Murder Jigsaw

by E.

  On such occasions as Doctor Manson had to leave his laboratory at Scotland Yard to conduct personal inquiries at some distance from the Metropolis, there went with him a portmanteau which was, in effect, a most effective mobile laboratory. It lacked few of the essentials of a fitted “lab”; in other words it was a laboratory in miniature, in the early days of the scientist’s appearances as the Yard’s Medical Jurisprudist, the opening of this portmanteau at the scene of investigations had given rise to much hilarity among police officers. Manson had borne the amusement in good part, sometimes joining in it. He was a great believer in the efficiency of its contents as a means of investigation, and as a means of proving, or disproving, certain lines along which the police proposed, or were already, working.

  After one or two spectacular results, hilarity against the portmanteau declined; in its place, a marked respect for the uncanny disclosures due to its contents sprang up. One prominent police officer, commenting on its workings among his colleagues, referred on one occasion to the portmanteau as “a box of tricks.” The name was greeted with approval, and it stuck. Doctor Manson and his Box of Tricks became inseparable, and indivisible, in the minds of Scotland Yard’s investigators.

  It was the Box of Tricks—which Merry had brought down from London—that Manson now set on the table and opened. From it he took a small, but powerful, double-eye-piece microscope, prepared slides, two pairs of small tweezers and a capillary tube.

  Taking an envelope from a drawer he tipped out on to a piece of clean Litmus paper the fragments of weed which he had picked from the mouth of Colonel Donoughmore. First, he made a cursory examination of the weed through his magnifying glass. He next separated a fragment with the tweezers and placed it on a slide, which he fixed to the stage of the microscope. After a few moments of staring through the eyepiece, he removed the slide.

  Then, using a long pair of tweezers, he picked out one of the floating fragments from the bottle of liquid which had come from the dead man’s lungs. Transferring it to a second slide, he again submitted the exhibit to microscopic scrutiny. The result seemed to satisfy him, for he pushed back the microscope, first removing the slide and exhibit to safety.

  “A member of the Monocotyledonous natural order of Hydrocharideae, Jim,” he said. “Elodea, and undoubtedly Elodea Canadensis, called by the unscholarly, water-thyme.”

  “Kind of thing you would expect to find in the inside of a man drowned in a river, Harry,” was the sergeant’s comment.

  “Yes, I think we might go as far as to say that the body of a drowned man usually contains, in the watery contents, specimens identical to the medium in which the body was found. But . . .” He paused and considered the specimens, his brow furrowed.

  “But what, Harry?”

  “But I should not have thought that we would have come across this stuff in the Tamar. It is a native of North America, and has been a curse over this side of the Atlantic since it was brought across. Ireland had it first, when it was introduced into County Down. It found its unfortunate way into England in 1841, since when it has been a curse to ponds, ditches and streams. But I should have put the Tamar as unlikely to harbour it, because of the fast flow. Still, there it is. I’d like to have a look at the stomach water, Jim.”

  Merry, taking the capillary tube, lifted a spot from the bottle and set it in a prepared slide, sealing it with a mica cover. Manson, examining the exhibit through the microscope, made a note on his pad. “You had better seal off the other slides, Jim, and label them. They have told us all they can for the moment,” he said.

  The colonel’s clothes now came up for examination. As the scientist untied the bundle and laid the unwrapped waders and suit on the table, now bared of its ornamental cloth, the sergeant took from the Box of Tricks a contraption that looked more or less like a doll’s-house vacuum cleaner. That, in effect, was exactly what it was, except that it served a more useful purpose. It was, in fact, a Soderman dust extractor, but fitted with a small motor for use with a battery. The motor had been Manson’s own improvement on the original Soderman. The difference between a Soderman and any other dust extractor is that paper filters and bag can be fitted inside to take the extracted material, and can be removed and sealed for examination later, while another bag and filter can be fitted for immediate operation.

