Christopher Quarles Part 32

"They do not. Mr. Ferguson was here nearly the whole of yesterday, and he told me there was nothing to suggest that the doctor was in difficulties, or that he contemplated taking his own life. His will was found. He leaves everything to his wife, but Mr. Ferguson said there was not much to leave beyond his life policy."

"That represents a large sum," I said.

"Does it? I'm glad for Mrs. Smith's sake. Mr. Ferguson didn't mention the amount. I wish it had been large enough for the doctor to think of leaving me a bit. At my age a man doesn't easily get another job."

In the afternoon I met Quarles, and we went to look at the coves. Even at high water it was possible to walk round them by means of a fairly wide ledge of rock. I showed him where the boat had been kept, pointed out an oar and a boathook lying on the ledge, but he took only a perfunctory interest, and spent much more time examining the adjoining coves and the projecting spur of rock which ran out to sea. He scrambled out to the end of this spur and seemed interested in the waves breaking upon it; then he turned and surveyed the land, taking a pair of gla.s.ses from his pocket to examine the general contour of the coast more clearly.

"It would be under that point yonder where the body was found," he said.

"Yes."

"It is possible to walk round the rocks to that point, I suppose?"

"Yes, but----"

"Oh, I am not going to do it," he answered. "I was only wondering why old Clay was so certain that a body could not be washed ash.o.r.e there.

Has anything further happened since we parted yesterday?"

I told him about Mrs. Smith's visitor.

"You didn't catch sight of him, Wigan?"

"He had gone before I arrived."

"I wonder if he knew anything about the doctor."

"Are you not yet satisfied that this is not the difficult case about which you had a presentiment?" I asked.

"No," was the sharp answer as he replaced the gla.s.ses in his pocket.

"I'm going back to Chelsea to think about it. Found drowned; that will be the verdict of the inquest to-morrow, but that won't prove anything. Mrs. Smith is going to leave Riversmouth, you say?"

"So Evans told me."

"The moment she moves have her watched," said Quarles. "Put the best man you have on to the job. It is likely to be a long business, and in the meanwhile a hint might be given to the insurance company not to be in too great a hurry to pay over the money."

"Would you have Patrick Evans watched, too?" I asked, a little sarcasm in my tone, perhaps, for any suspicion of Mrs. Smith seemed to me ridiculous.

"No. You can let him go where he likes; he is all right," and he looked at me steadily for a moment.

I knew what was pa.s.sing through his mind. Quite recently he had become interested in a case which was in my hands. He had opposed my solution of the difficulty with another which contradicted me at every point, and we had almost quarreled about it, when a new fact came to light, proving that he was altogether wrong. Even Christopher Quarles was not infallible. Evidently he had noticed the sarcasm in my voice, and would have me remember how often he had been right.

In the Riversmouth case, I argued, the professor was hampered by circ.u.mstances. He had got it into his brain that he was called upon to deal with a difficult problem, and very naturally he saw difficulties where there were none. I knew from my own experience that for a detective a preconceived idea is deadly. He can only see things from one point of view. I was convinced this was Quarles's position, and the straightforward evidence given at the inquest next day only confirmed this conviction.

If doubt remained in anyone's mind as to the ident.i.ty of the body, it was settled beyond all question. A large sum of money being involved, the insurance company sent down an official who had seen Dr. Smith when he called about taking out a policy. He recognized the dead man at once. Quarles was not even right as regards the verdict. The doctor's evidence suggested that there were certain signs of a struggle which one would not expect to find in a deliberate suicide, but which were natural if a man tried to save himself from drowning.

This, and there being no reason why Dr. Smith should have taken his own life, and the conviction of his wife and his a.s.sistant that he was not the kind of man to do such a thing, so impressed the jury that they returned a verdict of accidental death by drowning.

Here would have been an end of the case had not the insurance company raised difficulties and made all sorts of excuses to delay the payment of the money. Criticism was aroused; letters appeared in the papers.

The company stated that they were acting on the advice of their solicitors, and then someone suggested that solicitors of such standing as the firm mentioned would hardly persevere in such advice unless the police authorities were behind them. So police methods were criticized by all kinds of people anxious to rush into print, and since I was the immediate cause of the trouble, acting on Christopher Quarles's advice, I grew a little anxious.

