“My dear Michael,” Wilson said, as they sat smoking in the
bar-parlour after tea, “if this is to be a busman’s holiday, I wish
you’d say so at once, and let me make off while there’s yet time.
First you inveigle me into an inn with a corpse on its doorstep, then
you repeat a lot of apparently malicious but wholly unintelligible
gossip, and, to crown it all, you seem determined to quarrel with the
local police-surgeon.”
“The man’s got the manners of a hog,” Michael said indignantly. “And
it looks to me as though his professional qualities were quite on
a par with his manners. He positively didn’t see the fellow’s neck
was broken, until I pointed it out! And then you’d have thought from
his tone I’d done him an injury instead of a service! These country
sawbones are a disgrace to the profession!”
At this point, Wilson, whose smile had been growing broader and
broader as Michael detailed his woes, chuckled outright. “This is
magnificently righteous indignation,” he said. “Or is it natural
irritation--and unsatisfied curiosity?”
“Well, nobody likes being talked to like that,” said Michael,
“especially when he’s in the right, and the man talking to him an
impudent ignoramus like Kershaw. And, of course, I wanted to have
the thing properly looked into. It’s an odd thing for a body to turn
up out of the river with a broken neck. Besides, what could he have
broken his neck on? The bottom’s all soft mud, hereabouts. And,
anyway, I’m not at all certain he broke his neck in a fall. There was
no sign of a contusion that I could see, and there must have been
if he’d hit something hard. But Kershaw was indignant at my even
suggesting he’d broken his neck.”
“Or annoyed at your indiscretion, perhaps?” his companion suggested.
“I suggest that he wanted to keep that tit-bit for the inquest. You
know--‘Is it your view that death was caused by drowning, doctor?’
‘No, sir, the man’s neck was broken!’ Sensation in Court. You
mustn’t grudge your country brother his little bit of publicity.
And seriously, I gather that Dr. Kershaw represents my profession
as well as yours; and mine, as you know, doesn’t believe in giving
the general public too much indiscriminate information. You were
indiscreet, Michael.” He smiled; but Michael was still in a blaze of
wrath.
“I wasn’t,” he said indignantly. “I didn’t call attention to anything
that any fool couldn’t have seen with half an eye. And, anyway, no
London police-surgeon would treat a colleague like that, I hope.”
“Alack! alack!” Wilson sighed. “How little you townsmen have to
know of the vanity and self-sufficiency of the provincial! Would
I could set up my plate in Baker Street, and never see a county
police-station again! All right, Michael, I was only pulling your
leg. I deeply sympathise. Let us agree that Dr. Kershaw is a cad and
a fool, and ought to be struck off the register. And now, that being
settled, will you tell me, really, why this body interests you?”
“You old hypocrite, you know perfectly well why it interests me and
why you are asking me all these questions about it. This fellow,
Meston, has got a broken neck. To the best of my belief, he didn’t
get it by falling in the river, but somehow on land. Well, _how_?
That’s what I want to know.”
“But, Michael, you can’t be sure. You may _think_ the bottom’s all
mud, but there may be a dozen snags half buried that you can’t see.
And you’re not a diver. You can’t possibly have examined the river
bottom for several hundreds of yards. For, of course, you don’t know
exactly where he fell in.”
“All the same,” Michael said obstinately, “he couldn’t have broken
his neck without hitting his head pretty hard on something. And if he
hit it there’d have been a cut or a bruise. And I couldn’t see one.”
“Even if you couldn’t, it doesn’t prove there wasn’t one. Unless
you’re certain? _Are_ you?”
“We-ell. Of course it all depends what you mean by certain. If that
Jack-in-office had let me make a proper examination I’d have been
absolutely certain. As it is, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t; but I
didn’t grasp what a puzzle it made until it was too late to get
another look at him. Damn the man!” said Michael, with a fresh access
of feeling.
“Well, well, never mind. It’s hard luck, I agree. But probably if you
go to the inquest, you’ll find it’s all clear. I expect there will
turn out to have been a contusion somewhere--probably hidden under
the hair. Water plays strange tricks with dead bodies. Anyway, I
suggest, now you’ve got it off your chest, that you put the whole
thing out of your mind for a bit. If there’s really anything wrong,
we shan’t get any forrarder without some more information. And this
evening’s really too lovely to waste. Hullo! who drives a racing
Talbot hereabouts?”
Looking out, Michael caught a glimpse of the lean scarlet car which
had crossed the bridge earlier in the day, and a flash of its owner’s
million-dollar profile.
“Wallace Burden,” he said. “He’ll be running over more pigs if he
isn’t careful. Oh!” Part of the cryptic conversation in the bar had
suddenly taken on a meaning to him.
“Who was that with him?” Wilson asked, without noticing the
exclamation.
“I didn’t see. You must have eyes like a hawk. Male or female?”
“Female. And a very good choice, I should say, as far as looks are
concerned.”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Meston, maybe--or the Scarlet Woman, which seems
to be her pet name in these parts.” Michael retailed a little more
gossip.
“I didn’t know you were such a scandal-monger, Michael,” Wilson said,
with amusement. “Can’t the poor lady, if it is she, come to look at
her husband’s remains without you goggling at her? Hullo! hullo! This
looks more like business.”
“What? I don’t see anything.”
Wilson pointed at a florid gentleman, of military appearance and
military step, who was striding towards them down the High Street.
“County Police, or I’m a Dutchman. And he appears to be coming here.”
“I hope he’s got more sense than his medical officer,” Michael
grumbled, as the military gentleman disappeared. A moment later a
maid-servant knocked at the door, with a card in an envelope, and a
message that the owner desired a few minutes’ conversation with Dr.
Prendergast. Michael held the card out to Wilson. It bore the name of
Colonel Lockwood.
“Chief of the County Police,” Wilson said. “They’re on your trail,
Michael. Will you see him here?”