The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 16

"On the contrary," declared Kent, "facts in this case are as plentiful as blackberries. The trouble is that we have no pail to put them in."

"Maybe we could borrow Len Schlager's," suggested the lawyer dryly.

Kent received this with a subdued snort. "It is remarkable that the newspapers haven't sent men down on such a sensational case," he said.

"On the contrary to you, sir," retorted Bain, "so much fake stuff has come out of Lonesome Cove that the papers discount any news from here."

"All the better. The only thing that worries me more than the stupidity of professional detectives is the shrewdness of trained reporters. At least we can work this out in our own way."

"We don't seem to be getting much of anywhere," complained Sedgwick.

"Complicated cases don't clear themselves up in a day," remarked Kent.

"In this one we've got opponents who know more than we do."

"Schlager?" asked the lawyer.

"And Doctor Breed. Also, I think, Gansett Jim. What do you think, Mr.

Bain, is the mainspring of the sheriff's action?"

"Money," said the lawyer with conviction. "He's as crooked as a snake with the colic."

"Would it require much money to influence him?"

"As much as he could get. If the case was in the line of blackmail, he'd hold out strong. He's shrewd."

"Doctor Breed must be getting some of it."

"Oh, Tim Breed is Len's little dog. He takes orders. Of course he'll take money too, if it comes his way. Like master, like man."

"Those two," said Kent slowly, "know the ident.i.ty of the body. For good and sufficient reasons, they are keeping that information to themselves.

Those reasons we aren't likely to find out from them."

"Murderer has bribed 'em," opined Bain.

"Possibly. But that presupposes that the sheriff found something on the body which led him to the murderer, which isn't likely. How improbable it is that a murderer-allowing, for argument, that there has been murder-who would go as far as to cover his trail and the nature of the crime by binding the body on a grating, would overlook anything like a letter incriminating himself!"

"What did the sheriff find, then, in the dead woman's pocket?"

"Perhaps a handkerchief with a distinctive mark."

"And that would lead him to the ident.i.ty of the body?"

"Presumably. Also to some one, we may a.s.sume, who was willing to pay roundly to have that ident.i.ty concealed."

"That would naturally be the murderer, wouldn't it?" asked Sedgwick.

"No. I don't think so."

"It looks to me so," said the lawyer. "He's the one naturally interested in concealment."

"I'm almost ready to dismiss the notion of a murderer at all."

"Why so?" demanded both the others.

"Because there was no murder, probably."

"How do you make that out?" queried Bain.

"From the nature of the wounds that caused death."

"They look to me to be just such wounds as would be made by a blow with a heavy club."

"Several blows with a heavy club might have caused such wounds. But the blows would have had to be delivered peculiarly. A circle on the skull, six inches in diameter, impinging on the right ear, is crushed in. If you can imagine a man swinging a baseball bat at the height of his shoulder, repeatedly and with great force, at the victim's head, you can infer such a crus.h.i.+ng in of the bone. My imagination hardly carries me so far."

"Beating down from above would be the natural way," said Bain.

"Certainly. No such blow ever made that wound."

"Then how was it made?" asked Sedgwick.

"Probably by a fall from the cliff to the rocks below."

"And the fall broke the manacle from the right wrist?"

"The broken manacle was never on the right wrist."

"That's merely conjecture," said the lawyer.

"No; it's certainty. A blow heavy enough to break that iron, old as it is, must have left a mark on the flesh. There was no mark."

"Why should any one put one handcuff on a woman and leave the other dangling?"

"Suppose the other was not left dangling?"

"Where was it, then?"

"On the wrist of some other person, possibly."

"A man had chained the woman to himself?" said Sedgwick incredulously.

"More probably the other way round."

"That's even more unbelievable."

"Not if you consider the evidence. You will remember that your mysterious visitor, while talking with you, carried a heavy bundle. The manacles were, I infer, in that."

"But what conceivable motive could the dead woman have in dressing herself up like a party, going to meet a man, and chaining him to herself?"