"Vivisected," Watson repeats. What he's heard, well, he'll wait on that, for the moment. He can well imagine the mess that resulted from a severed carotid artery, and he has his doubts about whether César was remotely prepared for that, whether he even could have been. He shakes his head. "A severed artery would have been much faster than that, but yes, it would have been a great deal of blood."

He lifts César's hand to better look at it up close for a moment. "At least I don't believe you'll need stitches for this. You're at least that lucky. What else have we heard?"