Freeman Crofts - Inspector French and the Sea Mystery

Nor were there any helpful marks on the crate. There were tacks where a label had been attached, but the label had been torn off. A round steel bar of three or four stones weight had also been put in, evidently to ensure the crate sinking.

The most careful examination revealed no clue to the man’s identity. Who he was and why he had been murdered were as insoluble problems as how the crate came to be where it was found.

For over an hour the little party discussed the matter, and then the chief constable came to a decision.

‘I don’t believe it’s a local case,’ he announced. ‘That crate must in some way have come from a ship: I don’t see how it could have been got there from the shore. And if it’s not a local case I think we’ll consider it not our business. We’ll call in Scotland Yard. Let them have the trouble of it. I’ll ring up the Home Office now and we’ll have a man here this evening. Tomorrow will be time enough for the inquest and the C.I.D. man will be here and can ask what questions he likes.’

Thus it came to pass that Inspector Joseph French on that same afternoon travelled westwards by the 1.55 p.m. luncheon car express from Paddington.

Dusk was already falling when a short, rather stout man with keen blue eyes from which a twinkle never seemed far removed, alighted from the London train at Burry Port and made his way to Sergeant Nield, who was standing near the exit, scrutinising the departing travellers.

‘My name is French,’ the stranger announced: ‘Inspector French of the C.I.D. I think you are expecting me?’

‘That’s right, sir. We had a ’phone from headquarters that you were coming on this train. We’ve been having trouble, as you’ve heard.’

‘I don’t often take a trip like this without finding trouble at the end of it. We’re like yourself, sergeant; we have to go out to look for it. But we don’t often have to look for it in such fine country as this. I’ve enjoyed my journey.’

‘The country’s right enough if you’re fond of coal,’ Nield rejoined with some bitterness. ‘But now, Mr French, what would you like to do? I expect you’d rather get fixed up at an hotel and have some dinner before anything else? I think the Bush Arms is the most comfortable.’

‘I had tea a little while ago. If it’s the same to you, sergeant, I’d rather see what I can before the light goes. I’ll give my bag to the porter, and he can fix me up a room. Then I hope you’ll come back and dine with me and we can have a talk over our common trouble.’

The sergeant accepted with alacrity. He had felt somewhat aggrieved at the calling in of a stranger from London, believing it to be a reflection on his own ability to handle the case. But this cheery, good-humoured-looking man was very different from the type of person he was expecting. This inspector did not at all appear to have come down to put the local men in their places and show them what fools they were. Rather he seemed to consider Nield an honoured colleague in a difficult job.

But though the sergeant did not know it, this was French’s way. He was an enthusiastic believer in the theory that with ninety-nine persons out of a hundred you can lead better than you can drive. He therefore made it an essential of his method to be pleasant and friendly to those with whom he came in contact, and many a time he had found that it had brought the very hint that he required from persons who at first had given him only glum looks and tight lips.

‘I should like to see the body and the crate, and if possible have a walk round the place,’ French went on. ‘Then I shall understand more clearly what you have to tell me. Is the inquest over?’

‘No, it is fixed for eleven o’clock tomorrow. The chief constable thought you would like to be present.’

‘Very kind of him: I should. I gathered that the man had been dead for some time?’

‘Between five and six weeks, the doctors said. Two doctors saw the body, our local man, Dr Crowth, and a friend of the chief constable’s, Dr Wilbraham. They were agreed about the time.’

‘Did they say the cause of death?’

‘No, they didn’t, but there can’t be much doubt about that. The whole face and head is battered in. It’s not a nice sight, I can tell you.’

‘I don’t expect so. Your report said that the crate was found by a fisherman?’

‘An amateur fisherman, yes,’ and Nield repeated Mr Morgan’s story.

‘That’s just the lucky way things happen, isn’t it!’ French exclaimed. ‘A man commits a crime and he takes all kinds of precautions to hide it, and then some utterly unexpected coincidence happens—who could have foreseen a fisherman hooking the crate—and he is down and out. Lucky for us and for society too. But I’ve seen it again and again. I’ve seen things happen that a writer couldn’t put into a book, because nobody would believe them possible, and I’m sure so have you. There’s nothing in this world stranger than the truth.’

The sergeant agreed, but without enthusiasm. In his experience it was the ordinary and obvious thing that happened. He didn’t believe in coincidences. After all it wasn’t such a coincidence that a fisherman who lowered a line on the site of the crate should catch his hooks in it. The crate was in the area over which this man fished. There was nothing wonderful about it.

But a further discussion of the point was prevented by their arrival at the police station. They passed to the outhouse containing the body, and French forthwith began his examination.

The remains were those of a man slightly over medium height, of fairly strong build, and who had seemingly been in good health before death. The face had been terribly mishandled. It was battered in until the features were entirely obliterated. The ears even were torn and bruised and shapeless. The skull was evidently broken at the forehead, so, as the sergeant had said, there was here an injury amply sufficient to account for death. It was evident also that a post-mortem had been made. Altogether French had seldom seen so horrible a spectacle.

But his professional instincts were gratified by a discovery which he hoped might assist in the identification of the remains. On the back of the left arm near the shoulder was a small birthmark of a distinctive triangular shape. Of this he made a dimensioned sketch, having first carefully examined it and assured himself it was genuine.

But beyond these general observations he did not spend much time over the body. Having noted that the fingers were too much decomposed to enable prints to be taken, he turned his attention to the clothes, believing that all the further available information as to the remains would be contained in the medical report.

Minutely he examined the underclothes, noting their size and quality and pattern, searching for laundry marks or initials, or for mendings or darns. But except that the toe of the left sock had been darned with wool of too light a shade, there was nothing to distinguish the garments from others of the same kind. Though he did not expect to get help from the clothes, French in his systematic way entered a detailed description of them in his note-book. Then he turned to the crate.

It measured two feet three inches by two feet four, and was three feet long. Made of spruce an inch thick, it was strongly put together and clamped with iron corner pieces. The boards were tongued and grooved, and French thought that under ordinary conditions it should be water-tight. He examined its whole surface, but here again he had no luck. Though there were a few bloodstains inside, no label or brand or identifying mark showed anywhere. Moreover, there was nothing in its shape or size to call for comment. The murderer might have obtained it from a hundred sources, and French did not see any way in which it could be traced.