by E.
“Not quite, Doctor,” answered the inspector.
“Why not?”
“Well, he’d have had a bit of a shock and he would certainly have had a few black and blue—” He stopped.
“Bruises, Mackenzie?” Doctor Manson interposed. “Is that what you were about to say? If so, by all means complete the sentence. You are right, you know. And because I saw no sign of violence other than the decapitation, I asked Doctor Gaunt to let me know at once whether there were any bodily injuries or bruising.”
The inspector grinned a little sheepishly. “I should have seen that, of course,” he admitted. “Can’t think how I missed it.”
“Because, as I have told you, you were misled by the obvious,” retorted Manson. “The man was on a short cut on the line with his head cut off. Ergo, he was knocked down by a train. Never accept the obvious, Inspector. Always test an alternative. If the obvious is correct, you have not lost anything; if it isn’t, you’ve gained something.”
“Doctor Manson?” The voice came from the sergeant who had been following the lecture with interest. The company turned towards him. “You told Dr. Gaunt over the telephone that you had expected him not to find any injuries,” he said. “Do you mean by that that you knew all the time that the man had not been knocked down by the train?”
Mackenzie transferred his gaze from his sergeant to the doctor. He waited anxiously for the answer. Something of the Yard’s respect for Doctor Manson was beginning to penetrate into Mackenzie’s understanding.
“I was sure of it,” said the doctor. He met Mackenzie’s gaze. “And you must admit, inspector, that I tried to make you see it when I referred to the undamaged state of Canley’s overcoat. If you were struck by a train travelling at that speed and hurled to the ground, which in this case is composed of rough and sharp flints, would you expect that nice blue overcoat of yours to escape without a rent, a tear or an abrasion of any kind on the nap? You see, man, you were blinded in your judgment by superficial appearances.”
Mackenzie slowly digested this essay on observation and deduction from observation. He was a cumbersome thinker, and it took some time. Presently, however, his jaw dropped, and a look of consternation spread over his face.
“Then how did the man come to be decapitated, Doctor, if he was not knocked down by the train?”
“Suicide!” burst out the sergeant. “That’s it. He committed suicide. Just laid down and put his head over the rail.”
“The doctor has said that he ruled out suicide,” pointed out Inspector Kenway.
The sergeant looked flummoxed, but not defeated. “Perhaps the further inspection has changed his mind,” he said.
Mackenzie looked at the doctor. “Is that it, sir?” he asked.
For the first time since the investigation began, the doctor allowed himself a smile.
“Not unless he was able to double his own death, Inspector,” he answered. “Not unless a dead man can get up, smoke a cigar, walk a hundred yards or so, and climb up a bank.”
CHAPTER XIV
“A dead man!”
The exclamation came in a wail from Inspector Mackenzie. Like David mourning for Jonathan, or Saul for Absalom. “Do you say, then, that the train did not kill Canley at all?”
In so sinister a possibility Mackenzie saw his whole morning’s work of laborious tracing of the tradings of Canley from his house, along the lane and up to the railway track, gone for nothing, together with his worked-out theory of the tragedy.
Doctor Manson shrugged his shoulders. He had not from the first gained any great opinion of the capabilities of Mackenzie. But he was prepared to put down the overlooking of what, to his mind, were vital facts to that officer’s small experience of homicide.
There was not, he realized, a great deal of practice in such crimes in places like Thames Pagnall and the surrounding area; and when a case of homicide developed, the local people usually called in Scotland Yard. Without actual experience of homicide, and the requisite knowledge of medical jurisprudence gained by such practice, excuses could be made for omissions by local officers, whatever their rank.
It was true, the scientist knew, that a certain amount of elementary background can be acquired by reading and study; but the difference between an academical knowledge and the ability to see in actual surroundings and circumstances the points that can be adduced from books, is a very different matter. In any case, he thought it unlikely that there would be such textbooks as Gross’s Criminal Investigation or Smith’s Forensic Medicine in the police station of Thames Pagnall, of at the junction for that matter.
But he had hoped that the peculiarities in the case upon which he had patiently dwelt, and the hints conveyed in his examination of the body and the ground, particularly in the case of the footprints, which the inspector himself had made side by side with those of Canley in the lane, would have awakened some suspicion in the inspector’s mind. It was obvious, however, that he had seen nothing of the implications of any of these things; his surprise at the possibility of the man being dead before the train decapitated him proved that. Meanwhile, he was waiting for an answer to his question. Doctor Manson supplied it. He replied quietly, without apparent interest in his conclusions. He stated it not as a suggestion, nor as a possible conclusion, but pertinently as an established fact. “It was obvious to me within a few minutes of seeing the body that the man had not been killed by the train,” he said.
Mackenzie gazed at him in bewilderment. He knew of the doctor as what the Force called a book-learning detective, and book-learning did not always conform with the facts required by detection, any more than theory always works out in fact. Inspector Mackenzie wondered whether he might suggest something of the kind and put it to his distinguished colleague that he might be wrong. He decided to get round the point in another way.
