nyslfriends Chapter 399: Dr. Beatrice
Chapter 399: Dr. Beatrice
That night.
In a dim alley beside Scotland Yard's building, a figure in police uniform was anxiously pacing back and forth.
Seeing the familiar figure emerge from the fog, Arthur visibly sighed in relief.
The old constable glanced left and right, confirming no one was paying attention to this area, before quickly stepping forward to meet him.
"You're here, Lin." Arthur's voice was very low as he handed over a hard cardboard credential folder.
Lin Jie took the credential folder, opening it under the faint gaslight at the alley entrance to take a look.
It had a black-and-white photo of him pasted on it, with several lines of text clearly typed next to it using a typewriter.
Pathology Consultant, University of London Medical School, Lin Jie. Below it was the official steel seal of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Bureau.
"Quite convincing forgery." Lin Jie closed the credential and put it into the inner pocket of his trench coat.
"This isn't a forgery." Arthur gave a bitter laugh, pulling a pipe from his pocket. "This is a special appointment certificate I obtained overnight through proper procedures from the personnel department using some old connections from my days at headquarters. Since you're getting involved in this case, you must have a legitimate identity that allows you to stand beside the bodies. Scotland Yard is extremely sensitive about these serial murders right now. The victims are all gentlemen from high society; those important figures are putting too much pressure."Arthur lit his pipe, the flame illuminating his wrinkled face.
"The morgue is on the underground second floor. That new female medical examiner is a workaholic; she practically treats the place as her home. I must warn you, Lin, she's very difficult to deal with. Those arrogant male medical examiners tossed this hot potato to her, wanting to see her fail, but she seems completely unfazed."
"Dr. Beatrix Vance." Lin Jie recalled the name from the file.
"Yes, Dr. Vance." Arthur sighed. "She only believes in the scalpel and microscope in her hands, and scoffs at any inference lacking evidence. If you want to get useful clues from her, it's best to follow her logic."
"I understand. You go back and keep Lily company; I'll handle the rest."
Lin Jie nodded to Arthur, turned, and walked out of the alley, heading straight for the heavy side door of Scotland Yard.
After presenting the special appointment certificate, the duty officer, though surprised by this pathology consultant with an Eastern face, still respectfully opened the iron door leading underground, deterred by the authority of the steel seal.
Descending the narrow, dark stone stairs, the temperature in the air began to drop noticeably.
There was no sunlight here, only a few dim gas lamps burning on the walls.
The pungent smell of carbolic acid disinfectant mixed with the chemical odor of embalming fluid formed an invisible barrier strong enough to make ordinary people nauseous.
Lin Jie pushed open the wooden door to the morgue.
The room was large, with several stainless steel autopsy tables placed in the center.
Rows of cold drawers for storing bodies were embedded in the surrounding walls.
One corner of the room had been converted into a makeshift laboratory, with test tubes, beakers, and an extremely expensive German-made optical microscope from this era covering the table.
Above one of the autopsy tables hung a bright gas arc lamp.
Under the harsh light, a figure wearing a white waterproof rubber apron stood with their back to the door, intently bent over a corpse.
It was a young woman.
Unlike most Victorian women of this era confined by corsets and elaborate skirts, she wore an extremely simple dark linen shirt with sleeves rolled high, revealing sturdy, pale forearms.
Her brown hair was tightly pinned up at the back, not a single strand out of place.
Hearing the door open, she didn't immediately stop her movements; the scalpel in her hand continued its precise journey across the corpse's chest cavity.
"If you're here to rush the autopsy report, Inspector, please leave immediately. I said I won't sign any conclusion until the full toxicology analysis is complete."
Her voice was crisp and cold, carrying the distinct, blunt accent of the Scottish Highlands, and she spoke very quickly.
"I'm not an inspector."
Lin Jie walked forward, stopping about two meters from the autopsy table.
"I'm Lin Jie, a pathology consultant sent by the University of London Medical School. Here are my credentials."
Hearing the term "pathology consultant," the female medical examiner finally stopped her scalpel.
She turned around, took off the rubber gloves stained with dark red blood, and casually tossed them onto a nearby tray.
It was a face with strong lines, featuring three-dimensional features and a well-defined outline.
Her skin was somewhat pale from years without sunlight, but those gray-blue eyes were exceptionally bright, gleaming with a scalpel-like sharpness.
Dr. Beatrix Vance scrutinized Lin Jie up and down with an appraising gaze.
"An Asian? When did those old fossils at the university medical school become so progressive as to hire a foreign consultant to guide my work?"
She walked over, crossing her arms, her eyes filled with undisguised suspicion.
"Since you're a consultant, then, Mr. Lin, can you tell me the fundamental difference between the color and distribution of lividity on a corpse thrown into cold water after death versus someone who drowned while alive?"
This was an extremely direct professional test.
