Well-lined with eggs and bacon and marmalade, Michael Prendergast
walked out of the inn into the market-place, and prepared to take a
constitutional. He strolled in a leisurely way, basking in the lovely
morning, along the High Street, which sloped slightly up to the
bridge over the river, to the cross-roads, where diverged the road to
Loring Grange, the home of the chief of the local gentry. He ambled
gently in and out of the chestnut trees; stopped to pat a nondescript
dog which was too contented already to make more than the most meagre
of responses; lounged into the barber’s and bought some shaving-soap
for no particular reason; and was regaled in return with selections
of the morning’s gossip. There had been a railway accident somewhere
in America--“terrible, how many them foreign railways kill.” The
wireless last night had given some advice to farmers, which the
farmers of Tollesbury neighbourhood very much resented:
“His wife and he’s got fourteen kids,
But a can’t keep flies off tarmits,”
the barber quoted scornfully. Mr. Wallace Burden had run over a pig
at South Meadon, and the owner was going up to the Grange to demand
compensation--“His girl wants to get on films, so she does,” etc.,
etc. Michael stayed in the shop until he felt well-soaked, and then
wandered on up one of the side-streets, where the pleasantest old
houses stood, until he came to that belonging to a Mr. Brandreth,
an old retired solicitor, whose habit of dropping in to the Old
Malting House for a pipe and a gossip had thrown him once or twice
in Michael’s way. Michael had half intended to stop and chat; he
found old Brandreth an amusing character in his way, and he had some
thoughts of making judicious inquiries about Mark Warden’s firm. But
when he got to the lawyer’s gate he saw the latter in conversation
with so unprepossessing a man that he changed his mind, and walked on
into the country, idly wondering what Brandreth could have in common
with a man who looked like the more disreputable type of city tout.
Even his bowler, Michael thought, apart from his loud check tweeds
and his roving eye, would have induced any one to give him a wide
berth. But Brandreth appeared to be having quite a chat with him.
“Still,” Michael thought, “I suppose solicitors, even ex-solicitors,
must come into contact with a good many shady customers”; and he
remembered vaguely having heard his landlord mention that Brandreth
was something of a thorn in the side of the local bench, as he had
an incurable propensity for taking up the causes of those accused of
crimes, which the said bench held most unpardonable. “I wouldn’t take
up that chap’s case, though, not if you gave me a thousand pounds,”
said Michael to himself. “However, the old boy’s tastes aren’t any
business of mine.”
His walk led him in a half-circle round the outskirts of the little
town, and eventually back to the far end of the bridge near by his
own inn. It was not yet quite time for lunch, and as, in accordance
with principle, he had duly sampled the bitters provided by the two
pubs which he had passed, he saw no reason to waste the sunshine by
going indoors. Instead, he sat down on a ledge of one of the stone
embrasures, lit a pipe, and gave himself up to meditation; and
what with the pipe, the sun, and the bitters, he became so nearly
unconscious of his surroundings that, when a shout of “Hi, mister!”
rent the air, he started up so abruptly that he almost lost his
balance and fell in the river.
But the shout was not meant for him. It appeared to be meant for a
rubicund man with a clay pipe in his mouth, who was standing almost
at his elbow, staring down at a little steam-tug which was just about
to pass under the bridge. With rather a sense of having made a fool
of himself, Michael realised that he must have been fairly sound
asleep to let the rubicund gentleman get so close to him without
noticing, for when he sat down, neither he nor the tug had been in
sight. As his senses slowly returned, he perceived that the shout had
come from a man standing on the deck of the tug, which was pulling a
couple of coal-barges down-stream.
“Eh?” said the man on the bridge, without removing his pipe from his
mouth.
“Where be doctor?” shouted the man in the tug.
“Doctor’s up along Mrs. Clellan’s,” was the reply. “What’s the
matter, Jarge? Been swallerin’ weeds?”
“Ain’t been swallerin’ nothin’,” Jarge replied, with a guffaw.
“Bill’s gone an’ fished up a carpse for doctor.”
