But though the sergeant did not know it, this was French’s way. He was an enthusiastic believer in the theory that with ninety-nine persons out of a hundred you can lead better than you can drive. He therefore made it an essential of his method to be pleasant and friendly to those with whom he came in contact, and many a time he had found that it had brought the very hint that he required from persons who at first had given him only glum looks and tight lips.
“I should like to see the body and the crate and if possible have a walk round the place,” French went on. “Then I shall understand more clearly what you have to tell me. Is the inquest over?”
“No. It is fixed for eleven o’clock to-morrow. The chief constable thought you would like to be present.”
“Very kind of him. I should. I gathered that the man had been dead for some time?”
“Between five and six weeks, the doctors said. Two doctors saw the body—our local man, Doctor Crowth, and a friend of the chief constable’s, Doctor Wilbraham. They were agreed about the time.”
“Did they say the cause of death?”
“No, they didn’t, but there can’t be much doubt about that. The whole face and head is battered in. It’s not a nice sight, I can tell you.”
“I don’t expect so. Your report said that the crate was found by a fisherman?”
“An amateur fisherman, yes,” and Nield repeated Mr. Morgan’s story.
“That’s just the lucky way things happen, isn’t it?” French exclaimed. “A man commits a crime and he takes all kinds of precautions to hide it, and then some utterly unexpected coincidence happens—who could have foreseen a fisherman hooking the crate—and he is down and out. Lucky for us, and for society, too. But I’ve seen it again and again. I’ve seen things happen that a writer couldn’t put into a book, because nobody would believe them possible, and I’m sure so have you. There’s nothing in this world stranger than the truth.”