“If you ask me, I should say he fell off the parapet. I’ve noticed, sometimes, what a long way it really is from the door of one’s carriage to the parapet—a man falling from a carriage would never reach the edge.”
“Ah,” said Reeves, looking up, “but you’re imagining the train stationary. He would be hurled forward some way by the impetus, if he jumped off a moving train. And I should say he could have started falling down that bank to the right, just before the parapet begins. He’d roll forwards and sideways, if you see what I mean, till he got to where the stonework begins, up there, and then, plop.”
“I dare say you’re right. Anyhow, we’d better be quick and look at the body.”
As they went towards the tool-house, Reeves gave a sudden exclamation. “By Jove, his hat! And it’s—let’s see—I should say fifteen yards to the north of the body. Now why?”
“How do you mean?”
“There was no wind this afternoon. If his hat fell with him, it would lie with him. If it lies a dozen yards away, that looks as if—as if it was thrown after him. The considerate fellow-passenger hardly does that, does he?”
“You mean there’s been dirty work?”
“I mean it looks as if there’d been dirty work. Now for the tool-shed.”
To search a dead body is not an easy performance, unless you are in a hurry and have got to do it. Gordon did most of the work, and Reeves checked his results for him. The pockets contained a handkerchief, marked with the name “Masterman,” a cigarette-case, of a common pattern, containing a cigarette of a brand smoked by every second man in the neighbourhood, a half-empty box of matches, a pipe and an empty pouch, two florins, a letter and a business communication both addressed to S. Brotherhood, Esq., and a watch and chain. They also found, written on the back of the letter, a pencilled list of goods, as if to remind a man of his shopping needs.
“It’s a queer thing,” said Reeves, “that watch; because he’s got one on his wrist too. How many people, I wonder, carry a stomach-watch as well as a wrist-watch? It’s stopped, I suppose?”