CHAPTER XIII
THE SUICIDE
I had anticipated trouble when I gave Mr. Trenton the Inspector's message, but shock seemed to have rendered his sensibilities numb for the time being and he made no demur about receiving the emissary from Headquarters.
It was just two-thirty, the hour set for Philip Darwin's funeral, when the Inspector called me and while I awaited the arrival of Detective Jones my thoughts reverted to the funeral. I pictured to myself the solitary coffin being lowered into its grave unmourned and unattended by any save the faithful Mason, for I do not count the idle and the curious who merely come to gape and stare and be amused.
He had been rich and popular, with a host of friends, yet I was willing to wager that not one had taken the trouble to escort the body to its final resting-place, and though I had never had any use for the man while living, still my heart was strangely stirred by the spectacle of desolation which I had evoked. Death is after all dread enough without the added knowledge that no single human being will shed a tear at our passage from this earth. Even his own flesh and blood had turned from him, and for a minute I was sorry I had not attended. If I have one regret in all this terrible business it is that one omission to accompany the dead on its journey to the grave.
"Mr. Davies, how do you do, sir," said Jones, entering and breaking in abruptly on my thought, for I had not heard his ring. "And this gentleman is Mr. Trenton, I take it?"
"Yes, Mr. Jones. I have told him the sad news. You—you wish him to identify the body?" I asked, returning to earth with a decided jolt, mental if not physical.
"Unfortunately," answered Jones, with a commiserating look at Mr. Trenton, who sat staring vacantly into space, "the body has not yet been recovered. I really don't need it, but thought I might as well have an identification of his belongings."
He placed the package he had brought with him upon the table and opened it, exposing to view a gray suit of good material, a rather shabby cap, a watch, and a pocket notebook.
"These articles," he said, speaking rather loudly to attract Mr. Trenton's attention, "were found in a lodging-house on Water Street. Yesterday about noon, a dark young man, not any too well-dressed, and looking dishevelled and unkempt, applied for lodgings, and was taken in by the landlady, Mrs. Blake, herself. He spent the afternoon and early evening wandering about among the wharves and spoke to several loungers to whom he made no secret of where he was staying. This morning, before it was light, this strange lodger arose and went out. Mrs. Blake saw him go, but thought he was going to work. Fifteen minutes later someone banged on her door to tell her that her lodger had thrown himself into the river and had drowned. She was frightened and called the police. On the wharf was found the cap he had worn and in his room those other articles in a suitcase."