When I felt I was calm, I returned to my chair and went on reading.

The apartment had been ransacked. Dresser drawers had been rummaged through and closet doors left hanging open with clothes thrown to the floor. In the living room, sofa cushions had been slashed, while in the kitchen, the killer had gone through drawers and cupboards.

A handbag had been emptied on the dining table. A compact, a handkerchief, a tube of lipstick, some tissue paper, and a pencil lay scattered. No money. No keys. The killer had taken them with him, which explained the locked door.

The bodies were removed to the morgue, where they underwent a more thorough examination. Various statistics were noted—height, build, hair color—and the many injuries were listed. It was a long list. For both woman and child.

Esther had died of her neck wound. All of her facial injuries occurred postmortem. She had not been sexually assaulted.

Willie had suffered multiple chest wounds and, as I suspected, one of the stabs had gone through his heart. Like Esther's, his disfigurement occurred after death. At least he didn't suffer much. That was some comfort, I supposed.

There were no defensive wounds on Esther's hands, which likely meant that her attacker had managed to catch her off guard and struck quickly. Perhaps the killer was a person Esther knew, which allowed him to surprise her. Or perhaps she had been sleeping when he broke through her door, rose to see what was happening, but was still sluggish from sleep when he came upon her in her bedroom. In short, the lack of defensive wounds did not help me narrow the pool of suspects.

They had both died during the night, between 23:00 and 04:00. Which meant that they might have died on August 27, but their date of death was officially set to the 26th.

Included in the file were two identity cards for residents of Mandatory Palestine. The first bore the name Esther Kantor. Various details were noted on the card. Birth date: April 8, 1919; Place of Residence: Tel Aviv; Occupation: Secretary; Race: Jewess; Height: 5 feet 9 inches; Color of eyes: Blue; Color of hair: Black; Build: slender.

A picture of Esther's face was pasted on the left side of the card. Henrietta Ackerland was right. Esther had been very beautiful. It was as if her face had been carved from marble by an artist's hand. Her eyes were large and deep, her forehead tall, her mouth luscious, her cheekbones high, her nose pert, her features symmetrical. Her hair was pulled back, and not a strand of it was out of place. To have been reduced from such exquisite beauty to a bloodied mangled mess seemed sacrilegious, not merely criminal.