Lin Jie's expression didn't change at all.
Although he wasn't a medical examiner before crossing over, after experiencing so many bizarre UMA cases, he had studied a large number of forensic medicine texts from this era to better understand monster killing methods, and had even consulted Julian for relevant knowledge.
"Postmortem dumping, circulation has already stopped; lividity will settle in the dependent parts of the body as it was placed, usually appearing dark purplish-red. Moreover, the lungs of a postmortem dump won't have inhaled large amounts of drowning fluid because respiratory movement has ceased. Conversely, drowning while alive causes intense respiratory struggle; large amounts of water, along with tiny debris in the water, enter deep into the respiratory tract and into the bloodstream."
Lin Jie's voice was steady, his words clear.
"Not only that, but the lungs of those who drowned while alive usually show edema and emphysema, with large amounts of frothy fluid overflowing when cut open."
Beatrix raised her eyebrows slightly, the suspicion in her eyes fading a bit.
"A textbook answer."
She turned and walked back to the autopsy table.
"Close the door, Consultant Lin. Since Scotland Yard sent you, I hope your stomach is strong enough. This is already the third one."
Lin Jie casually closed the wooden door and walked to the side of the autopsy table.
On the table lay a naked male corpse.
The deceased was around forty years old, clearly very well-maintained in life, with pale skin and relaxed muscles. His chest cavity had been cut open in the standard "Y" shape, the sternum sawn through, revealing the dark red internal organs inside.
"The deceased is Thomas Cavendish, an assistant to a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons."
Beatrix picked up a pair of forceps, pointing at the deceased's trachea and lungs.
"I just cut open his trachea. As you can see, it's filled with large amounts of turbid fluid and fine silt. Both his lungs are extremely distended, with Paltauf's spots on the surface—classic signs of drowning asphyxiation."
She walked to the nearby microscope, placing a glass slide on it.
"I extracted a sample from the fluid in his lungs. Under the microscope, I found large quantities of diatoms. I compared them with the algae atlas of London's waters. This specific diatom community only exists in the section of the Thames downstream, near the estuary."
"This proves he indeed drowned in the Thames water." Lin Jie looked at the corpse, following her line of reasoning.
"But that's precisely the contradiction."
Beatrix turned her head, her eyes flashing with a fanatical gleam of puzzle-solving.
"The place where the body was found is a dead-end alley in Mayfair. It's at least three miles from the Thames, and the scene was very dry, without a single drop of excess water."
"More importantly, look at his body."
The female medical examiner pointed with the forceps at the deceased's face and neck.
"No petechial hemorrhages, meaning no subconjunctival hemorrhages. His neck shows no ligature marks, and his wrists and ankles have no signs of being bound. The spaces under his fingernails are extremely clean, no skin flakes or dirt from struggling and scratching."
"When a person is drowning, due to survival instinct, they experience extremely violent spasms and struggles. Even if the killer forcibly held his head in a water tank, he would definitely leave physical injuries from intense resistance."
"But he didn't. His expression is extremely calm; the texture of his facial muscles indicates he was in a state of extreme relaxation just before death."
Beatrix walked to the sink, turning on the tap to wash her hands.
"So, Consultant Lin. Based on these pathological features, what conclusion have you reached?"
Lin Jie looked at this female doctor, secretly admiring her.
In 1889, forensic medicine was still in a very primitive, embryonic stage.
Most police still relied on confessions and experience to solve cases. Someone like her, who completely discarded subjective assumptions and relied solely on the physical and chemical characteristics of the corpse for rigorous logical deduction, was absolutely a pioneer of this era.
If this weren't a world with UMAs, she could definitely become a top-notch detective.
"Narcotics." Lin Jie gave an answer that fit scientific logic.
"The killer used some kind of potent sedative or anesthetic drug."
"Absolutely correct."
Beatrix dried her hands, a look of approval appearing in her eyes.
"I suspect it's some kind of high-purity laudanum, or the newly synthesized chloral hydrate from Germany. The killer first drugged the victim somewhere, rendering them completely incapable of resistance. Then, in a large container filled with Thames water, drowned the completely unconscious victim alive."
"Finally, the killer used a carriage to transport the body and dump it in those remote alleys, to confuse the police investigation."
She took out a document, handing it to Lin Jie.
"This is the autopsy report for the first two bodies. The death characteristics are completely identical. This is absolutely an extremely cunning, psychologically disturbed serial killer with some medical knowledge."
"A scientific deduction." Lin Jie took the file, casually glanced through a couple of pages, then placed it on the table.
He acknowledged the female medical examiner's deduction, as it was flawless within the materialist framework.
But as a hunter who had handled countless supernatural incidents, his intuition told him this matter was definitely not that simple.
Why would the killer go to such lengths to transport Thames water to the crime scene?
And why dump the bodies in completely unrelated dry alleys?
