by E.
The superintendent had followed the operation with keen interest. “I had always heard that you were remarkably painstaking and meticulous in your examinations, Doctor,” he said, “but do you always go to such lengths as this in the case of marks of a fall?”
“Not always, Superintendent. Frequently, when I think it necessary, but not always. It happens to be necessary in this case, because I want to show you something later, which will, I am afraid, ruin the original marks. Now that we have a permanent record of them that will not matter.”
“Something that I ought to have seen and have missed, Doctor?”
“It may be. I am not sure. You can tell me afterwards.” Manson smiled. “I am not sure that you are not holding something out on me.” Flattery was a card which the scientist had frequently found to be a trump when dealing with the provincial police. That it worked on this occasion was apparent from the smiling countenance of the Cornishman. But he said nothing. Behind his back, Merry caught his chief’s eye—and shook with laughter.
“Now you said, Superintendent, that the marks were obviously heel marks. I remarked that they were curious heel marks in the circumstances. I still think them curious.” He eyed the puzzled gaze of the officer, which flickered over the marks for the third time, and then returned to meet the scientist’s eyes. “No?” Manson queried. “Well, let’s try another line.”
Sergeant Merry interrupted the duologue. “If the constable will stand at the bottom of the bank to catch me, Doctor, you can push me down the bank.” He winked.
Manson nodded, slowly. He realised Merry’s insinuation, and knew that his assistant had confirmed his own suspicions. “That will certainly help, Merry,” he said. He turned to the superintendent. “Now, Burns, what do you surmise happened here to send the colonel down into the water?”
“We cannot be sure, of course, Doctor, but I should say he was probably stepping back from where he put down his rod, and that he either fell backwards down the slope, or caught his heel on a projecting clump of grass—there are several about, as you can see—and was thrown backwards down the slope. He caught his head on something, he was knocked unconscious, and went into the water. That is assuming that his death was an accident. If he was pushed into the water, then I should say that he was pushed over backwards by a sudden and violent blow.”
“You think that a sharp push would produce these effects?”
The superintendent considered the point again. “It would, I think, give an approximate result,” he decided.
“Very well. Now, you stand back where you can see, and Merry will walk backwards towards the slope. I’ll give him a hard push. No—don’t worry”—as the superintendent protested. “Don’t worry about Merry. He’s used to demonstrations, and he won’t hurt himself if the constable will wait at the water’s edge in case he reaches the water.”
Merry, his hands clasped behind his head to protect it, stepped to the edge of the slope. A sharp “unexpected” push from the scientist sent him unresistingly over the edge. He slithered down the bank after going flat, and then his body, trying to recover as the colonel would undoubtedly have done, rolled over and over until it reached the boulder, where the constable, acting as a buffer, stayed his course.
“Show me the heel marks made by Merry, Superintendent,” demanded Manson.
The superintendent looked down the bank. There were two short scratches only at the top of the bank, where Merry had instinctively tried to recover his balance as he fell. The Cornishman looked from them to the scientist.
“I see,” he said, slowly.
“Of course! That is what intrigued me on the day of the tragedy, Superintendent. It would be absolutely impossible for a man to fall full-length down a slope such as this, and remain at full length dragging his heels. The man, alive or dead, would begin to roll almost as soon as his body struck the ground. I know of only one method by which a man going down a bank could make heel drags such as these.”
“You mean that the colonel was dragged down?” The superintendent looked up, startled.
Manson shook his head. “I am not going to admit anything, Superintendent. I never admit anything until I am quite sure of the fact. I will give you my opinion when I have made a more careful examination of the moulds of the heel marks. You had better examine them again, also, and see if you can make anything of them, in view of the demonstration you have just seen. They may have a story to tell. I don’t know yet.”
“There is another point I would like to urge, Doctor.”
“Yes, Merry?”
“To make heel marks the colonel, in any case, would have had to go down the bank on his back. The marks pass the boulder on the right side, so how could the colonel, lying on his back, have hit his forehead on the boulder on his right temple? It’s the side away from the boulder.”
“The point is well taken, Merry. I had not mentioned it because I never, for a moment, believed that the head injury was caused by the boulder.” He moved forward. “I think we have seen all we can see here,” he added. “But I want to have a look at the water up and below. I don’t think we shall need the constable again, Superintendent, unless you want to keep him here. But he might take the Box of Tricks and put it in my car.”
The three men clambered down the bank and, in Indian file, wandered slowly along the waterside. The Tamar was at its best on this perfect morning. From a sky of deep azure, the sun poured down upon the wide water, crystal clear; so clear of any kind of pollution, indeed, that it was almost as though the three men were looking at the river bottom in these shallows through a piece of sheet glass. Shale and granite slats, at crazy angles, lay scattered here and there on the clean gravel of the river bed, some three or four feet below the surface of the water.
“Beautiful water, this, you know, Merry,” the scientist remarked. “Sometimes I wonder we ever catch trout in it at all. The clearness of it is almost like a spring. It must make us visible to a trout fifty yards away.”
