British Murder Mysteries: J. S. Fletcher Edition (40+ Titles in One Volume). J. S. Fletcher

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СКАЧАТЬ and lay in the grass beside him. Near the pipe, spread on a coloured handkerchief, were the remains of his dinner—Bryce’s quick eye noticed fragments of bread, cheese, onions. And close by stood one of those tin bottles in which labouring men carry their drink; its cork, tied to the neck by a piece of string, dangled against the side. A few yards away, a mass of fallen rubbish and a shovel and wheelbarrow showed at what the sleeper had been working when his dinner-hour and time for rest had arrived.

      Something unusual, something curiously noticeable—yet he could not exactly tell what—made Bryce go closer to the sleeping man. There was a strange stillness about him—a rigidity which seemed to suggest something more than sleep. And suddenly, with a stifled exclamation, he bent forward and lifted one of the folded hands. It dropped like a leaden weight when Bryce released it, and he pushed back the man’s face and looked searchingly into it. And in that instant he knew that for the second time within a fortnight he had found a dead man in Wrychester Paradise.

      There was no doubt whatever that the man was dead. His hands and body were warm enough—but there was not a flicker of breath; he was as dead as any of the folk who lay six feet beneath the old gravestones around him. And Bryce’s practised touch and eye knew that he was only just dead—and that he had died in his sleep. Everything there pointed unmistakably to what had happened. The man had eaten his frugal dinner, washed it down from his tin bottle, lighted his pipe, leaned back in the warm sunlight, dropped asleep—and died as quietly as a child taken from its play to its slumbers.

      After one more careful look, Bryce turned and made through the trees to the path which crossed the old graveyard. And there, going leisurely home to lunch, was Dick Bewery, who glanced at the young doctor inquisitively.

      “Hullo!” he exclaimed with the freedom of youth towards something not much older. “You there? Anything on?”

      Then he looked more clearly, seeing Bryce to be pale and excited. Bryce laid a hand on the lad’s arm.

      “Look here!” he said. “There’s something wrong—again!—in here. Run down to the police-station—get hold of Mitchington—quietly, you understand!—bring him here at once. If he’s not there, bring somebody else—any of the police. But—say nothing to anybody but them.”

      Dick gave him another swift look, turned, and ran. And Bryce went back to the dead man—and picked up the tin bottle, and making a cup of his left hand poured out a trickle of the contents. Cold tea!—and, as far as he could judge, nothing else. He put the tip of his little finger into the weak-looking stuff, and tasted—it tasted of nothing but a super-abundance of sugar.

      He stood there, watching the dead man until the sound of footsteps behind him gave warning of the return of Dick Bewery, who, in another minute, hurried through the bushes, followed by Mitchington. The boy stared in silence at the still figure, but the inspector, after a hasty glance, turned a horrified face on Bryce.

      “Good Lord!” he gasped. “It’s Collishaw!”

      Bryce for the moment failed to comprehend this, and Mitchington shook his head.

      “Collishaw!” he repeated. “Collishaw, you know! The man I told you about yesterday afternoon. The man that said—”

      Mitchington suddenly checked himself, with a glance at Dick Bewery.

      “I remember—now,” said Bryce. “The mason’s labourer! So—this is the man, eh? Well, Mitchington, he’s dead!—I found him dead, just now. I should say he’d been dead five to ten minutes—not more. You’d better get help—and I’d like another medical man to see him before he’s removed.”

      Mitchington looked again at Dick.

      “Perhaps you’d fetch Dr. Ransford, Mr—Richard?” he asked. “He’s nearest.”

      “Dr. Ransford’s not at home,” said Dick. “He went to Highminster—some County Council business or other—at ten this morning, and he won’t be back until four—I happen to know that. Shall I run for Dr. Coates?”

      “If you wouldn’t mind,” said Mitchington, “and as it’s close by, drop in at the station again and tell the sergeant to come here with a couple of men. I say!” he went on, when the boy had hurried off, “this is a queer business, Dr. Bryce! What do you think?”

      “I think this,” answered Bryce. “That man!—look at him!—a strong, healthy-looking fellow, in the very prime of life—that man has met his death by foul means. You take particular care of those dinner things of his—the remains of his dinner, every scrap—and of that tin bottle. That, especially. Take all these things yourself, Mitchington, and lock them up—they’ll be wanted for examination.”

      Mitchington glanced at the simple matters which Bryce indicated. And suddenly he turned a half-frightened glance on his companion.

      “You don’t mean to say that—that you suspect he’s been poisoned?” he asked. “Good Lord, if that is so—”

      “I don’t think you’ll find that there’s much doubt about it,” answered Bryce. “But that’s a point that will soon be settled. You’d better tell the Coroner at once, Mitchington, and he’ll issue a formal order to Dr. Coates to make a post-mortem. And,” he added significantly, “I shall be surprised if it isn’t as I say—poison!”

      “If that’s so,” observed Mitchington, with a grim shake of his head, “if that really is so, then I know what I shall think! This!” he went on, pointing to the dead man, “this is—a sort of sequel to the other affair. There’s been something in what the poor chap said—he did know something against somebody, and that somebody’s got to hear of it—and silenced him. But, Lord, doctor, how can it have been done?”

      “I can see how it can have been done, easy enough,” said Bryce. “This man has evidently been at work here, by himself, all the morning. He of course brought his dinner with him. He no doubt put his basket and his bottle down somewhere, while he did his work. What easier than for some one to approach through these trees and shrubs while the man’s back was turned, or he was busy round one of these corners, and put some deadly poison into that bottle? Nothing!”

      “Well,” remarked Mitchington, “if that’s so, it proves something else—to my mind.”

      “What!” asked Bryce.

      “Why, that whoever it was who did it was somebody who had a knowledge of poison!” answered Mitchington. “And I should say there aren’t many people in Wrychester who have such knowledge outside yourselves and the chemists. It’s a black business, this!”

      Bryce nodded silently. He waited until Dr. Coates, an elderly man who was the leading practitioner in the town, arrived, and to him he gave a careful account of his discovery. And after the police had taken the body away, and he had accompanied Mitchington to the police-station and seen the tin bottle and the remains of Collishaw’s dinner safely locked up, he went home to lunch, and to wonder at this strange development. The inspector was doubtless right in saying that Collishaw had been done to death by somebody who wanted to silence him—but who could that somebody be? Bryce’s thoughts immediately turned to the fact that Ransford had overheard all that Mitchington had said, in that very room in which he, Bryce, was then lunching—Ransford! Was it possible that Ransford had realized a danger in Collishaw’s knowledge, and had—

      He was interrupted at this stage by Mitchington, who came hurriedly in with a scared face.

      “I say, I say!” he СКАЧАТЬ