The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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Then, when the fisherman had deposed to the discovery of the body, the sergeant was called, and stepped forward, grasping a carpet-bag, and looking as uncomfortable as if he had been the accused instead of a witness. He described the circumstances under which he saw the body, giving the exact time and place with official precision.
“You have heard Dr. Burrows’ description of the footprints?” the coroner inquired.
“Yes. There were two sets. One set were evidently made by deceased. They showed that he entered St. Bridget’s Bay from the direction of Port Marston. He had been walking along the shore just about high-water mark, sometimes above and sometimes below. Where he had walked below high-water mark the footprints had of course been washed away by the sea.”
“How far back did you trace the footprints of deceased?”
“About two-thirds of the way to Sundersley Gap. Then they disappeared below high-water mark. Later in the evening I walked from the Gap into Port Marston, but could not find any further traces of deceased. He must have walked between the tide-marks all the way from Port Marston to beyond Sundersley. When these footprints entered St. Bridget’s Bay they became mixed up with the footprints of another man, and the shore was trampled for a space of a dozen yards as if a furious struggle had taken place. The strange man’s tracks came down from the Shepherd’s Path, and went up it again; but, owing to the hardness of the ground from the dry weather, the tracks disappeared a short distance up the path, and I could not find them again.”
“What were these strange footprints like?” inquired the coroner.
“They were very peculiar,” replied the sergeant. “They were made by shoes armed with smallish hob-nails, which were arranged in a diamond-shaped pattern on the holes and in a cross on the heels. I measured the footprints carefully, and made a drawing of each foot at the time.” Here the sergeant produced a long notebook of funereal aspect, and, having opened it at a marked place, handed it to the coroner, who examined it attentively, and then passed it on to the jury. From the jury it was presently transferred to Thorndyke, and, looking over his shoulder, I saw a very workmanlike sketch of a pair of footprints with the principal dimensions inserted.
Thorndyke surveyed the drawing critically, jotted down a few brief notes, and returned the sergeant’s notebook to the coroner, who, as he took it, turned once more to the officer.
“Have you any clue, sergeant, to the person who made these footprints?” he asked.
By way of reply the sergeant opened his carpet-bag, and, extracting therefrom a pair of smart but stoutly made shoes, laid them on the table.
“Those shoes,” he said, “are the property of the accused; he was wearing them when I arrested him. They appear to correspond exactly to the footprints of the murderer. The measurements are the same, and the nails with which they are studded are arranged in a similar pattern:
“Extreme length, 11¾ inches.
“Width at A, 4½ inches.
“Length of heel, 3¼ inches
“Width of heel at cross, 3 inches.”
“Would you swear that the footprints were made with these shoes?” asked the coroner.
“No, sir, I would not,” was the decided answer. “I would only swear to the similarity of size and pattern.”
“Had you ever seen these shoes before you made the drawing?”
“No, sir,” replied the sergeant; and he then related the incident of the footprints in the soft earth by the pond which led him to make the arrest.
The coroner gazed reflectively at the shoes which he held in his hand, and from them to the drawing; then, passing them to the foreman of the jury, he remarked:
“Well, gentlemen, it is not for me to tell you whether these shoes answer to the description given by Dr. Burrows and the sergeant, or whether they resemble the drawing which, as you have heard, was made by the officer on the spot and before he had seen the shoes; that is a matter for you to decide. Meanwhile, there is another question that we must consider.” He turned to the sergeant and asked: “Have you made any inquiries as to the movements of the accused on the night of the murder?”
“I have,” replied the sergeant, “and I find that, on that night, the accused was alone in the house, his housekeeper having gone over to Eastwich. Two men saw him in the town about ten o’clock, apparently walking in the direction of Sundersley.”
This concluded the sergeant’s evidence, and when one or two more witnesses had been examined without eliciting any fresh facts, the coroner briefly recapitulated the evidence, and requested the jury to consider their verdict. Thereupon a solemn hush fell upon the court, broken only by the whispers of the jurymen, as they consulted together; and the spectators gazed in awed expectancy from the accused to the whispering jury. I glanced at Draper, sitting huddled in his chair, his clammy face as pale as that of the corpse in the mortuary hard by, his hands tremulous and restless; and, scoundrel as I believed him to be, I could not but pity the abject misery that was written large all over him, from his damp hair to his incessantly shifting feet.
The jury took but a short time to consider their verdict. At the end of five minutes the foreman announced that they were agreed, and, in answer to the coroner’s formal inquiry, stood up and replied:
“We find that the deceased met his death by being stabbed in the chest by the accused man, Alfred Draper.”
“That is a verdict of wilful murder,” said the coroner, and he entered it accordingly in his notes. The Court now rose. The spectators reluctantly trooped out, the jurymen stood up and stretched themselves, and the two constables, under the guidance of the sergeant, carried the wretched Draper in a fainting condition to a closed fly that was waiting outside.
“I was not greatly impressed by the activity of the defence,” I remarked maliciously as we walked home.
Thorndyke smiled. “You surely did not expect me to cast my pearls of forensic learning before a coroner’s jury,” said he.
“I expected that you would have something to say on behalf of your client,” I replied. “As it was, his accusers had it all their own way.”
“And why not?” he asked. “Of what concern to us is the verdict of the coroner’s jury?”
“It would have seemed more decent to make some sort of defence,” I replied.
“My dear Jervis,” he rejoined, “you do not seem to appreciate the great virtue of what Lord Beaconsfield so felicitously called ‘a policy of masterly inactivity’; and yet that is one of the great lessons that a medical training impresses on the student.”
“That may be so,” said I. “But the result, up to the present, of your masterly policy is that a verdict of wilful murder stands against your client, and I don’t see what other verdict the jury could have found.”
“Neither do I,” said Thorndyke.
I had written to my principal, Dr. Cooper, describing the stirring events that were taking place in the village, and had received a reply from him instructing me to place the house at Thorndyke’s disposal, and to give him every facility for his work. In accordance with which edict my colleague took possession of a well-lighted, disused stable-loft, and announced his intention of moving his things into it. Now, as these “things” included the mysterious contents of the hamper that the housemaid had seen, I was possessed with a consuming desire to be present at the “flitting,” and I do not mind confessing that I purposely lurked about the stairs in the hopes of thus picking up a few crumbs of information.
But Thorndyke was one too many for me. A misbegotten infant in the village having been seized with inopportune convulsions, I was compelled, most reluctantly, to hasten to its relief; and I returned only in time to find Thorndyke in the act of locking the door of the loft.
“A nice light, roomy place to work in,” he remarked, as he descended the steps, slipping the key into his pocket.