  While the sergeant was fitting the Soderman and testing it, Doctor Manson proceeded to pore over the colonel’s waders. They had been dried and a number of stained patches stood out from the surroundings. To these the Doctor paid special attention, marking each with a piece of chalk as portions over which the Soderman should be run. He next directed his search to projecting portions such as buckles, straps and pocket-flaps. Twice he called his magnifying glass into service, and each time he picked off a strand of something with his tweezers, transferring it, in each case, to a seed envelope which he sealed and labelled before placing it on one side. Finally, from a button of one of the breast pockets he unwrapped a small tuft of some material, which went into a third envelope.

  Merry then began work with the Soderman, passing the suction nozzle over the patches marked by Manson. “Not that I expect we will get much satisfaction,” Manson said. “I’m afraid the water will have washed away most of the traces. But we may as well try . . . Have a good run over the greenish patch, Jim. It looks the most promising.”

  Three of the patches were “Hoovered” before operations were suspended. Each operation saw the paper bags and filters changed, and the used bag sealed, labelled, and initialled by each of the two men. The scientist was a stickler for accuracy in examination; he held that there could be no mistake, if correct identification were made of material for examination, instead of the simpler, but less reliable, human recollection.

  As the last of the envelopes was put away the dinner gong sounded.

  “That will do for now, Jim,” said Manson. “We’ll refresh the inner man ready for the interviews afterwards.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  SHAKING THE PIECES

  In the year 1921 the impish mind of Sir James Barrie evolved the first act of a play; and no play, before or since, has so exasperated the playgoer. For, either because he wouldn’t or because he couldn’t, Barrie never wrote another act to Shall We Join the Ladies? Perhaps you know the little piece? A party of ladies and gentlemen are the guests at a dinner party, perfectly happy and contented. But the host has evil intentions. A brother of his was murdered some time previously; the company at this dinner party were also present in the vicinity when the brother died. And the host lets them know that HE knows all about that, and hopes to be able to name, before the party ends, which of them killed his brother. You can imagine, therefore, the atmosphere at the dinner table. Shall We Join the Ladies? however, never gets through the dinner party, and there is no ending to it!

  It was an environment similar to this that enclosed the diners in the Tremarden Arms, on this July night, in a circle of constraint. One of the company had lately been killed. The tall, scholarly man sitting with a lugubrious companion at a table apart was the man whom, the company knew, hoped to name the murderer sometime after the dinner.

  Barrie would have seen his play come nearly to life. The side-long glances cast at each other, the nickerings, made the usually jolly meal in the Arms an ordeal uncomfortable not only for those who knew they were to answer questions which, for all they could say, might throw suspicions upon each other, but also for those of their fellow guests who could be in no even dim light of suspicion, but who, nevertheless, felt the duress in the air, and found themselves involuntarily speaking in whispers.

  Nor did the conclusion of the meal bring any relief or lessening of the strain. On the contrary; for while the diners took coffee in the lounge, Manson and Merry were absent, and the company waited the summonses to the ordeal.

  The evening had not been less uncomfortable for Manson; all the company, with the exception of one or two, were, if not actual friends, very good acquaintances of his, with wh
om he had dined and wined and, what is more, fished. To an angler that is a bond of fellowship. The task of questioning them was not one to which he looked forward with any anticipations of pleasure.

  Superintendent Burns was waiting when the Doctor arrived in his sitting-room. It says much for the two men that no word was said of the disagreement over the proposed dropping of the investigations. Instead, Manson greeted him with a friendly smile. “Before we start, Superintendent, I want to run over one or two exhibits,” he announced. From the Box of Tricks he extracted, again, the microscope, and the envelopes in which had been placed away the strands taken from the colonel’s wading outfit. The first of these was fitted under the microscope, and an examination made of it.

  Manson, having looked his fill, made way for Merry. The sergeant, scrutinising, made the first remark: “Looks like a strand from a tweed, Doctor,” he said.

  Manson agreed. “I think so, too,” he said. “And as it is a trifle on, shall we say, the tight weave, I should put it as Donegal tweed. It’s a little less fluffy than Harris. Let’s see how the others compare.”

