episode_0153

Episode 153. Headless Corpse (3)

****

All the pieces of the puzzle were together, and now it was time to explain. We headed to the staff break room in the corner of the temple.

The weather was colder than expected.

I began my explanation only after Amy and the police had gathered and three cups of tea had been placed on the table. Amy tilted her head.

I put sugar in my black tea.

“Police officer. Do you know how long it takes for a human body to decompose?”

Scipio nodded.

“I see it quite often. With the current weather, it would take weeks for the body to completely decompose.”

Why was the headless body in the attic?

How long has the body been in the attic?

“Then. How many days had the headless body recovered from the attic been dead?”

“I don’t know. It’s been about two weeks.”

“I’ll have to check the time again, but the patients started showing symptoms about a week ago. It’s possible they were exposed to the toxin from the rotting corpse.”

“That’s… … . Right.”

“Do you remember the outline of the body that was left in the attic earlier? The head was cut off on one side, and the head was on the other side. The whole place was soaked with the corpse’s rotting water.”

“Yes.”

“Here’s what I think. What if someone didn’t cut off the head, but the head just fell off on its own? Doesn’t that explain everything?”

The police shook their heads at these words.

“Does that make sense?”

“If you hang yourself, that’s possible.”

“Well… …. No noose was found at the scene. The rope was too rotten to be used for hanging, and all that remained were pieces that had been eaten away.”

“But there was a rope, right?”

There was a rope at the scene, but no noose or knot. I was wondering how to explain it.

“As you know, police officers, maggots have a hard time penetrating the skin. So the decay starts in the eyes, nose, mouth, and groin, where they can burrow.”

Scipio sipped his tea at these words.

“That’s right.”

“If you have a wound, it’s different.”

“Why are there wounds? If a person committed suicide by suffocation with a noose, there shouldn’t be any wounds on their body.”

I shook my head.

“When a person hangs themselves, the muscles in the neck stiffen and the skin loses elasticity, leaving a noose scar on the neck. Not immediately, but after a few hours.”

“No, I said there was no trap.”

“Just think about it for a moment. If there was blood on a rope made of rags, the part that was stained with blood or body fluid would have been eaten by bugs and rotted away.”

The fact that there was no noose can be explained that way. Now the problem is that the head was cut off.

“Then who cut the hair?”

“A noose. The noose wounded the skin on the neck and caused it to rot first. The neck rotted first, and the neck that the entire body’s weight was on was cut off.”

The police still looked unconvinced. Amy’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“It’s late fall now. The body can’t decay that much in just a few days.”

Scipio tried to argue again. How long does it take for a corpse to decompose? I heard that in midsummer, it takes a week for the bones to be visible.

I don’t know the details though.

“Usually, yes. But the chimney goes through the attic, and since these people were rich, they probably had the heat on all day. The bodies might have rotted faster.”

“Ah.”

“The chimney passes through the attic, and the body rots quickly because of the warmth. The decapitated body’s neck rots and the head and neck fall off. The bloody rope also rots and disappears -”

“That makes sense.”

I nodded.

Science is not just about guessing. Once you have a hypothesis, you should be able to test it by trying to refute it.

“I guess we need some basis.”

“Yes.”

“If the body is indeed that of a servant who committed suicide, there should be a suicide note somewhere in the mansion. If we collect the remaining remains of the rope, we can confirm that he really hung himself with it.”

“Aha.”

“What else? If he really did hang himself, there might be a strange crack in the cervical vertebrae. The corpse bones are still there, right?”

A hangman’s fracture. A specific cervical fracture seen in people who have been hanged. It occurs as a fracture of the second cervical vertebra.

This is something we often see in emergency rooms.

Scipio wrote down my words busily.

****

There are still some questions left. What’s important to us is, after all, treating the patient. Amy tilted her head as she looked at me.

I sipped my black tea.

“But. There are many types of poisons. How do you know which poison a patient is under?”

