Murder Jigsaw

by E.

  Dr. Tremayne considered the question. “I see what you are driving at, Doctor,” he said. “In an ordinary case of drowning I agree that the lungs would be bellowed, so to speak, and that the stomach would contain considerably more water than is apparent here. But we have to remember that the deceased had fractured his skull with a heavy blow on a boulder as he entered the water. The shock of the immersion, coming on top of the head injury, would materially hasten the death; he could not have lived more than half-a-minute or so. Consequently, the water drawn up into the lungs would be correspondingly less than in the case of a person drowned in the ordinary way.”

  “I appreciate that, Dr. Tremayne, but I would like to feel more satisfied on the point,” the scientist replied. “I shall, I think, take a sample of the water both from the lungs and the stomach, for examination.”

  From a parcel which he had brought with him, Manson took two laboratory exhibit bottles. He filled them with liquid extracted from the lungs and from the stomach of the dead man. Sealing them, he labelled each bottle, and completed the operation by writing his own signature on the label, and obtaining also the confirming signature of the surgeon. The liquid seemed to excite his attention after the sealing, for he held the bottles up to the light, and directed his gaze to a number of floating, tiny objects, green-coloured. Dr. Tremayne noticed the inspection and joined him.

  “Bits of weed, are they not, Chief Inspector?” he asked. “Common enough in cases of drowning, as you will know. There are generally fragments of detached weed in water, and they are naturally drawn through the mouth while the power of breathing still exists and into the lungs and stomach while the power of swallowing obtains.”

  “Quite so, Doctor.”

  “I noticed a few pieces in the throat.”

  “You did?” Manson looked nonplussed. He returned to the body and, throwing the beam of a dentist’s pencil torch into the throat, picked out with a pair of the doctor’s tweezers a number of fragments still adhering to the sides of the mouth and throat. These were slipped into envelopes and labelled. Then, taking a third bottle, Manson placed inside a section of the tissue from the bruise on the colonel’s head, afterwards sealing the bottle with an identifying label, which Dr. Tremayne, at his request, signed.

  That ended the examination with the exception that, as Dr. Tremayne completed the after-examination details to the body, the Chief Inspector browsed round the colonel. Firstly, he paid special attention to the fingers of the dead man. Placing a piece of clean white paper under each hand he scraped from beneath the fingernails a quantity of matter. The collection he tapped into a seed envelope and this, again, was labelled.

  Finally, he again examined the forehead wound, noting the varied colours of the bruising. It was while thus engaged that he noticed a discolouration on the chin. It had not before been apparent, but seemed to have developed since the post-mortem began. The skin was unbroken, and the mark appeared to be a bruise of less intensity than that of the forehead. Manson entered a description of the mark in his note-book, and then occupied himself with packing his bottles back into the parcel. “That, I think, is all the colonel can tell us Doctor,” he said.

  “I think so, Chief Inspector,” was the reply. “I do not anticipate any difficulty in my report. Shall I send it to you direct or to the Chief Constable?”

  “Oh, I think the Chief Constable, Doctor, if you don’t mind.”

  “Very well. Nothing more you want, is there? What about the inquest?”

  “I’ll see the Chief Constable about that, Doctor. We shall have to wait, of course, for relatives of the man to get down here. The only thing I want to see now are the clothes he was wearing. I’ll get the mortuary attendant to wrap them up and send them to me at the hotel.”

  The two men shook hands and parted.

  Walking slowly and thoughtfully Doctor Manson reached the door of the Tremarden Arms at the same moment that a car drew up in front of the entrance. From it emerged a squat, and somewhat mournful-looking figure. A fishing creel followed, propelled by the hands of the driver; and a bundle of fishing rods, emerging suddenly from the same source, missed by a fraction poking into an eye of the Chief Inspector. He stopped dead and eyed the procession in dazed astonishment.

  Detective-Sergeant James Merry, B.Sc., deputy scientist at Scotland Yard, had arrived on the job!!

