because the shortest way from the spot where she was killed, in the table corner, would be to the other side of the bed. The front of the kimono is spotted and smeared with blood, but not as much as you’d expect; and the blood seems rather pale and watery there, as if it were diluted.’ He held up a hand to ward off premature interruptions. ‘The wound would probably have spurted blood. If she’d put up her hands to defend herself, her hands and arms would have had a good deal of blood on them; but in fact they seem quite clean except for a few small smears. The shawl underneath her is quite clean, except for a damp patch where her head lay; and as we know, her hair was still quite wet.
    â€˜That’s the bed. Now, the table and chair. The table has been pulled out into the room a bit, and the chair is behind it: as you go in through the balcony door, they’re in the right-hand corner, but the table had been moved so that anybody sitting at it would be looking, as it were slantwise, towards the balcony door; and anybody standing half turned in the doorway would be talking to the person across the little table. The chair is pushed back as though someone rose quickly from it: I only say “as though” but I think Miss Lane was a very tidy person and in the ordinary way, she would probably have replaced the chair. The chair has a few smears of blood; but the table is spattered all over with blood – except for an oblong patch, roughly in the centre which is free of any blood marks at all. The spots of blood, as I stood in the doorway, were tapered in my direction, if you see what I mean.’ No one appearing to see what he meant at all, he amended crossly that they were shaped like tadpoles with their tails pointing towards him.
    â€˜Couldn’t be clearer,’ said Cecil, sotto voce to Louli; but Louli had learned her lesson by now, and looking nervously at Leo, she mumbled to shut up and listen.
    â€˜Turning to the bathroom,’ said Cockie, not deigning to throw them a glance, ‘I found blood smears almost everywhere. The shower had been used since the maid did the bathroom, the hand towels were damp and blood-stained, just dropped about anyhow. One of the bath-towels, we know, was outside on the rail with her damp bathing things: the other was rather interesting – it was very damp and it was stained with blood all along one edge. There were smears on the wooden floor between the bathroom and the bed, where blood had been washed off or water mopped up; and the same between the table and the foot of the bed.’ He stopped abruptly and tilted back his chair, his toes just touching the ground. A glass of grappa was standing full before him and he emptied it, coughing, at one gulp.
    Mr Cecil thought that it was all madly interesting, but didn’t tell them much.
    â€˜It tells us a very