“A corpus delicti! And what might that be?”
Evan Pell sighed with that impatient tolerance which one exhibits toward children asking questions about the obvious.
“It has been suggested,” he said, “that Sheriff Churchill has been murdered. The first requisite in the establishment of the commission of a murder is the production of the corpus delicti—the body of the victim. If the body cannot be produced, or its disposal established, there can be no conviction for the crime. In short, a murder requires the fact of a dead man, and until the law can be shown a veritable body it is compelled, I imagine, to presume the victim still alive. Here, you will perceive, the effort is to raise a presumption that Sheriff Churchill is not a corpus delicti.”
“Then you don’t believe it?”
“Do you?”
“I—I don’t know. Poor Mrs. Churchill! For her sake I hope it is true.”
“H’m!... If I were you, Miss Lee, I would not inform Mrs. Churchill of this—without substantiation.”
“You are right. Nor shall I print it in the paper. You believe some one is deliberately imposing upon us?”
“My mind,” said Evan Pell, “has been trained for years to seek the truth. I am an observer of facts, trained to separate the true from the false. That is the business of science and research. I think I have made plain my reasons for doubting the truth of this message.”
“So much so,” said Carmel, “that I agree with you.”