  A double scrutiny of the remaining threads, and the tiny ball of fluff, seemed to leave no doubt in the minds of the two scientists. They agreed, unhesitatingly, that the threads or strands had been pulled from a tweed garment.

  The Super had by now developed an interest in the proceedings. “Then, if there was foul play, Doctor, it looks as though the person responsible was wearing a tweed suit at the time,” he suggested.

  “We cannot go quite so far as that, Superintendent,” Manson answered, with a twinkling eye. “It might not, you see, have been pulled out during any conflict, or even during that day. But should we find anyone who had been in the company of the colonel during the afternoon of the tragedy, and had been wearing a suit of Donegal tweed, we should, I think, be justified in looking at him with a certain amount of suspicion.”

  He replaced the exhibits in the Box of Tricks as he spoke. Then: “Now I think we can start our friendly little chats.” He grimaced. “Shall we have Mr. Emmett first?”

  The man who obeyed the summons, and sat gingerly in the armchair provided for him, was a magnificent specimen of the human animal. Some six feet in height, Fred Emmett had the bronzed face and easy carriage of the out-of-doors man. His clothes, sitting easily upon his broad figure, served to emphasise the impression. He was, in matter of fact, a country gentleman, as much at home with a gun as with a fishing-rod; and equally efficient and enthusiastic with a horse beneath him and the hounds in full cry to a “Gone Away.” He had known Manson as a fisherman with whom he had spent many enjoyable days, long before the Doctor’s profession was public property; and it was to the Doctor that he now turned. Manson smiled, reassuringly.

  “This is a bad business, Emmett,” he said. “You know, now, of course, that there are certain circumstances connected with the colonel which lead us to believe that his death might not be the accident it appeared to be.”

  Emmett nodded gravely. “I’m sorry to hear that, Doctor. I didn’t like the man, but I’ve fished with him, and . . . well . . . I’ll do anything I can to help hang the person who did it. It wasn’t a fellow angler, I’m sure of that.”

  “I’m quite sure you will help all you can, Emmett. That’s why we’ve asked you here. What we are trying to do is to trace the colonel’s movements in order to narrow down the time of his death. Now, we know he left the hotel at 10 o’clock and reached the farmhouse yard at 10.15. At twenty past ten, the farmer met him carrying his rod, waders and brogues in the direction of the river. That is as far as we have progressed. Including the colonel, there were five people on the Tamar that day. You were one of them, and we gather from Franky that you were fishing the beat next below the colonel. That is correct, is it not?”

  “Quite right, Doctor.”

  “What time did you reach the river?”

  “About 9.30. I left the hotel at nine—immediately after breakfast, and cycled down.”

  “Where did you leave the cycle?”

  “Not in the farmyard. When I am on that beat, I take a short cut through the fields and wheel the cycle along a path between the big field of oats and the ditch.”

  “So you were fishing half an hour before the colonel arrived?” asked Superintendent Burns.

  “If you say he didn’t arrive till 10.20, that would be about right. I did not see the colonel arrive.”

  “You began at the bottom of the beat, I suppose?” Manson put in. A nod from Emmett. “However, I did not work up-river,” he said. “The water was pretty well coloured. Old Giles’s cows had been having their morning paddle, I suppose. Anyway, there wasn’t a fish rising, so I thought I would leave the water to clear itself, and fish higher up.”

  “I’ve had the same experience,” Manson commiserated. “Giles’s cows are a damned nuisance in the early mornings on that beat. It’s the best time of the day for the shallows. How far up did you go?”

  “Just above the Flats, on the first salmon water.”

  “How long would you have been there?”

  “I should say a good half-hour. I was wading pretty deep, as you will realise, and there were a few big ones rising. They were coming short, though, and I decided to put up a Red Spinner—I had been using a Greenwell. That is how I put it at half an hour; I reckon to give a fly half an hour’s trial before changing.”

  “You had seen nothing of the colonel up to now?”