  “And what the devil do you suppose you have here, Jim?” asked Manson.

  “Morning, Doctor . . . just a couple of rods, you know.”

  “Rods! I can see they are rods. Do you suppose I’m blind? What’s the idea?”

  “Well, I mean to say, Harry . . . All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the saying goes. Combining a little pleasure with business, as it were, helps the grey matter to work better.”

  “My lad, you look like having enough fishing before we are through with this. But it’s a man we’ll be fishing for, not trout.”

  “How do you know it’s a man, Harry? You’re theorising.” Merry wagged an admonishing finger at the scientist.

  Manson eyed it. “Touché to you, Jim,” he admitted. “I DON’T know that it is a man. Come along inside. You’ve brought the Box of Tricks, I suppose?”

  Sergeant Merry pointed to the interior of the car. “And a few extras with it as well,” he said.

  “Good man.”

  The couple entered the hotel and walked up to the Chief-Inspector’s room. “So it’s phoney, is it?” Merry asked, as he washed away the dust of the journey from London.

  “Very phoney, Jim; and, except for us, it would have gone into records as a very unfortunate accident. Now listen carefully. . . .”

  For half-an-hour the scientist outlined the facts to his assistant. The two men had worked together since Manson had founded the Laboratory at the Yard. Indeed, they had worked together before that, for they had been room-mates and students together at the University. They followed the same train of thought, and each possessed the same aptitude for dismissing theory until proved facts pointed to one. The combination had proved a brilliant success in solving crime since it had first worked in the case of Joseph Petty.

  “And what is the local police reaction, Harry?” asked Merry, at the end of the recital.

  “They are hoping to establish that the thing was a pure accident, Jim. And I am prepared to find that the doctor’s report on the post-mortem will strengthen the opinion.”

  “As bad as that, is he?”

  Manson nodded. “He would not see anything unless it got up and hit him on the nose,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Doctor Manson’s prognostication was quickly justified. It was shortly after lunch that the Chief Constable and Superintendent Burns were ushered into the private sitting-room which Franky had arranged for Manson and Merry. The latter having been introduced, the Chief Constable announced the reason for his visit. “The superintendent here, has received Dr. Tremayne’s report on the post-mortem, Doctor,” he announced. He handed the document over. Manson read it aloud:

  “I have this day carried out a post-mortem examination on the body of Colonel John Donoughmore. I find that the said Colonel Donoughmore met his death primarily by drowning, after having fallen in the River Tamar.”

  There followed a description of the injury to the head, and the notification that the usual full symptoms of asphyxiation by drowning were not present in the body. Reasons were given:

  “I attribute this to the fact that the head injury was sustained by the colonel striking his head on some object a few seconds before immersion, rendering him unconscious, and thereby causing death more quickly in the water than would be the case had he fallen conscious into the water. I find no symptoms of foul play and attribute the decease to an accident.

  “(Signed) EGBERT TREMAYNE, M.D., F.R.C.S.”

  Manson handed the report back to the Chief Constable. “It is exactly what I expected to read, Sir William,” he said.

  “Then you agree with Dr. Tremayne?” The face of Supe
rintendent Burns brightened.

  “I do not. I disagree most emphatically. The death was not an accident,” was the scientist’s reply.

  There was a pained silence. Superintendent Burns shifted uncomfortably on his feet. It was a full minute before the Chief Constable broke the strain. “But, Doctor, do you not think you are a little . . . er . . . unreasonable?” he asked. “You yourself said that the post-mortem might alter the pattern of your hypothesis . . .”

  “It has altered it, Sir William; it is no longer a hypothesis,” was the reply. “It has become a definite fact.”

  The Chief Constable passed a hand over a puzzled brow. “But Dr. Tremayne insists that the affair was accidental, Doctor; and he gives what I should say is chapter and verse . . .”