If it were an ordinary serial killer, the time cost and exposure risk of this method would be too high; it didn't fit the logic of criminal psychology.
Lin Jie's gaze fell once more on the cold corpse.
"I'll go look at the deceased's clothing."
Lin Jie casually gave a reason, walking toward the evidence storage cabinet in the corner of the room.
"They're all in cabinet number two." Beatrix said without turning around, she was recording data in front of the microscope.
Lin Jie opened the second iron cabinet.
Inside was a sealed evidence bag containing the expensive tweed suit and silk shirt Cavendish wore in life.
The clothes were already dry, but the surface was still somewhat stiff, marks left from being soaked in sewage.
Lin Jie turned his back to the female medical examiner, ensuring she couldn't see his actions.
He slowly removed the black leather glove from his right hand, his fingertips lightly touching the collar of the tweed suit.
"Hummm—"
An extremely cold, sinister chill instantly shot from his fingertips into Lin Jie's mind.
Since the time of death had exceeded forty-eight hours, most of the spiritual fragments left on the clothing by the deceased had already dissipated.
No clear images appeared in Lin Jie's vision; everything was a blurry gray darkness.
However, hearing and smell were exceptionally clear.
"Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop..."
A crisp, rhythmic sound of horse hooves echoed in Lin Jie's mind.
The sound of hooves striking cobblestone pavement sounded very hollow.
Simultaneously, an overwhelmingly strong smell of water and fishiness assaulted his nostrils.
Lin Jie felt his senses were trapped in a narrow, enclosed space.
Beneath him came a sensation that was soft yet elastic—the distinctive velvet cushion seats of a high-end carriage.
But strangely, the seat felt damp, carrying a horrifying, almost living-muscle-like warmth and wriggling sensation.
The image began to shake violently, a strong sense of suffocation surged.
Lin Jie felt large amounts of cold, foul-smelling water flooding his mouth and nose from all directions, yet his body fell into an extremely bizarre state of relaxation, as if all his bones had been removed, unable to even muster the thought to struggle.
"Splash—"
With a final sound of churning water, all perception instantly cut off.
Lin Jie's eyes snapped open, and he withdrew his finger.
His breathing became somewhat rapid, a layer of cold sweat forming on his forehead.
He quickly put his glove back on, concealing the slight trembling of his fingertips.
A carriage.
The deceased's final memory was of sitting in a carriage interior filled with the fishy smell of Thames water, then being drowned on that soft seat.
Lin Jie's brow furrowed deeply.
This seemed to confirm Dr. Vance's deduction—the killer did indeed use a carriage as the murder tool.
But that wriggling sensation of the seat, and that bizarre state of being stripped of the ability to resist, were definitely not something ordinary anesthetic drugs could explain.
Lin Jie turned, looking at Beatrix, who was still bent over recording.
"Dr. Vance." Lin Jie spoke, breaking the silence in the morgue.
"Your reasoning is very rigorous; the method of narcotics combined with drowning is logically sound. However, there's a physics-related point of doubt that your report doesn't seem to explain."
Beatrix stopped writing and turned to look at him.
"What point of doubt?"
"The body was found on land, but the cause of death was drowning."
Lin Jie walked to the autopsy table, pointing at the deceased's pale body.
"If you say the killer drowned him in a water tank filled with Thames water elsewhere, then used a carriage to transport the body to that dead-end alley for dumping. Then, during this process of moving and unloading, the water accumulated in the body's lungs and trachea would inevitably spill out in large quantities due to gravity and changes in body position."
"But the constable who first arrived at the scene clearly stated in the report that the ground of the dumping alley was extremely dry, with no signs of large water splashes."
Lin Jie's eyes fixed tightly on the female medical examiner.
"More crucially, there's the lividity."
"If the deceased drowned in a water tank, he must have experienced changes in death posture. But the medical examiner's records show the lividity distribution on the deceased's back and buttocks is extremely uniform, with no signs of positional shift or pressure-induced blanching."
"This only indicates one thing in forensic medicine."
Lin Jie's voice echoed in the morgue.
"The posture of the deceased at the moment of death was the same posture in which he was found in that alley."
"He did not undergo postmortem transportation."
"He was drowned alive right there in that dry dead-end alley."
Beatrix's expression changed.
She frowned slightly, quickly walking to the side of the corpse, re-examining the lividity deposition on the deceased's back.
As a professional medical examiner, she had to admit the physical contradiction Lin Jie raised was fatal.
"That's impossible."
The female medical examiner's voice carried a hint of stubbornness as she shook her head.
"Drowning someone with a lethal amount of river water in an alley without a water source completely defies common sense."
"Unless the killer brought a huge mobile water tank and committed the crime on the spot in that narrow alley. But that would be too conspicuous; it absolutely couldn't leave no traces."
