I arose, looked down into the eyes of the physician. “Strangled?”
He shook his head slightly. “By water only. The tongue’s a post-mortem result. Look at his fingers.”
The fingers of the huge hands resting across the chest were covered with slime, save for two or three, the ends of which appeared excoriated.
“He was drowned in this subterranean waterway. God knows how he got in, but you can see that his fingers clutched at the oozy walls and in some places must have pressed through the slime to the stone itself. There’s a mark on his forehead, too, not quite so easily accounted for. No connection with cause of death, however.”
“This is Sir Brooke, of course?” I asked. “It might be anyone, for all the humanity left in the lineaments.”
“I’m sure it is from the description of the clothing alone,” declared the Doctor, “but we can satisfy ourselves without delay.”
He plucked the arms from across the chest, then unbuttoned the coat. Across the waistcoat extended a black band affixed to a pince-nez with double lenses. Aire held these up with a significant look, then reached into the inside pocket and withdrew the dead man’s wallet. This was conclusive, for inside it was stamped the name in gilt: Crowell Brooke Mortimer. But the flutter of voices that came was not for this discovery.
From between coat and waistcoat two objects had been dislodged, objects which rolled out upon the lawn: a couple of water-logged tennis balls.
I picked one up. The cloth was rotted, and slipped off with a scrape of the finger. “Well,” I said, “now we know how Sir Brooke lost his way.”
Same day. 9.55 P.M.