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
Tavistock depart 10.50 P. M.
A fast daylight run had taken 63 minutes—for night
say 70. Add for actual murder 5 minutes.
Then
Veda Works arrive 12.05 A. M.
Open gates and get car placed under differential, 12.10 A. M.
close gates
Square watchman and lift out body 12.25 〃
Open crate carefully so as not to damage lid 12.30 〃
Lift out duplicator and place it in car 12.40 〃
Take outer clothes off body 12.50 〃
Place body in crate 1.00 〃
Make good the lid of crate 1.05 〃
Take car out of works and lock gates 1.10 〃
After leaving the works the murderer had to get rid of the duplicator.
French could not estimate this item, as he had no idea how the thing
could have been done. But it had certainly taken half an hour. That
would make it 1.40 A.M. At least another half-hour would have been
spent in returning to the site of the mock tragedy, bringing the time
up to 2.00 A.M.
The engine and radiator had then gradually to cool, for there was no
water on that part of the moor to cool them artificially. From his
experiment French felt sure that this would have taken at least three
hours. In other words, there would have been traces of heat up till
about five o’clock. And that at the very earliest possible.
But the sergeant found the car at 3.35 and it was then cold. It was
therefore impossible that it could have been used to carry the victim
to the works as French had assumed. And if it had not been so used how
could the body have been transported? There was no way without
introducing an accomplice and another car, which on the face of it
seemed improbable.
It would, he saw, have been possible to take the body to the works in
the car if the vehicle had immediately returned to the moor. But this
not only postulated an accomplice, but overlooked the duplicator. If
the car had been used to dispose of the duplicator, it would have been
warm when the sergeant found it.
The third point was the squaring of the night watchman. The more
French thought over this, the more impossible it seemed. In an
ordinary matter the man might easily have been corrupted, but unless
he had some irresistible motive he would never have risked his neck by
aiding and abetting a murder. And he could not have been deceived as
to what was taking place. Even supposing that he had been at the time,
next day’s discovery would have made clear what he had assisted in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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