  “Dr. Tremayne’s report is a complete travesty of the facts,” interrupted Manson. “I said that his report was only what I expected to read, because I had seen the line, or lack of line, upon which Dr. Tremayne was working throughout the post-mortem.”

  “Um. Doctor Tremayne, Chief-Inspector, is our leading medical man. He is a qualified and excellent surgeon, who has worked with the police for many years.” The Chief Constable had become distinctly antagonistic and showed it. “He carried out a pathological examination and this is his considered report of his findings. I feel that in view of these circumstances I cannot see the need for any further investigations and I am proposing to drop the case.”

  “That, I am afraid, you cannot do, Sir William.” Manson’s voice was grimly insistent.

  “Why not, Chief Inspector?”

  “Because, sir, I could not allow it and should not allow it,” was the stern reply. “On certain opinions which I laid before you at your own request, you called in the aid of Scotland Yard. The Assistant Commissioner authorised me to take charge of the case. I am a competent police officer. I hold the opinion that the death of this man was not due to accidental means. I hold that opinion very strongly. It is my duty as a police officer to acquaint my chief of that fact, to explain to him why I hold that opinion, and to do all in my power to see that a proper investigation is made in the interests of Justice. That I propose to do.”

  He paused for any comment that either or both the two men might have to make. None was forthcoming, and he continued: “It is my intention to return to London immediately, hand a copy of Dr. Tremayne’s report to the Commissioner of Police, and at the same time give him my personal report on the post-mortem as I saw it. The subsequent decision will be for him to make, doubtless after he has discussed the case with you.”

  Doctor Manson turned to his table. It was a plain dismissal and the Chief Constable and the superintendent accepted it. Half-an-hour later Manson was being driven to the station, on his way to London.

  CHAPTER VI

  MURDER IS OUT

  “So that, A.C., is the position as I see it. I am convinced in my own mind that this man was killed. Every fact points that way. I feel that I should not have done my duty had I not have acquainted you fully with the circumstances as I view them. If you decide that the Chief Constable is justified in accepting the post-mortem report and calling off the investigations, that, of course, is the end of the matter.”

  For three quarters of an hour Dr. Manson had presented what he considered to be an unbiased chronicle of the case of Colonel Donoughmore from the moment that he had examined the body on the river bank to the last interview with the Chief Constable, in which that official had declared his intention of dropping further investigation. He had outlined his inspection on the bank, and the conclusions he had drawn from it. Very quietly he had sketched out the possibilities of foul play which had occurred to his quick mind from the jigsaw pieces which represented the broken pattern of the colonel’s death. Finally, he had described the condition of the body as he had seen it during the post-mortem.

  Before he had commenced the interview with the Assistant Commissioner, Doctor Manson had asked for the Home Office pathological expert to be present. “Not that I have any doubts as to my conclusions,” he had explained, “but because I think you would be helped to arrive at a decision if those conclusions were confirmed or otherwise by an independent person who is also an authority on such matters.”

  The Assistant Commissioner had welcomed the suggestion; and it was to this expert that he first turned when Doctor Manson relaxed into the depths of his chair at the termination of his recital.

  “What do you say about the position, Mr. Abigail?” he asked.

  Mr. Abigail (“Stiffy” to his friends, for a reason obvious from his calling!) was a meek little man with a bulging forehead and protruding eyes. A pair of pince-nez spectacles usually sat on the extreme end of his nasal organ, but were now lying on the table in front of him. He had been pathological expert at the Home Office for nearly twenty years; and had been inclined at first to resent the appointment of Doctor Manson to the position of Scientific Investigator at Scotland Yard, and to the providing of the Laboratory at the Metropolitan Police headquarters. The antagonism, however, quickly vanished when he made the acquaintance of Manson, and the two had since worked together on numerous occasions, to the benefit of both. He had listened to the scientist’s postulations and assumptions with keen interest, and had made copious notes during the dissertation.

  “I think, Mr. Assistant Commissioner, that I must agree with Doctor Manson,” he now said.

