Have His Carcase (39 page)

‘It would.’

‘In the case of a murderer, standing in the position you describe, his hands

and clothes would necessarily be very much stained?’

‘His right hand and arm, probably. His clothes might not be stained at al,

since they would be protected by the body of his victim.’

‘Did you carry out a post-mortem on the body to ascertain if there was any

other possible cause of death?’

The doctor, smiling slightly, said that he had, in the ordinary course of things,

opened up the head and body, but had seen nothing of a suspicious nature.

‘In your opinion, what was the cause of death?’

Dr Fenchurch, stil smiling slightly, said that in his opinion the cause of death

was acute haemorrhage, coupled with the severance of the respiratory canal. In

fact, the deceased had died of having his throat cut.

The coroner, who was a lawyer and seemed unwiling to let the medical

witness have his own way entirely, persisted.

‘I am not trying to quibble over absurdities,’ he remarked, acidly. ‘I am

asking you whether we are to understand that the death was actualy caused by

the wound in the throat, or whether there is any possibility that the deceased

was kiled in some other way, and the throat cut afterwards to produce the

appearance of suicidal throat-cutting?’

‘Oh, I see. Wel, I can say this: that the throat-cutting was undoubtedly the

immediate cause of death. That is, the man was undoubtedly alive when his

throat was cut. The body was completely drained of blood. In fact, I have

never seen a body drained so completely. There was some very slight clotting

about the heart but it was remarkably little. This, however, is no more than one

might expect from the great extent of the wound. If the man had been already

dead when the wound was inflicted, there would, of course, have been little or

no bleeding.’

‘Quite so. It is as wel to have that clear. You said that the throat-cutting was

the
immediate
cause of death. What precisely did you mean by that?’

‘I meant to exclude the bare possibility that the deceased might also have

taken poison. It is not unusual to find suicides doubling their precautions in this

way. As a matter of fact, however, the internal organs showed no signs of

anything of this nature having taken place. If you wish, I can have an analysis

made of the visceral contents.’

‘Thank you; perhaps it would be as wel. It would equaly, I suppose, be

possible that the man had been previously drugged by some other party before

the delivery of the blow, or slash, that cut his throat?’

‘Certainly. A soporific might have been administered beforehand in order to

make the attack more easy.’

Here Inspector Umpelty rose and begged to draw the coroner’s attention to

the evidence of Harriet and the photographs that the deceased had walked to

the rock on his own feet and alone.

‘Thank you, Inspector; we shal come to that later. Permit me to finish with

the medical evidence. You heard Miss Vane’s account of her finding the body,

Doctor, and her statement that at ten minutes past two the blood was stil liquid.

What inference do you draw as regards the time of the death?’

‘I should say that it had occurred within a very few minutes of the finding of

the body. Not earlier than two o’clock at the outside.’

‘And would a person die quickly from the effects of having his throat cut in

the manner described?’

‘He would die immediately. The heart and arteries might continue to pump

blood for a few seconds by spasmodic muscular contraction, but the man

would be dead from the moment that the great vessels were severed.’

‘So that we may take it that the wound was actualy inflicted certainly not

earlier than two o’clock?’

‘That is so. Two o’clock is the extreme limit. I myself should incline to put it

later.’

‘Thank you. There is just one more question. You have heard that a razor

was found in proximity to the body. Inspector, would you kindly hand the

exhibit to the witness. In your opinion, Doctor, is the appearance of the wound

consistent with its having been inflicted by that weapon?’

‘Decidedly so. This, or a similar razor, would be an ideal instrument for the

purpose.’

‘In your opinion, would great physical strength be required to deliver such a

blow with that, or a similar weapon?’

‘Considerable strength, yes. Exceptional strength, no. Much would depend

upon the circumstances.’

‘Wil you explain what you mean by that?’

‘In the case of a determined suicide, wounds of this kind have been known

to be inflicted by persons of quite ordinary or even poor physique. In the case

of homicide, much would depend on whether the victim was able to offer any

effective resistance to the attack.’

‘Did you find any other marks of violence on the body?’

‘None whatever.’

‘No signs of throttling or bruising?’

‘None. There was nothing remarkable beyond the natural action of the water

and the complete absence of post-mortem staining. I attribute the latter to the

smal amount of blood present in the body and also to the circumstance that the

body was not left lying in one position, but was washed from the rock shortly

after death and tumbled about in the water.’

‘In your opinion, does the condition of the body suggest suicide or

homicide?’

‘In my opinion, and taking al the circumstances into consideration, suicide

appears rather more probable. The only point to set against it is the absence of

surface cuts. It is rather rare for a suicide to be completely successful at the first

attempt, though it is not by any means unknown.’

‘Thank you.’

The next witness was Miss Leila Garland, who confirmed the evidence of

Mrs Lefranc with respect to the cipher letters. This naturaly led to an inquiry

into the relations between Miss Garland and Mr Alexis, from which it transpired

that their acquaintance had been conducted on a footing of rigid, and even

Victorian, propriety; that Mr Alexis had been terribly distressed when Miss

Garland had put an end to the friendship; that Mr Alexis was not by any means

a likely person to commit suicide; that (on the other hand) Miss Garland had

been terribly upset to think of his having done anything rash on her account; that

Miss Garland had never heard of anybody caled Feodora, but did not, of

course, know what folies Mr Alexis might not have committed in a despairing

mood after the termination of their friendship; that Miss Garland had not so

much as set eyes on Mr Alexis for ever so long and could not imagine why

anybody should think this terrible business had anything to do with her. With

regard to the letters, Miss Garland had thought that Mr Alexis was being

blackmailed, but could produce no evidence to prove this.