“Perhaps that is why they feel safe, Doctor,” was the sergeant’s retort. “I like it because one can wade, and see one’s step in advance. Now, take Hungerford. After you have waded a few yards in the stream there, the water round you looks as though someone had emptied a churn of milk into it.”
“That is true of parts of the Test, too, Merry,” Manson added. “No, I will say that you cannot find better trout water anywhere than in these Cornish streams. Even the Devon waters get coloured, and impregnated with the loose bottom of the river.”
The three men had now walked up as far as the Meeting Pool, almost at the end of the beat which the colonel had fished. A sudden splash, a few feet in front, startled them. As they looked up a slender dark-backed, form slid again beneath the waters.
“Sea-trout?” asked Manson.
The superintendent shook his head. “No, Doctor,” he said. “It is a bit too early for sea-trout. Just an ordinary one. Must have weighed well over a pound. A whopper for here.”
“Yes. Manson made a mental note of the spot where the fish had risen. “That’s the one drawback to the fishing here; the trout are on the small side. Average is, I suppose, about three to the pound, eh, Superintendent?”
“I should say that is about right,” the officer agreed.
“What makes them so small, do you think? The water is sweet, there is a good flow, and plenty of timber for shade. Why should they keep on the small side and not grow up into three or four pounders like Berkshire and Hampshire?”
“Well, Doctor, it’s the flow that does it. There are a lot of trout here—too many, if you ask me. And they breed well. A trout, now, has to have food if it’s going to grow large. That is where our fast Cornish streams are bad. They run so swiftly that food doesn’t grow on the river bed. And then, the bed being shale and gravel, there is no soil for the roots of any weeds or grass to get a hold in. Take a look at the water here; there isn’t even so much as a bed of reeds or a single clump of aquatic flora. Fish must have feed to grow any size.”<
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“True. Have you tried planting any green stuff?”
“Lor bless you, yes. But it doesn’t grow. When it gets big enough to offer resistance to the stream, the current swishes it out of the gravel. No, the only way to increase the size of the fish here is to reduce the number of the fish. Then the remaining ones would have a little more share of the scanty food there is.”
“But not so much sport for the fisherman?”
“As you say, Doctor, not so much sport.”
At the top of the Meeting Pool the scientist stopped. “Unless you want to do anything, Superintendent, we may as well cut across the fields and get back to the car. There is nothing further here that can help me at the moment.”
The car put the trio down at the entrance to the Tremarden Arms. The superintendent turned in the direction of the police station, but was stopped by Manson. “You had better come up, Superintendent, and have a drink. I dare say you could do with a beer, eh?”
“It would not come amiss,” was the reply, as the Cornish chief mopped a brow. “It’s going to be a scorcher a bit later on.”
In their room, Merry poured out three glasses of ale. He passed two of them round. “Well, here’s good health, Super,” said Manson, raising his glass.
“And good luck, Doctor.” The superintendent took a deep draught. Eyeing the remains appreciatively he put his glass on the mantelpiece above him.
A chink caused him to look up, and he moved the glass forward away from contact with a jar at the back of the mantelpiece. “What the deuce have you got there, Doctor?” he asked.
“Where? Oh! In the jar? That is some of the contents of the colonel’s lungs. I’m going to test it later on.” He crossed to the mantelpiece and looked down at the jar. “Not that there is likely to—”
The words broke off suddenly. The superintendent, glancing up at the pause, saw the scientist staring hard at the jar.
“Merry!”
Manson called the sergeant over. “Do you see what I see?” he asked.
The sergeant directed his gaze at the exhibit, noting the foreign particles floating in the liquid. But it was not until he looked into the jar from above that he noticed the layer of sediment at the bottom. He glanced across at the scientist, a query in the look. Manson nodded a reply.
“But, Doctor,” the sergeant was puzzled, “wouldn’t you expect to find it. Impurities in the water, taken in with the breath, would naturally sink to the bottom after the jar has been standing for a time.”
“That is just the point, Merry,” was the retort. Taking the utmost care not to disturb the contents, Manson lifted up one of the jars to the light and peered closely at the deposit. With equal care, he placed it on the table. From the Box of Tricks he produced an empty jar and a length of thin rubber tubing of the kind used with the old-fashioned baby’s feeding bottle. “Siphon the liquid out, Merry,” he said; and the sergeant took charge of the apparatus.
Probing again into the Box of Tricks, the scientist lifted out an electric “Bunsen” burner, and his microscope. He dipped a glass rod into the sediment now left in the jar after the siphoning and transferred a little of the matter to a microscope slide. Then, plugging in the flex of the “Bunsen” burner, he placed the jar and stand over it, and switched on the heat. While the sediment was evaporating dry, Manson inspected the fragment on the microscope slide. In its enlarged form through the eyepiece it magnified into some kind of crystals. Making a note of his conclusions, Manson placed it aside.