  “Reasons?” snapped the Assistant Commissioner.

  “Several,” retorted Mr. Abigail. He arranged his spectacles at their usually precarious angle, and shuffled his notes into something like order. He cleared his throat. “Firstly,” he began, “the wound on the head. The local sawbones, I see”—he peered at Dr. Tremayne’s report—“says that the injury was sustained by the deceased striking his head on an obstacle on the river bank a few seconds before he entered the water. Doctor Manson says that the object was a granite boulder. Now Doctor Manson describes the bruise as a reddish-purple in colour, deepening to blue along the centre of violence, the whole being encircled in a livid ring. The skin was not broken.

  “Now, Mr. Assistant Commissioner, in a bruise without a broken skin, blood has to escape under a certain amount of resistance. The force that overcomes this resistance is supplied by (i) the beating of the heart; and (ii) the elastic force of the arteries. At the moment of death the first of these factors disappears. The second factor sinks very rapidly and is probably lost in half an hour. It follows, therefore, from these facts that the amount of blood effused in a bruise can determine, within certain limits, how long before death the bruise was inflicted.

  “Very well, sir. Now the utmost limit of time that an unconscious man can live when plunged completely underneath water is one and a half minutes. Doctor Manson is quite definite that in the bruise there was considerable infiltration of blood into the tissues, and, furthermore, that the blood had coagulated. Had the bruise been caused by the head of the deceased striking a boulder as, or immediately before, he entered the water, and had the man lived the full span of a minute and a half afterwards, there could not have been any such infiltration. A little there might have been, though even this is doubtful, but not to such an extent as to have been evident at a post-mortem examination.

  “That is point one. Point two is the colour of the bruise. The changes which take place in the colour of a bruise enables an opinion to be given as to the time, before death, that a bruise was inflicted. Now a bruise shows itself at once as a red discoloration. In course of time changes in colour occur, due to the absorption of blood pigment. After death the blood, of course, ceases to flow. The red discoloration of the bruise soon changes to a purplish tint. Then the purple begins to turn bluish, firstly at the actual seat of the violence. The succeeding discolorations are green, lemon and yellow.

  “But at least half an hour must elapse before the red discoloration of a bruise changes to purple. It may be longer—it probably will be—but half an hour is the minimum time. A further period must pass before the
centre of the violence shows signs of blueness. It would, therefore, Mr. Assistant Commissioner, be impossible for a wound, inflicted a minute and a half before death, to show at a post-mortem, made a few hours after death, a purplish colour with the centre already turning blue. The fact that the outside ring, the extremity of the violence, was still red, suggests to me that the bruise was inflicted not seconds before death, but between half and three quarters of an hour. I think that is one thing worrying Doctor Manson.”

  He glanced at the scientist and received a confirming nod.

  “This,” the expert went on, “combined with the fact that the tissues were infiltrated with coagulated blood makes the time lag a certainty.

  “Then there is the bruise on the chin, which showed up during the post-mortem. It is pretty well known that a bruise on the point, made, for instance, by a blow such as a boxer might deliver on an opponent, does not show any discoloration for from fourteen to eighteen hours after its delivery. I can imagine nothing which could cause such a bruise at that spot of the body except a blow from the fist. The skin, it is to be noted, was unbroken.”

  Again Manson nodded agreement with the expert’s reasoning.

  “So far as I am concerned, then, there remains only the water in the lungs and the stomach. Doctor Manson gave, I should have thought, a pretty plain hint to Doctor Tremayne when he asked whether that medico did not think that there was either too much or too little water in the body. Taking the limit of life for an unconscious body in the water, unable to help itself, as a minute and a half—the outside limit, mind you—it is impossible that there could be sufficient water inhaled to volumise the lungs, and half-fill the stomach. If a man died within the limit, and was unconscious, there was too much water in the body. If he died from drowning, then there was too little water. The lungs should have been ballooned, and the stomach distended.