The Ponson Case. Freeman Wills Crofts

be for the coroner to fix the time, but I would suggest eleven or twelve. I’ll call round tonight anyway sir, and let you know.’

      Taking Smith, the gardener-boatman, and the constable who had helped to carry the body, the sergeant returned to the site of the accident. The river was falling rapidly, and with some trouble the four men succeeded in getting the damaged boat ashore. Smith identified it immediately as the Alice. A careful search in the neighbourhood brought to light the rudder and bottom boards—each split and torn from the rocks. But there was no sign of the oars or rowlocks.

      It was useless, the sergeant thought, to look for the rowlocks. They would be at the bottom of the river. But the oars should be recoverable. Sending the two men downstream to search for them, he himself took the Argyle, which Austin had left for the convenience of the police, and drove to Dr Graham’s. That gentleman had not heard the news and was profoundly shocked, but when the sergeant went on to ask his question, he denied emphatically that there had been any appointment for the previous evening. Sir William, he stated, was a personal and valued friend, and they had often visited at each other’s houses, but he had never met the deceased in a professional capacity. He believed Dr Ames was Sir William’s medical adviser.

      ‘But, of course,’ Dr Graham concluded, ‘it is quite possible he may have wished to consult privately. He knows I am usually to be found in my study about nine, and he may have intended to walk up unobserved by the path through the shrubbery, come to the study direct, and enter by the French window.’

      ‘Very likely, sir,’ returned the sergeant, as he thanked Dr Graham and took his leave.

      His next visit was to the coroner, who also was much shocked at the news. After some discussion the inquest was arranged for twelve o’clock the following morning, provided this would suit the chief constable of the district, who might wish to be present.

      ‘It will be a purely formal business, I suppose, sergeant?’ the coroner observed as the other rose to take his leave. ‘There are no doubtful or suspicious circumstances?’

      ‘None, sir. The affair is as clear as day. But, sir, I have been thinking the question may arise as to whether boating should not be prohibited altogether on that stretch of the river.’

      ‘Possibly it should, but I think we may leave that to the jury.’ The sergeant saluted and withdrew. Again taking the car, he reached the police station as the clocks were striking half-past two. Going to the telephone, he rang up the chief constable—to whom he had telephoned immediately on hearing of the accident—and reported what he had learnt. The official replied that he would be over in time for the inquest.

      An hour later the two constables who had been sent to search the lower reaches of the river arrived at the police station. They had found the missing oars, and had taken them to Luce Manor, where they had been identified by Smith, the boatman. They had, it appeared, gone ashore close beside each other nearly a mile below the falls, and two points about the affair had interested the men. First, the oars had been washed up on the left bank, while the other things had been deposited on the right, and second, while all the latter were torn and damaged by the rocks, neither oar was injured or even marked.

      ‘What do you make of that, Cowan?’ the sergeant asked when these facts had been put before him.

      ‘Well, I’ll tell you what the boatman says, and it seems right enough. You know that there road bridge above the falls? There’s two arches in it. Well, Smith says he’ll lay ten bob the boat went through one arch and the oars the other. That would look right enough to me too, because the right side is more shallow and more rocky than the other, and more likely for to break anything up. The left side is the main channel, as you might say, and the oars might get down it without damage. At least, that’s what Smith says, 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