“Carpse! Holy Moses!” said the man on the bridge, and began to move
in a lumbering fashion towards the scene of action. Michael followed
him, his professional instincts fully awakened at the word.
“Eh? What’s that you say?” said a new voice, as the landlord of the
Old Malting House strolled up to the bridge and leaned over.
“Carpse ’e’s fished up, ’e ’as,” said Jarge, obviously proud of his
own importance. “You like to have a look at her, Mr. Wason? She came
from along your place.”
“I’ll come down,” said the landlord. “Pull into the tow-path, will
you? And you, Tommy”--catching hold of an urchin in the roadway--“get
up along Mrs. Clellan’s and tell Doctor Kershaw he’s wanted here,
will you? Some one’s fallen in the river. Look sharp, my lad.” The
urchin was off at top speed almost before the words were out of his
mouth, and Wason, with Michael and the man with the pipe, made his
way rapidly down to the tow-path on the far side of the bridge, and
stood there expectant, while with much puffing and blowing the tug
put about and drew its train in to the bank.
“I’d better have a look at the body,” Michael said to Wason, “just
in case Dr. Kershaw can’t be found. The poor fellow may not be dead.
I’m a doctor,” he added for the benefit of the company. Jarge gave
another loud guffaw.
“You can look at ’un and welcome,” he said. “Ain’t our private
exhibition. But he’s dead enough, you’ll find. Been a-soaking for
days, looks like. He’s in the tail-barge, thar. Bill!” A man who was
squatting in the tail-barge looked up inquiringly. “Gent wants to
see carpse. Says he’s a doctor,” he added.
“Let ’un,” said Bill, who seemed to be of a taciturn and incurious
disposition; for he said nothing else, but sat and sucked at his
pipe while Michael and Wason with some difficulty scrambled into the
hindermost barge. The body lay on its face, covered with mud and
slime.
“Well, _he’s_ dead enough,” said the landlord. “Not much for you
there, sir.”
There was certainly no doubt that the man was dead, and had been in
the water for some time. The clothes were sodden and besmirched, and
the legs covered with mire and waterweed, though the upper part of
the body was comparatively free.
“Give me a hand with him, will you?” said Michael, going down on his
knees and beginning to turn the body over. Wason, looking as if he
did not particularly relish the job, bent down and took hold; but as
the body slowly turned over, and the swollen, discoloured face came
into view, he gave an exclamation and all but let it fall back again.
“Good God! Why, it’s Mr. Meston!”
“What’s that, Sam?” With a bound of surprising agility, considering
his bulk, the stout onlooker sprang into the barge, and gazed down at
the corpse’s face.
“Holy Moses!” he said again.
Michael looked down at the body. Whether or no he would, unprompted,
have recognised in that horrid misshapen thing his morose
fellow-visitor, there was no doubt that the landlord was right. This
was William Meston--dead. And how had he come by his death?
“Some one’ll have to tell his wife,” Wason was saying.
“Aye, that’s right,” said the rubicund gentleman. “_Somebody_ will.”
For some reason this observation appeared to strike him as extremely
humorous, for he gurgled and slapped his thigh several times.
“_Somebody’ll_ have to tell her, eh? Lard, think o’ that there Meston
a-going and getting hisself drarned! Insured for a tidy bit, too,
I’ll be bound. Eh, Sam?”
“He’s been dead some time. Three or four days at least,” said
Michael, looking up from his examination.
“Strikes me,” the landlord said reflectively, “as though he must just
’a’ walked off the tow-path into the river the minute he left the
inn, and got drowned. Hasn’t paid his bill, neither, I don’t mind
telling you.”
“Couldn’t ’a’ done that neither,” said the rubicund one, looking
along the flat line of the tow-path, “not unless he’d had _a drop
taken_. And _you’ve_ reason to know he never had, Sam.”
“That’s true. He wasn’t no good for trade, poor gentleman,” the
landlord said. “Nevertheless there he is, fallen in.”