I thought about it for a moment.

“Hmm. If possible, it’s best not to touch a rotting corpse. There may be botulism toxin in the corpse. If we exaggerate a bit, there may be anthrax spores in the livestock carcasses.”

“Could it be that my family members also got a bacterial infection?”

“I don’t think it’s bacteria. My father was the only one who showed symptoms of infection. He had a very bad case of pneumonia, and antibiotics didn’t help.”

“You don’t know what disease it is, right?”

I made a guess.

The toxic substances from the corpses caused allergic reactions in three patients and infected one. However, botulism toxins have no way of escaping from a rotting corpse.

You can probably guess from this.

“Think about it, Amy. The toxins that are produced when a body decomposes have no way to leave the body. But isn’t that one of the things you learned? You can blow the toxins away yourself.”

“Oh, you’re sending out toxins?”

Amy thought about it, but couldn’t come up with an answer. She thought she could guess it at this level. It seems she overestimated her student.

I opened my mouth after a while.

“Molds can release spores directly out of the body, which can cause allergic reactions and, in rare cases, pneumonia.”

“Aha.”

Amy gave a small exclamation of admiration.

“Amy. Instead of just admiring it, you need to find a way to prove it. How are you going to prove it?”

“Well, well… …. Couldn’t you see spores or mycelium in the patient’s sputum? Fungi are much more visible than bacteria.”

Fungal pneumonia is much more difficult to treat than bacterial pneumonia. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed again.

****

Scipio was astonished.

To be honest,

People who like to play detective have seen a lot of them while working. Locked room murders, romances, and mysteries. Of course, most of them are meaningless nonsense.

People who like to waste time daydreaming. Reality is stranger than you think, and people are dumber than you think. That’s all.

It wasn’t a locked room murder, it was just a drunk man passing out in solitary confinement, so there was no will. It wasn’t a love story, it was just a man falling down the stairs in his sleep. It wasn’t a mystery, it was just a madman’s diary.

I saw this incident as a similar one.

If you find a headless body in a family’s home, isn’t it natural to assume that the family killed the person and hid the body?

But Professor Asterix was different. Professor Asterix could immediately draw a conclusion just by looking at the traces of where the body had been.

From the principle of the corpse’s head rolling down to the mysterious illness the family was suffering from, this was an explanation that could solve all the questions raised so far.

It was a close call. If it weren’t for Professor Asterix, the Amnesia people would have been locked up in prison. If they were charged with killing and beheading, the death penalty wouldn’t have been unreasonable.

what…….

‘There are many smart people who are good at reasoning.’

In fact, what impressed Scipio was not just Professor Asterix’s intelligence.

I was surprised that you were able to clearly list the information needed to verify or refute your reasoning. Instead of admiring your perfect logic, you gave the information you needed next.

That’s rare.

It’s not just being smart, but also considering and judging when you might be wrong, and not being afraid of your arguments being refuted.

It’s a fearsome ability. The title of the Empire’s Best Doctor isn’t given to you for nothing.

Now we can verify that there really is damage to the cervical spine, that there really is enough rope to hang oneself with, and that there really is fungus growing in the patient’s sputum.

****

Aspergillus.

It is a common type of mold, but it does not cause infectious diseases except in special cases. A rotting corpse in a corner of a house is probably a special case.

It’s a fungal species commonly found in rotting corpses, and it’s true that it can cause pneumonia if you inhale the spores over a period of several days.

The logic is correct, but… … .

I stared at the patient’s sputum for a long time.

If you can’t find any traces of fungus, you should think about it more. Just because there’s no trace in the sputum doesn’t mean it’s not fungal pneumonia. It’s complicated, complicated.

“Oh, I found it.”

“Really?”

I took my eyes off the microscope. You can see the mold and spores coming out of the sputum. Amy would often walk over and put her eyes on the eyepiece.

“Oh my gosh. It’s true.”

Really, then. Whose inference is that?