The Ponson Case. Freeman Wills Crofts

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СКАЧАТЬ and it looks like enough to me too.’

      ‘H’m,’ the sergeant mused, ‘seems reasonable.’ The sergeant knew more about sea currents than river. He had been brought up on the coast, and he had learnt that tidal currents having the same set will deposit objects at or about the same place. It seemed to him likely that a similar rule would apply to rivers. The body, boat, rudder, and bottom boards had all gone ashore at one place. The oars also were found not far apart, but they were a long way from the other things. What more likely than the boatman’s suggestion that the two lots of objects had become sufficiently divided in the upper reach to pass through different arches of the bridge? This would separate them completely enough to account for the positions in which they were found. Yes, it certainly seemed reasonable.

      And then another idea struck him, and he slapped his thigh.

      ‘By Jehosaphat, Cowan!’ he cried, ‘that’s just what’s happened, and it explains the only thing we didn’t know about the whole affair. Those oars went through the other arch right enough. And why? Why, because Sir William had lost them coming down the river. That’s why he was lost himself. I’ll lay you anything those oars got overboard, and he couldn’t find them in the dark.’

      To the sergeant, who was not without imagination, there came the dim vision of an old, grey-haired man, adrift, alone and at night, in a light skiff on the swirling flood—borne silently and resistlessly onward, while he struggled desperately in the shrouding darkness to recover the oars which had slipped from his grasp, and which were floating somewhere close by. He could almost see the man’s frantic, unavailing efforts to reach the bank, almost hear his despairing cries rising above the rush of the waters and the roar of the fall, as more and more swiftly he was swept on to his doom. Almost he could visualise the tossing, spinning boat disappear under the bridge, emerge, hang poised as if breathless for the fraction of a second above the fall, then with an unhurried, remorseless swoop, plunge into the boiling cauldron below. . . . A horrible fantasy truly, but to the sergeant it seemed a picture of the actual happening.

      But why, he wondered, had both the oars taken the other arch? It would have been easier to explain the loss of one. With an unskilful boatman such a thing not unfrequently occurred. But to lose both involved some special cause. Possibly, he thought, Sir William had had some sudden start, had moved sharply, almost capsizing the boat, and in making an involuntary effort to right it had let go with both hands.

      He was still puzzling over the problem when a note was handed him which, when he had read it, banished the matter of the oars from his mind, and turned his thoughts into a fresh direction. It ran:

      Luce Manor, Thursday.—Please come out here at once. An unfortunate development has arisen.—WALTER AMES.

      Without loss of time the sergeant took his bicycle and rode out the two miles to Luce Manor. Dr Ames was waiting impatiently, and drew the officer aside.

      ‘Look here, sergeant,’ he said. ‘I’m not very happy about this business. I want a post-mortem.’

      ‘A post-mortem sir?’ the other repeated in astonishment. ‘Why, sir, is there anything fresh turned up, or what has happened?’

      ‘Nothing has happened, but’—the doctor hesitated—‘the fact is I’m not certain of the cause of death.’

      The sergeant stared.

      ‘But is there any doubt, sir—you’ll excuse me, I hope—is there any doubt that he was drowned?’

      ‘That’s just what there is—a doubt and no more. A post-mortem will set it at rest.’

      The sergeant hesitated.

      ‘Of course, sir,’ he said slowly, ‘if you say that it ends the matter. But it’ll be a nasty shock for Mr Austin, sir.’

      ‘I can’t help that. See here,’ the doctor went on confidentially, ‘some of the obvious signs of drowning are missing, and he has had a blow on the back of the head that looks as if it might have killed him. I want to make sure which it was.’

      ‘But might he not have got that blow against a rock, sir?’

      ‘He might, but I’m not sure. But we’re only wasting time. To put the matter in a nutshell, I won’t give a certificate unless there is a post-mortem, and if one is not arranged now, it will be after my evidence at the inquest.’

      ‘Please don’t think, sir, I was in any way questioning your decision,’ the sergeant hastened to reply. ‘But I think I should first communicate with the chief constable. You see, sir, in the case of so prominent a family—’

      ‘You do what you think best about that, but if you take my advice you’ll ask the Scotland Yard people to send down one of their doctors to act with me.’

      ‘Bless me, sir! Is it as serious as that?’

      ‘Of course it’s serious,’ rapped out the doctor. ‘Sir William may have been drowned, in which case it’s all right; or he may not, in which case it’s all wrong—for somebody.’

      The sergeant’s manner changed.

      ‘I’ll go immediately, sir, and phone the chief constable, and then, if he approves, Scotland Yard. Where will you be, sir?

      ‘I have my work to attend to; I’m going home. You’ll find me there any time during the evening. And look here, sergeant. I’d rather you said nothing about this. There may be nothing at all in it.’

      ‘Trust me, sir,’ and with a salute the officer withdrew.

      He rode rapidly back to Halford, and once again calling up the chief constable, repeated what Dr Ames had said.

      The two men discussed the matter at some length, and it was at last decided that the chief constable should ring up the Yard and ask the opinion of the Authorities about sending down a doctor. In a short time there was a reply. Dr Wilgar and Inspector Tanner were motoring down, and would be at Luce Manor about eight o’clock. The sergeant went round to tell Dr Ames, and it was arranged that the latter should meet the London men there. In the meantime the sergeant was to see Austin Ponson, and break the disagreeable news to him.

      This programme was carried out, and shortly after ten o’clock five men met at the police station at Halford. There were the medical men, Inspector Tanner, the sergeant, and Chief Constable Soames, who had motored over.

      ‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the latter, when the preliminary greetings were past, ‘we are met here under unusual and tragic circumstances, which may easily become more serious still.’ He turned to the doctors. ‘You have completed the post-mortem, I understand?’

      ‘We have,’ replied Dr Wilgar.

      ‘And are you in agreement as to your conclusions?’

      ‘Completely.’

      ‘Perhaps then you would tell us what they are?’

      Wilgar bowed to Dr Ames, and the latter replied:

      ‘The first moment I glanced at the body the thought occurred to me that it had not exactly the appearance of a drowned man. But at that time I did not seriously doubt that death had so occurred. When, however, I came to make a more careful examination, the uncertainty again arose in my mind. There was none of the discolouration usual in such cases, and the wounds СКАЧАТЬ