"Perhaps the murder tool itself exceeds our common sense understanding." Lin Jie tried to guide her train of thought.
"Consultant Lin."
Beatrix looked up, a flash of displeasure in those gray-blue eyes.
"Scientific deduction is built on evidence, not on fantasies about the unknowable. I don't believe in any supernatural forces. Behind every unexplained phenomenon lies only physical or chemical means we haven't yet discovered."
She took off the rubber apron, throwing it onto a nearby rack.
"Since you've raised doubts about the scene environment, let's go examine the actual location. I want to see for myself how the killer created a drowning scene in a dry alley."
Lin Jie didn't refuse.
He knew explaining the existence of UMAs to such a staunch materialist was futile.
Moreover, he also needed to personally visit the scene to confirm any supernatural traces ordinary police might have missed.
The two walked out of Scotland Yard one after the other.
The fog outside was thicker now; the distant gas lamps could barely illuminate a few meters ahead.
They hailed a hackney carriage, heading toward Mayfair.
The carriage traveled through the empty streets, the atmosphere inside somewhat heavy.
Beatrix kept looking out the window, seemingly constantly running through the crime process in her mind.
Lin Jie closed his eyes to rest, comparing the reverberation images in his mind with legendary monsters.
About half an hour later, the carriage stopped at the entrance of a remote alley.
This was a back alley in an upscale residential area on the edge of Mayfair.
Tall red brick walls stood on both sides; the alley was narrow, paved with uneven cobblestones.
The sky was beginning to lighten, but the alley remained dark and damp.
Beatrix, carrying a gas lamp, entered the alley first.
She walked to a corner in the middle section of the alley, where a chalk outline of a human shape still remained.
"This is where Mr. Cavendish's body was found."
The female medical examiner raised the lamp, carefully illuminating the surrounding ground and walls, trying to find wheel ruts or signs of heavy object dragging.
Lin Jie followed behind, not looking at the ground; he knew that would be fruitless.
He activated the weak Spiritual Sonar function on his Cursebreaker Vambrace. That perception of supernatural fluctuations immediately made him aware of the abnormality in this area.
A trace of extremely faint, yet bone-chillingly cold spiritual energy lingered in the air.
Lin Jie looked up, his gaze searching the red brick walls on both sides.
Suddenly, in a gap between bricks about two meters above the ground, he spotted an unusual glint.
He walked over, reaching into that gap and wiping it.
His finger picked up a bit of translucent, dried-glue-like substance.
Lin Jie brought his finger close to his nose to smell it.
No odor.
But the texture was extremely slippery; even though dried, it still had a surprising stickiness.
"Dr. Vance."
Lin Jie called out to the female medical examiner, who was still searching for clues on the ground.
"Look at the width of this alley."
Beatrix turned around, looking at him somewhat puzzled.
"This alley is less than two meters at its widest point, and it's a dead end."
Lin Jie pointed at the alley entrance and its end.
"A four-wheel carriage large enough to carry the killer, the victim, and a water tank sufficient to drown an adult absolutely could not drive into this alley and turn around here."
"If the killer used a carriage to transport the body, he could only stop at the alley entrance, then carry the body in. But as you just said, the lividity distribution rules out that possibility."
Lin Jie turned, looking at her with deep eyes.
"The only explanation is that the 'thing' used in the crime wasn't an ordinary carriage."
Beatrix's frown deepened.
She glanced at the dried mucus on Lin Jie's finger.
"What does that prove? Maybe it's just some industrial glue, or secretions from some kind of fungus."
She walked up to Lin Jie, her tone carrying an uncompromising stubbornness.
"Consultant Lin, I admit your observation is sharp. But your deductions are becoming more and more absurd. It sounds like Gothic horror from third-rate tabloids."
"There are no monsters in this world, only criminals who pretend to be ghosts and gods."
Lin Jie looked at this young female medical examiner.
He saw the determination in her eyes. In this era, for a woman to establish herself in the male-dominated field of forensic medicine, she needed ten times the effort and conviction of ordinary people.
Lin Jie didn't want to shatter her beliefs.
Because knowing the truth often meant stepping into an even crueler hell.
"Perhaps you're right, Dr. Vance."
Lin Jie took out a handkerchief, wiping the mucus from his finger.
"But I'm just reminding you, if the killer's methods exceed your common sense understanding, continuing to investigate might expose you to unforeseen danger."
"This case has already exceeded Scotland Yard's scope of handling."
"Is that a warning, Mr. Lin?"
Beatrix gave a cold laugh.
"From the day I graduated medical school, I've never been afraid of any corpse, nor of the people who make corpses."
She picked up the gas lamp, turning to walk toward the alley entrance.
"I will find that murderous charlatan with my scalpel and microscope. I will prove that the light of science is enough to dispel all of London's fog."
Lin Jie stood in the alley, watching the stubborn figure gradually disappear into the mist.