IMPLICATIONS
I
The jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death.”
If there had been any traces of a struggle, I had not noticed them when I came to the edge of the pond. There may have been marks as if a foot had slipped. I was not thinking of evidence when I looked into the water.
There were marks enough when the police came to investigate, but they were the marks made by a twelve-stone man in hobnail boots, who had scrambled into, and out of, the pond. As the inspector said, it was not worth while wasting any time in looking for earlier traces of footsteps below those marks.
Nor were there any signs of violence on the body. It was in no way disfigured, save by the action of the water, in which it had lain for eighteen hours.
There was, indeed, only one point of any significance from the jury’s point of view, and that they put on one side, if they considered it at all; the body was pressed into the mud.
The Coroner asked a few questions about this fact.
Was the mud very soft? Yes, very soft, liquid on top.