Mrs. Smith had come to London and was staying at a boarding house in Bloomsbury, a most injured woman by common consent. From the moment she had left Riversmouth I had had her watched, and nothing had happened. Why had I set a spy upon her movements? Because I had listened to Quarles in that empty room at Chelsea.

Two days after the inquest I went to see the professor. He had read the account in the papers.

"You see it was not 'Found drowned,'" I said.

"I thought it would be," he returned. "A momentary ray of light illumined those twelve good men, and they agreed that it could not be suicide."

"Of course it might have been an accident," I said, "but I don't think the evidence justified the verdict."

"A strange case, Wigan, and very difficult because it seems so easy.

There are one or two curious points to begin with. Practically no one in Riversmouth knew Dr. Smith. He seldom went outside his own grounds.

It is reasonable to a.s.sume, therefore, that he was a peculiar man. He bought a boat because it happened to be a bargain, his wife thinks, suggesting that spending his money in this way to no purpose was a hobby with him; yet we hear nothing of any other bargains to support the idea. Until we have evidence to the contrary, then, we may a.s.sume that some idea was in his mind when he bought the boat. He didn't forget all about its existence, remember, because twice during the summer he sent his a.s.sistant out in it, and the a.s.sistant p.r.o.nounces it a very good boat and easy to manage. Now, what possessed Dr. Smith to go for a sail on that particular day and at that time of the day?

He was certainly not an ardent yachtsman."

"Since he was peculiar, it is naturally difficult to account for his actions," I said.

"A possible explanation," Quarles returned.

"He may always have had the idea of suicide at the back of his brain,"

said Zena. "It may have been in his mind when he bought the boat. If one lives near the sea and contemplates suicide, it would be natural to choose drowning."

"There is much in that argument," said the professor.

"It was in my mind when I said it was curious no body was washed up with the wreckage," said Zena.

"That remark of yours set me thinking," Quarles went on. "I wondered, Wigan, whether the doctor was on board the boat when she capsized, or whatever it was that happened to her. Now my wonder is increased. The waves had battered the boat to pieces, but when the body is found, caught on the rocks, it is comparatively uninjured."

"Doubtless it had been carried farther out to sea," I said.

"But it had to come ash.o.r.e, and the weather was stormy the whole time.

It could hardly have escaped altogether. There was something else to raise doubt. There were rents in the coat, rents which were all much alike, and a curious bulge in the collar of the coat. These things gave me a definite theory. The doctor was not in the boat, nor had he committed suicide."

"Are you suggesting murder?"

"I am."

"At the inquest the doctor distinctly said that there were no marks on the body to suggest he had been the victim of foul play. He was drowned; he was not killed first and put in the water afterward."

"I quite agree with the doctor's evidence," said Quarles, "but he is not a detective. Let me reconstruct what happened. Dr. Smith came to the cove either with a companion or to meet someone. Possibly the doctor had a drink, let us say from a bottle in the boat's locker. I do not press this point, but it would make the work easier. The companion pushed the doctor into the water, and with a boathook--there was one lying on the rocky ledge--he held him under until he drowned.

Once the hook was fixed into the collar of the coat it would be comparatively easy. Afterward a piece of rock tied to the body would keep it under water. I suggest this could be done with least danger in the cove next to the one where the boat was kept. It is deeper, darker, and would not be likely to receive so much attention when it became known that the doctor was missing. So the body would be securely hidden.

"Then the boat, as soon as it was dark enough, was towed out to the end of the spur and scuttled. The water is shallow there, and as soon as the wind got up it was battered to pieces and presently the wreckage came ash.o.r.e. Why shouldn't the body have been left to come ash.o.r.e too? you may ask. Old Clay is learned in the currents of this part of the coast, and he will tell you there is no certainty what will happen to wreckage. During a southwesterly gale it may be thrown up on the s.h.i.+ngle; at any other time it may be carried out to sea.

"At the time of the murder it was quite calm, and it was necessary that the body should be found. The murderer was in no hurry, and at first too many people went round to look at the coves for it to be safe for him to take any steps. But he got his opportunity probably on the night you spent in London when you first mentioned the case to me, you remember. He got up the body from its hiding-place, and with the boathook pulled it partly through the water and partly over the rocks, and fixed it in the place where it was found, the one place where Clay is certain wreckage never comes ash.o.r.e."

"I think the theory is fanciful, professor."

"I grant that only the brain of a master criminal could conceive such a crime. There was my difficulty. Where was this master criminal to be found?"