“I don't recognise him.”
Sir Clinton lifted the head and examined it.
“Contused wound on the back of the skull. Probably got it by falling against the rock as he came down.”
He turned to the feet of the body.
“The boots have rubber soles with a pattern corresponding to the tracks up yonder. That's all right,” he continued. “His clothes seem just a shade on the flashy side of good taste, to my mind. Age appears to be somewhere in the early thirties.”
He bent down and inspected the wound in the breast.
“From the look of this hole I guess you're right, inspector. It seems to have been a small-calibre bullet—possibly from an automatic pistol. You'd better make a rough sketch of the position before we shift him. There's no time to get a camera up here before the tide swamps us.”
Armadale cut one or two scratches on the rock as reference points, and then, after taking a few measurements, he made a rough diagram of the body's position and attitude.
“Finished?” Sir Clinton asked; and, on getting an assurance from the inspector, he knelt down beside the dead man and unfastened the front of the raincoat which clothed the corpse.
“That's interesting,” he said, passing his hand over a part of the jacket underneath. “He's been soaked to the skin by the feel of the cloth. Did that rain come down suddenly last night, inspector?”