“Certainly they do, more or less.”
“But how more? Is it possible, for instance, for a person to half-drown and then seemingly recover; to be put to bed nearly himself again, and yet be found dead in the morning?”
“How can I say? In such a case there must be gross carelessness or quite unexpected complications.”
“But if I tell you I once heard of this happening—was witness, indeed, of the fact?”
The doctor lifted his shoulder, adjusted his spectacles and shrugged himself with an awkward posture of skepticism.
“How did he look?” he said.
“Dreadful—swollen, horribly distorted. His face was black—his hands clenched. He seemed to have died in great pain.”
He gave a little scornful sniff.
“Do you want my opinion on that?” he cried. “Well—here it is: It was a case for the police. No drowned man ever looked after that fashion.”
“Then you think he must have come to his death by other means, and after he was put to bed?”