  “No. I wouldn’t be likely to, you know, unless I came up on the bank.”

  “When did you first see him?”

  “When I reached the top of my beat.”

  “Bit of trouble, was there not?”

  Emmett grimaced. “There was, rather,” he agreed. “You know that beat finishes about 200 yards below the Gulley? Well, that is the best bit of fishing on the beat. The water is just losing its rush through the Gulley, and there is generally a good fish hanging about in the tail. If you can fish fast water—and I can—you can be sure of two or three brace of two-pounders. You can’t fish the Round Pool, as you know. I had come out below the pool and walked up the bank—quietly, so as not to disturb the fishing. There is a mass of bushes just there. As I came round them, there was the colonel fishing about fifty yards from me—in the water he was. That means he was 150 yards down in my best water. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He said he’d been chasing a big one, and hadn’t noticed that he was in my water. I told him he was a ruddy liar, and if he didn’t get back to his own kennel I’d throw him in the river.”

  “I was pretty mad,” Emmett continued. “It wasn’t the first time he had been poaching on another beat, as the others can tell you. Damn it all, there was a board on the bank with the beat number painted on it.”

  “Any argument about it?”

  “No, Doctor. He just turned round and walked upstream.”

  “You didn’t hit him?”

  “Hit him!” Emmett looked staggered. “Good God, Doctor, he was an old man. Shouldn’t think of it.”

  “I did not suppose you would, Fred,” replied Manson in a soothing voice. “Only I had to ask the question. There is the matter of a bruise, you see. When did you see him again?”

  “I never did see him again.”

  Superintendent Burns looked up. “Never?” he asked. “That was funny, wasn’t it? The river bank is pretty open from there on, and you can see a pretty way upstream. Then, the river itself isn’t timbered, and I should have thought that any one wading would have seen a wader on the next beat. I reckon you can see half-a-mile up the stream.”

  “That is so, Superintendent,” agreed Emmett. “But the fact remains that I cannot recall seeing the colonel again. Mind you, I wasn’t looking for him. And I dare say he was keeping away from me. Most likely he was at the top of his beat, and I went down to the Shallows again later.”

  “But you came up to the Gulley again, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see any of the ot
hers?” asked Manson.

  “No, I don’t think so, Doctor.”

  “I suppose the colonel did not leave the landing net at your feet when he walked away?”

  “No.”

  “And you did not find it at any time and do him the service of bringing it back to the hotel?”

  “No, Doctor.”

  “And you did not, I take it, throw him into the river?” The smile which accompanied Manson’s pointed question drew an answering one from Emmett. “No, Doctor, I didn’t,” he said. “But, all the same, I wish I had not made that remark in the hotel that night.”

  “Well, I think that is all, Emmett, old chap.” The Doctor stood up. “Thank you for coming. Oh! By the way, what suit were you wearing that day?”

  “Suit?” echoed Emmett. “Why, my old tweeds, Doctor. Always do for fishing.”

  “Of course! I ought to have remembered that. Donegals, aren’t they?”

  “They are.”

  “Right. See you in the lounge later. Would you mind asking Sir Edward to come up?”

  “So he was in Donegal tweeds, Doctor! That seems to be getting us somewhere.” Superintendent Burns entered the fact in his notebook. “That’s the kind of information I like to get hold of. You find Donegal tweed round the buttons of a dead man, and now we’ve a man who quarrelled with him and he was wearing the same tweed.”

  “A similar tweed, Superintendent . . . a similar tweed, you know,” Manson replied. “There are, I believe, hundreds of Donegal tweed suits made in the course of a year. . . . Ah! . . . come in, Sir Edward. We’re sorry to disturb your nightly game of Bridge, but needs must . . .”

  The baronet sat down ruefully. “Dammit, Doctor, the colonel has spoiled everybody’s Bridge. Dashed if he isn’t more nuisance dead than he was alive.” He paused. “Perhaps, though, I should not have said that,” he apologised. “Well now, how can I be of any help to you?”