“You mean that the features were obliterated after death to conceal the man’s identity?”
“No, I didn’t mean that, though of course it is true. What I meant was that the man was murdered in some place where blood would have been noticed, had it fallen. He was killed, not with a sharp-edged instrument, though one was available, but with a blunt one, lest bleeding should have ensued. Then when death had occurred the sharp-edged instrument was used and the face disfigured. I am right about the bleeding, am I not?”
“Oh, yes. A dead body does not bleed, or at least not much. But I do not say that you could inflict all those injuries without leaving some bloodstains.”
“No doubt, but still I think my deduction holds. There were traces of blood in the crate, but only slight. What age was the man, do you think, Doctor?”
“Impossible to say exactly, but probably middle-aged: thirty-five to fifty-five.”
“Any physical peculiarities?”
“I had better show you my report. It will give you all I know. In fact, you can keep this copy.”
French ran his eyes over the document, noting the points which might be valuable. The body was that of a middle-aged man five feet ten inches high, fairly broad and well built, and weighing thirteen stone. The injuries to the head and face were such that recognition from the features would be impossible. There was only one physical peculiarity which might assist identification—a small triangular birthmark on the back of the left arm.
The report then gave technical details of the injuries and the condition the body was in when found, with the conclusion that death had probably occurred some thirty-five to forty days earlier. French smiled ruefully when he had finished reading.
“There’s not overmuch to go on, is there?” he remarked. “I suppose nothing further is likely to come out at the inquest?”
“Unless someone that we don’t know of comes forward with information, nothing,” the sergeant answered. “We have made all the enquiries that we could think of.”
“As far as I am concerned,” Dr. Crowth declared, “I don’t see that you have anything to go on at all. I shouldn’t care for your job, Inspector. How on earth will you start trying to clear up this puzzle? To me it seems absolutely insoluble.”
“Cases do seem so at first,” French returned, “but it’s wonderful how light gradually comes. It is almost impossible to commit a murder without leaving a clue, and if you think it over long enough you usually get it. But this, I admit, is a pretty tough proposition.”
“Have you ever heard of anything like it before?”
“So far it rather reminds me of a case investigated several years ago by my old friend Inspector Burnley—he’s retired now. A cask was sent from France to London which was found to contain the body of a young married French woman, and it turned out that her unfaithful husband had murdered her. He had in his study at the time a cask in which a group of statuary which he had just purchased had arrived, and he disposed of the body by packing it in the cask and sending it to England. It might well be that the same thing had happened in this case: that the murderer had purchased something which had arrived in this crate and that he had used the latter to get rid of the body. And as you can see, Doctor, that at once suggests a line of enquiry. What firm uses crates of this kind to despatch their goods and to whom were such crates sent recently? This is the sort of enquiry which gets us our results.”
“That is very interesting. All the same, I’m glad it’s your job and not mine. I remember reading of that case you mention. The papers were absolutely full of it at the time. I thought it an extraordinary affair, almost like a novel.”
“No doubt, but there is this difference between a novel and real life. In a novel the episodes are selected and the reader is told those which are interesting and which get results. In real life we try perhaps ten or twenty lines which lead nowhere before we strike the lucky one. And in each line we make perhaps hundreds of enquiries, whereas the novel describes one. It’s like any other job, you get results by pegging away. But it is interesting on the whole, and it has its compensations. Well, Doctor, I mustn’t keep you talking all night. I shall see you at the inquest tomorrow?”
French’s gloomy prognostications were justified next day when the proceedings in the little courthouse came to an end. Nothing that was not already known came out and the coroner adjourned the enquiry for three weeks to enable the police to conclude their investigations.
What those investigations were to consist of was the problem which confronted French when after lunch he sat down in the deserted smoking room of the little hotel to think matters out.
In the first place, there was the body. What lines of enquiry did the body suggest?
One obviously. Some five or six weeks ago a fairly tall, well-built man of middle age had disappeared. He might merely have vanished without explanation, or more probably, circumstances had been arranged to account for his absence. In the first case, information should be easily obtainable. But the second alternative was a different proposition. If the disappearance had been cleverly screened it might prove exceedingly difficult to locate. At all events, enquiries on the matter must represent the first step.
It was clearly impossible to trace any of the clothes, with the possible exception of the sock. But even from the sock French did not think he would learn anything. It was of a standard pattern and the darning of socks with wool of not quite the right shade was too common to be remembered. At the same time he noted it as a possible line of research.
Next he turned his attention to the crate, and
