Adders on the Heath

'No, I haven't the least idea. I saw no sign of injury, but I wasn't looking for anything of the sort. I wonder how the poor devil of a bobby got on who had to stay on guard up there all night?' (Side-track, he thought. It worked.)

'The Super sent up a car for him to sleep in, and a motor-cycle combination to bring the driver back, so I was told,' said the porter.

'Some grape-vine!' said Richardson. 'Oh, well, we must wait and see what happens. I suppose I'm free to come and go-I haven't been told I'm not-so I'm going to play golf this afternoon, if the pro. can fix me up with clubs and balls. I suppose I can get a game?'

'I'm sure you can, sir. There's a notice to say visitors are welcome. I don't know what sub. they expect, but at this time of year it should be easy enough to get a game.'

The golf course was a mile and a half outside the village, two and a half from the hotel. Richardson went in to lunch at one o'clock precisely and was driving off from the first tee at two-thirty.

He had been lucky enough to meet the secretary as soon as he arrived, and had been introduced to the local doctor, whose handicap was the same as his own. When the round was finished, Richardson returned the borrowed clubs to the pro., tipped him and said he had enjoyed the game.

'I didn't catch the doctor's name,' he added.

The pro. repeated it.

'Does the police doctoring round here as well. Seems there's been a corpse up on Medley Heath. Some chap in a little tent. I don't know the rights and wrongs, but all over the place that's spoke of,' he added.

'Oh, really? What did he die of?'

'Poison, so they reckon.'

'Who do? The police?'

'Them, among others. Doctor Mack you played with just now, got a fine big carryin' voice!'

Richardson wondered whether, had he known that his opponent 'did the police doctoring,' he would have asked him any questions concerning his findings. He decided that to have done so would have been to risk a snub. As it happened, however, on his way out he met the doctor again just as the latter was getting into his car. The doctor said, immediately, seeing Richardson on foot,

'Oh, can I give you a lift? Which way do you go?'

Richardson named his hotel.

'Splendid. I can drop you on the village side of the level crossing, if that will help.'

Richardson said gratefully that it would. The car started up and turned left on to a secondary road lined with fairly pretentious houses. Richardson, deciding that it was now or never, risked the snub which he confidently expected.

'I say,' he said, 'the pro. was telling me about the dead man on the heath, you know.'

'Yes?' The doctor kept his eyes on the road ahead, but Richardson detected a slight frown between his thin sandy brows.

'Well, you see, I'm the person who got stuck with the body,' he said, 'so I'm rather interested.'

'How do you mean-stuck with the body?' The frown disappeared.

'I've been camping on my own up on Medley Heath since Thursday. I'd pushed over to the hotel for dinner and hung around a bit afterwards, having coffee and a brandy, and, when I got back to my tent, there was this dead man.'

'Oh?' The monosyllable invited further confidences.

'So, of course, I called the police and now I think they believe the chap was murdered. I spent the night at the Superintendent's house. He was very decent, but I don't think I'm out of his clutches. I'm just wondering how the man was killed. I don't want the police to connect me with the job!'

'I can tell you how he was killed. It will be in the papers tomorrow, anyway, so there need be no secret about it. Still, perhaps, you'd better keep it to yourself until it's public property. He was choked to death with a fir cone.'

'Choked...?'

'With the fruit of the Douglas Fir, to be exact. I recovered an elliptical cone nearly three inches long. Didn't you notice how suffused the face was?-typical case of asphyxia.'

'No, I didn't notice. I tried to revive him by that pinch the nose and breathe into the mouth method, but I think I knew he was gone before I started.' (This referred to Colnbrook, he reflected, and realised that he should not have said it.)

'The mouth was very badly bruised, too,' said the doctor, pursuing his own train of thought. 'The bruising, of course, is one reason for believing that he was murdered.'

'Well, of course! I mean, surely you couldn't choke yourself accidentally on a fir cone, could you?'

'Hardly, perhaps, but I suppose you could commit suicide that way.'

'Surely not! It would be a beastly way to die!'

'You'd be surprised at how some of them manage it. There was a fellow, some years ago, who slopped petrol all over himself and set himself alight. You wouldn't think that was possible, but he did it.'

The car passed a school and the village hall, and drew up just before it reached the village street.