It now became obvious that nothing on earth could keep Mrs Weldon out of

the witness-box. Attired in near-widow’s weeds, she indignantly protested

against the suggestion that Alexis could possibly have made away with himself

on Leila’s account, or on any account whatever. She knew better than anybody

that Alexis had had no genuine attachment to anyone but herself. She admitted

that she could not explain the presence of the portrait signed ‘Feodora’, but

asserted vehemently that, up to the last day of his life, Alexis had been radiant

with happiness. She had last seen him on the Wednesday night, and had

expected to see him again on the Thursday morning at the Winter Gardens. He

had not arrived there, and she was perfectly sure that he must have been lured

away to his death by some designing person. He had often said that he was

afraid of Bolshevik plots, and in her opinion, the police ought to look for

Bolsheviks.

This outburst produced some effect upon the jury, one of whom rose to

inquire whether the police were taking any steps to comb out suspicious looking

foreigners residing in, or hanging about, the vicinity. He himself had observed a

number of disagreeable-looking tramps on the road. He also noticed with pain

that at the very hotel where Alexis had worked, a Frenchman was employed as

a professional dancer, and that there were also a number of foreigners in the

orchestra at the Winter Gardens. The dead man was also a foreigner. He did

not see that naturalisation papers made any difference. With two milion British-

born workers unemployed, he thought it a scandalous thing that this foreign riff-

raff was alowed to land at al. He spoke as an Empire Free-Trader and

member of the Public Health Committee.

Mr Polock was then caled. He admitted having been in the neighbourhood

of the Grinders reef with his boat at about two o’clock on the day of the death,

but insisted that he had been out in deep water and had seen nothing previous

to Harriet’s arrival on the scene. He was not looking in that direction; he had his

own business to attend to. As to the nature of that business he remained

evasive, but nothing could shake his obstinate assertion of complete ignorance.

His grandson Jem (having now returned from Ireland) briefly confirmed this

evidence, but added that he himself had surveyed the shore with a glass at, he

thought, about 1.45. He had then seen someone on the Flat-Iron rock, either

sitting or lying down, but whether dead or alive he could not say.

The last witness was Wiliam Bright, who told the story about the razor in

almost exactly the same terms that he had used to Wimsey and the police. The

coroner, glancing at a note handed up to him by Umpelty, alowed him to finish

what he had to say, and then asked:

‘You say this happened at midnight on Tuesday, 16 June?’

‘Just after midnight. I heard the clock strike shortly before this man came up

to me.’

‘How was the tide at the time?’

For the first time, Bright faltered. He glanced about him as though he

suspected a trap, licked his lips nervously, and replied:

‘I know nothing about tides. I don’t belong to this part of the country.’

‘But you mentioned, in your very moving account of this interview, the noise

made by the sea lapping against the wal of the Esplanade. That suggests, does

it not, that the tide was then ful?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Would you be surprised to learn that at midnight on the 16th of this month

the tide was actualy at the lowest point of the ebb?’

‘I may have sat there longer than I thought.’

‘Did you sit there for six hours?’

No answer.

‘Would it surprise you to know that the sea never comes up to the wal of

the Esplanade except at the top of the spring tides which, on that particular

date, would occur at about six o’clock in the evening?’

‘I can only say that I must have been mistaken. You must alow for the

effects of a morbid imagination.’

‘You stil say that the interview took place at midnight?’

‘Yes; I am confident about that.’

The coroner dismissed Mr Bright with a warning to be more careful with

statements he made in court, and recaled Inspector Umpelty with an inquiry

into Bright’s movements and character.

He then summed up the evidence. He did not attempt to disguise his own

opinion, which was that deceased had taken his own life. (Incoherent protest

from Mrs Weldon.) As to why he should have done so, it was not the jury’s

business to speculate. Various motives had been suggested, and the jury must

bear in mind that deceased was a Russian by birth, and therefore excitable, and

liable to be overcome by feelings of melancholy and despair. He himself had

read a great deal of Russian literature and could assure the jury that suicide was

of frequent occurrence among the members of that unhappy nation. We who

enjoyed the blessing of being British might find that difficult to understand, but

the jury could take it from him that it was so. They had before them clear

evidence of how the razor came into the hands of Alexis, and he thought they

need not lay too much stress on Bright’s error about the tide. Since Alexis did

not shave, what could he have needed a razor for, unless to commit suicide? He

(the coroner) would, however, be perfectly fair and enumerate the one or two

points which seemed to throw doubt on the hypothesis of suicide. There was

the fact that Alexis had taken a return-ticket. There was the passport. There

was the belt ful of gold. They might perhaps think that the deceased had

contemplated fleeing the country. Even so, was it not likely that he had lost

heart at the last moment and taken the shortest way out of the country and out

of life itself? There was the odd circumstance that the deceased had apparently

committed suicide in gloves, but suicides were notoriously odd. And there was,

of course, the evidence of Mrs Weldon (for whom they must al feel the

deepest sympathy) as to the deceased’s state of mind; but this was