Similar examination was then made of the now dry sediment from the Bunsen jar—with like result, except that there was matter among it decidedly not crystal form; but rather mushy, and reflecting a greenish tint. Manson stared hard at this, but beyond a muttered “Curious,” he made no comment. He was careful, however, to empty the now dusty sediment into a seed envelope, and to label it exactly, placing the receptacle, when sealed, into the Box of Tricks.
The superintendent, who had followed the experiment with lively curiosity, now sought enlightenment.
Manson shook his head. “There is nothing I can say positively just yet, Superintendent,” he replied. “But I think we will have a talk over the case this afternoon. There are several things which we ought to discuss in the light of what has transpired from our inquiries. And I think that the Chief Constable should be present. Perhaps you can arrange that.”
“Where would you like the chat, Doctor? Here, or in the station?”
“If Sir William doesn’t mind, it would be more convenient to have it here.”
The three men then parted for lunch.
* * * * *
Sir William Polglaze was not the man to bear animosity; and when, shortly after lunch, he walked into Doctor Manson’s sitting-room, he shook hands warmly and, glancing at the table still holding the impedimenta of the pre-lunch experiments, asked, jocularly: “How’s Tricks?”
“That, Sir William, is exactly what I want to talk about. Take an armchair; and what about a cigar and a liqueur, eh?” He passed over his case and, pouring out a trio of Benedictine, handed them round to his guests. Cigars lit, he commenced the consultation.
“I think, Sir William, that my investigations have now reached a stage when we should start some inquiries into the people who encircled the colonel,” he said. “And that is a job for you and your Force. When I have finished laying certain aspects of the case before you, I think you will see the reasons for such inquiries.
“You will remember that the official view of the colonel’s death at first was that he had fallen in the river at the spot we have seen on the bank, and that in doing so he had hit his head on a boulder at the edge of the water, and had entered the water unconscious. You will know that, from the beginning, I had not agreed with that theory. The post-mortem which convinced you, served only to strengthen my contrary opinion.”
The Chief Constable nodded; and a rueful smile accompanied the nod.
“I do not know whether the Commissioner told you his reasons for taking my view; but perhaps I had better run over them briefly. It will make my subsequent remarks more comprehensible. Very well, then. Dr. Tremayne’s report said that the blow on the head was accidental, and had occurred as the colonel went into the water. The unconscious Colonel would have died within a few seconds of entering the water. The state and colouring of the bruise, as the Home Office Expert confirmed, was consistent only with it having been inflicted from half to three-quarters of an hour before death. The water content and the state of the lungs of the colonel again, were inconsistent with Tremayne’s conclusions.
“Very well. I began investigations on the assumption that the affair was not an accident. Not, mark you, because Tremayne had been said to be wrong. I had hoped that the doctor would have confirmed my earlier suspicions. They had begun before the post-mortem. The state of the bank at the fatal spot had intrigued me considerably, particularly the marks made by the colonel in his descent. You will remember that there were scores, or indentations, in the ground at intervals—parallel scores, as though made by a pair of sliding heels.”
“I saw them, Doctor. They were quite plainly marked.”
“Too plainly marked I thought at the time, Sir William. That was the first mistake the person responsible made. Most murderers DO make mistakes, thank goodness.”
“And this mistake, Doctor?” The Chief Constable leaned forward. “I confess I do not see it.”
“To-day, Burns here, Merry and I, carried out a certain experiment at the spot. I feel sure it convinced the superintendent.”
Burns nodded vigorously.
“The result of that was merely to demonstrate what I was sure of at the time of the tragedy, and which I had to convince you people—namely, that nobody, however hard he was jerked over the edge, could go full length down that bank dragging his heels in parallel scratches, broken at intervals, with an appreciable distance between. The falling body would. . . . What would it do, Superintendent?”
“The body would begin at onc
e to roll after striking the ground,” was the prompt and emphatic reply.
The Chief Constable stared. Then: “By God, of course it would, Doctor!”
Manson bowed. “That is, of course, what I had realised from the first. Now, having at last established that fact, let us turn to the reason for the marks. What, Sir William, would in your view, produce such heel marks, bearing in mind that they could not have been made by a falling body?”
The Chief Constable jerked himself forward. “By jove, Doctor, I’m beginning to see what you’re getting at. The man was dragged down the bank by the shoulders with the heels trailing. That’s it of course. Damn us for blind bats!”
Sergeant Merry chuckled out loud at this tribute to his chief. Manson, however, gave no sign of gratification. Instead, he wore an air almost of despondency. “That was the conclusion which I came to—unfortunately,” he said.
“Unfortunately?” echoed the superintendent.
“Yes, unfortunately, Superintendent, BECAUSE I WAS WRONG. I committed an offence which I am always condemning in others; I theorised without first probing for the facts. It was not until to-day that I paid close attention to those heel-marks. Then the superintendent, and Merry and I explored them fully. We took casts of them.”