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.