The sea mystery : $b An Inspector French detective story — John Shaqi
The sea mystery : $b An Inspector French detective storyCrofts, Freeman Wills
General
The sea mystery : $b An Inspector French detective story
Crofts, Freeman Wills
Detective and mystery stories; French, Joseph (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Police -- Great Britain -- Fiction
That it had been labelled at one time was evident. The heads of eight
tacks formed a parallelogram which clearly represented the position of
a card. It also appeared to have borne attachments of some heavier
type, as there were seven nail holes of about an eighth of an inch in
diameter at each of two opposite corners. Whatever these fittings
were, they had been removed and the nails withdrawn.
“How long would you say this had been in the water?” French asked,
running his fingers over the sodden wood.
“I asked Manners, our coastguard, that question,” the sergeant
answered. “He said not very long. You see, there are no shells nor
seaweed attaching to it. He thought about the time the doctors
mentioned, say between five and six weeks.”
The bar was a bit of old two-inch shafting, some fourteen inches long,
and was much rusted from its immersion. It had evidently been put in
as a weight to ensure the sinking of the crate. Unfortunately, it
offered no better clue to the sender than the crate itself.
French added these points to his notes and again addressed the
sergeant.
“Have you a good photographer in the town?”
“Why, yes, pretty good.”
“Then I wish you’d send for him. I want some photographs of the body
and they had better be done first thing in the morning.”
When the photographer had arrived and had received his instructions
French went on: “That, Sergeant, seems to be all we can do now. It’s
too dark to walk round to-night. Suppose we get along to the hotel and
see about that dinner?”
During a leisurely meal in the private room French had engaged they
conversed on general topics, but later over a couple of cigars they
resumed their discussion of the tragedy. The sergeant repeated in
detail all that he knew of the matter, but he was neither able to
suggest clues upon which to work, nor yet to form a theory as to what
had really happened.
“It’s only just nine o’clock,” French said when the subject showed
signs of exhaustion. “I think I’ll go round and have a word with this
Mr. Morgan, and then perhaps we could see the doctor—Crowth, you said
his name was? Will you come along?”
Mr. Morgan, evidently thrilled by his visitor’s identity, repeated his
story still another time. French had brought from London a large-scale
ordnance map of the district, and on it he got Mr. Morgan to mark the
bearings he had taken and so located the place the crate had lain.
This was all the fresh information French could obtain, and soon he
and Nield wished the manager good night and went on to the doctor’s.
Dr. Crowth was a bluff, middle-aged man with a hearty manner and a
kindly expression. He was offhand in his greeting and plunged at once
into his subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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