“Fallen in!” said the other scornfully. “Where’s your knowledge of
yooman nature, Sam? Sooicide, that’s what it is. ’E done ’isself in,
along of ’is wife’s goings-on at the Grange. It’s God’s judgment on
the Scarlet Woman, that’s what it is.”
“Now, you shut up, Walter,” said the landlord. “It’s not decent,
going on that way, and his body hardly fished up yet. There’s plenty
of ways a man can fall into a river without being drunk. Lard, if
you was to live along this river same as I do, you wouldn’t need to
wonder the fool things folks can do, and they as sober as charches.
What do you say, sir? Did he fall in? Though I suppose it isn’t
hardly a medical point, so to speak?”
“It was sooicide,” Walter repeated obstinately. “Now, in the first
place, ’e was drarned. You grant me that, eh?” He waved his pipe at
the landlord to emphasise his argument.
“Oh, aye, I grant you that,” the latter replied.
“But that’s exactly what I don’t grant either of you,” Michael
interrupted. With one ear on the dialogue, he had been making a hasty
examination of the body. “He wasn’t drowned.”
Both his hearers gaped.
“Garn!” said Walter, indicating the corpse with his foot. “Tell me
_that_ ain’t drarned?”
Wason approached nearer the corpse and scratched his head. “I don’t
belong to London,” he said, “but I’ve seen drowned men, and I ain’t
often seen a drowneder.”
“Oh, he’s been in the water all right,” Michael said, “if that’s what
you mean. But----”
“What’s all this?” an educated voice interrupted in a sharp,
impatient tone; and a man on a bicycle shot down the tow-path, and
sprang on the barge, flinging the bicycle into the thistles. “What’s
all this? And what are you all doing here?”
“It’s Mr. Meston, doctor,” Wason volunteered. “He’s drowned--at
least----”
“Oh, is it?” Dr. Kershaw, if it was he, responded abruptly. “Well,
that’s as may be. But it doesn’t tell me who all these other people
are.”
“My name’s Prendergast,” said Michael. “I happened to be here when
the body was found, and I came on board to see if there was anything
to be done for him.” He produced his professional card, at which the
other barely glanced before thrusting it away into a pocket.
“Well, my name’s Kershaw,” he said, without reciprocating the
courtesy; “and this appears to be my business. I’m the police-surgeon
hereabouts; and the man’s obviously dead. So I don’t think I need
trouble you any longer, Dr. Prendergast.” He knelt down beside the
body, but immediately gave an irritated twitch of his shoulders, like
a man pestered with flies. “How the hell can I do my job, with half a
hundred of you crowding round? Keep back, will you?”
Michael stepped back obediently, but only a little way, for he was
very much interested in the result of Dr. Kershaw’s examination. The
latter felt the man over rapidly, with long, nervous fingers.
“Where’d you find him?” he asked Bill, who had never moved from his
seat.
“Up along thar,” Bill replied, taking his pipe from his mouth and
pointing vaguely up-stream. “Long of Malting House Wharf. Something
fouled t’ barges, an’ Jarge ’e said ’e seen a face looking up in
water, and I hooked ’un up wi’ boat-hook. Darn near broke my arm,
too,” said Bill in an injured tone.
“See, sir,” Jarge put in, “I was up forward, an’ first we hit summat,
and then I seen ’er in the water; and there wasn’t ’ardly any way on,
so we stopped a’most dead. And Bill could reach ’un, so I calls to
him to haul ’un in.”
“Near broke my arm, too,” Bill repeated sourly.
“Whew-w!” the landlord of the Old Malting House whistled. “Right
thar by my inn, did you? Why, it looks a’most as though he must have
fallen in clean out of his own windows. The water’s deep thar, sir,”
he said to the doctor, “and there’s nothing to climb out by.”
“It was sooicide,” said Walter firmly. “Threw ’isself out of window.
That’s my view, doctor.”
Dr. Kershaw looked round with increased irritation. “Nobody asked
your views, Hicks,” he said. “Here he is drowned. It’s the coroner’s
job to say how or why. You go and tell Linton to hurry up with that
stretcher.”
“Excuse me,” Michael, still rather sore at his summary dismissal,
interrupted, “but are you sure he was drowned?”
Kershaw swung round fiercely at him. “What! _another_ of you!” he
said. “This isn’t a public demonstration.”
“It looks to me,” Michael said, as mildly as he could manage, “as if
the cause of death was not drowning but a broken neck. You can see
his neck’s broken.”
The police doctor snorted. “Are you suggesting I don’t know my
business? Of course I can see his neck’s broken.”
“Broke it when he fell, likely,” said the landlord.
“Just so,” said the doctor.
“Do you mean he hit his head?” Michael asked. “Is there a blow? I
didn’t see----”
“I don’t know what there is or there isn’t, till I’ve had a proper
look at him,” Kershaw snapped. “And, in any case, I don’t conduct
examinations on the decks of barges. I do my work in the mortuary.
Oh, there you are at last, Linton,” he said to a police-sergeant who
had just appeared with two constables and a stretcher. “Get this body
to the mortuary at once, will you? They say it’s Mr. Meston’s. These
two men found it. I suppose you’ll make a note of where it was, and
how they found it, won’t you? And somebody ought to take a message
to Mrs. Meston up at the Grange. And you might clear this lot away.
We don’t want people hanging about. If you’ll get the body to the
mortuary quickly, I’ll have a look at it there. Oh, confound you, get
out of the road!” He had leaped ashore and picked up his bicycle as
he spoke, and the exclamation was directed to a crowd of sightseers,
who were endeavouring to push their way along the tow-path. Foremost
among them, Michael recognised the tout-like person whom he had last
seen at Mr. Brandreth’s gate.
“For God’s sake,” said Kershaw to one of the constables, “clear this
lot of gapers out!”
“Nah, then, get a move on, boys,” said the constable.
The tout-like person plucked at Kershaw’s sleeve. “Beg pardon,
doctor,” he said in a voice that admirably fitted his clothes, “but
did I understand you to say that was Mr. Meston’s body?”
“Why, do you know him?” Kershaw asked impatiently.
“No, but I’m very interested in his whereabouts,” the man replied,
“--for reasons.”
“Well, if you don’t know him you’re no use here,” Kershaw said. “It’s
none of my business to say who he was. I’m not the coroner. If you
want to know who he was you’d better attend the inquest. I expect
they’ll know his identity by then. Now, then, out of the way, all of
you. I’m in a hurry.” And with a final curse he succeeded in pushing
his bicycle through the crowd, and a moment later the bell was heard
furiously ringing as he crossed the bridge.
“It _is_ Mr. Meston, though, all right,” said Wason to the
discomfited inquirer. “You needn’t worry about that. It’s him.”
“Oh, indeed,” the man said, licking his lips. “And he’s dead, is he?
How did he come to die, might I ask?”
“Well, now, that’s a bit of a puzzler, seemingly,” Wason said,
beginning to assume a pontifical air. “You and me, seeing him come
out of the water like that, we’d say he was drowned and no mistaking.
But this gentleman,” indicating Michael, “he’s a doctor, and _he_
says he broke his neck. You’re quite sure he wasn’t drowned, aren’t
you, sir?” he added.
“Quite’s a big word,” said Michael; “and I didn’t get much of a look
at him. But I’m pretty sure it was the broken neck that killed him,
and I shall be surprised if Dr. Kershaw doesn’t say the same when
he’s finished his examination. But you needn’t spread this about,
you know,” he said rather sharply to the man in the bowler, who was
goggling at the information, “or you, Wason. I don’t want to find
myself involved in a row with Dr. Kershaw, and, judging from his
amiable manners, I should say he wouldn’t be slow in starting one.”
The landlord chuckled. “He’s a rough-tongued one, and no mistake.
There’s plenty about’ll say the same. I should think he’d a touch of
his liver this morning, though. I’ve not often seen him so sharp.”
“Sharp with me,” Michael muttered; “but not very sharp with the
corpse.”
“Oh, he’s no fool, Dr. Kershaw,” Wason assured him.