“But Doctor Manson,” he said. “Look at the facts. The man is on the line and he is dead. He has in fact lost his head, which is lying by the side of the rails. Moreover, his blood is spilt between the rails, and a cigar which he was undoubtedly smoking is a few yards farther down the line. You say he was not killed by the train. Why, Doctor Manson? Why?”
“May I ask you a few questions?” replied the scientist, surprisingly.
Mackenzie nodded.
“Then, they are concerned with three points of investigation, Mackenzie. When I arrived at the scene you pointed out to me an area of bloodstains. Had you measured those bloodstains. Inspector?”
“No, Doctor?”
“Why not?”
Mackenzie looked his astonishment. “Why not?” he echoed. “Why should I, sir. There was the man, and there were the blood-stains. It obviously came from the body, minus the head.”
“I see.” Doctor Manson spoke a little peevishly. “Well, we’ll leave that for the moment, and pass on to question number two. When you exposed the body to me, do you remember what you said?”
Mackenzie thought hard for a moment or two. “I can’t say that I recall anything particular, sir,” he answered. “All I can think of is that I assured you that the body was exactly as we had found it.”
“That is what I meant, Inspector.”
Mackenzie scratched his head. “Well, so it was, sir,” he insisted. “The plate-layer if you remember confirmed that.”
“I know he did, Mackenzie. Now the third question. When I inquired of you if the train had been examined, what did you reply?”
“That it had, sir. And that there was blood on the wheels of the second bogie of the leading coach.”
Doctor Manson nodded confirmatory agreement. “After that I made a remark. It was more of a thought spoken aloud, but you answered it. Do you recall that, by any chance?”
Mackenzie peered back into the recesses of his mind, contorting his face into a painful physical effort of thought. He shook his head. “I can’t place anything particular, Doctor,” he answered.
“Well Mackenzie, I said ‘and blood, of course, on the under-carriage. You answ
ered. . . .’”
“No.” The inspector supplied the answer. “There isn’t any blood on the undercarriage, either,” he confirmed.
“Quite so.” Doctor Manson nodded. “Now, your answers to those three questions told me that the man had not been killed by the train. From that moment I ceased any investigation into the cause of the man’s death, and concentrated all my efforts into the circumstances of his death. That is the answer to your question to me why within a few minutes of seeing the body I knew that Canley had not been killed by the train.” He ceased speaking and eyed the inspector interestedly.
There was silence for a moment or two. Then: “You don’t see the significance of them even now, Inspector?” asked Manson. Mackenzie shook his head.
“Then we’ll take the consequences arising from your answers one at a time,” said Manson. “Tell me what cases of violent death you have been associated with?”
“A few drownings in the Mole, sir. And a couple of stabbings when I was in Guildford as a constable.”
“Any collisions with vehicles, shall we say?”
“Yes, sir. A woman knocked down and killed by a motorcar a few months ago.”
“How was she found—I mean her condition?”
“In the middle of the road.”
Doctor Manson made a gesture of impatience. “Crumpled up, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, sir. All in a heap, so to speak.”
“Quite so. That is the usual way, of course. Sent sprawling in a heap. Yet you want to tell me that this man, hit by a very substantial train, was left lying peacefully on his back as if he had gone to sleep in a natural way, Inspector, without, as we have already agreed, having his overcoat scratched or torn. Of course, a man might have fallen like that but it is a thousand to one against it. That is why I asked if you meant it literally when you said the body was exactly as found. You see that, now?”
Inspector Mackenzie nodded glumly.
“Good. Now we’ll take the question of the area of the bloodstains which you did not measure. You did not record the area because you assumed that as the man had been decapitated by the train there were bound to be bloodstains, and hey presto, there they were. Can you remember the area covered by the stains on the track?”
“Eighteen inches one way and a couple of feet the other,” said Kenway before Mackenzie could recall the figures. “Merry wrote them down,” he added.
“Yes. Eighteen by twenty-four.” Manson repeated the words slowly and with emphasis. “It worried me.” He looked up sharply. “Does it worry you, now, Inspector?” he demanded.
“Doctor?” Kenway suddenly interrupted the questioning. Doctor Manson turned towards him. “Yes, Kenway?” he asked.
“Re the lying flat on his back. Would that not be a natural way for a man to lie if he were committing suicide?”
“It would, Kenway. Either that way or on his stomach, if he feared to see the train overtaking him.”
“Then might not suicide be the solution? I remember that you ruled out suicide, so you told the railway doctor.”
“I did for a few moments consider suicide as a possibility, Kenway,” replied Manson, “but Inspector Mackenzie’s statement about the undercarriage of the train disposed of that. That brings us back to the area of bloodstains.”
“My statement?” Mackenzie looked up, startled. “How was that, sir?”
“You haven’t answered the question that I asked you,” retorted Manson. “I wanted to know whether the area of the bloodstains worried you at all now?”
“N-no,” said Mackenzie, and appeared a little doubtful about it. He felt that if they worried the scientist, there was apparently something which should make him, too, concerned.
“Um! Have you ever seen a man beheaded? Guillotined, shall I say?”
“No, sir. I have not.” Mackenzie shuddered at the thought.
“And I suppose you have not any knowledge of the action of the heart on the arteries, or the blood in them?”
The inspector, who had risen naturally in seniority from a street beat, disclaimed any knowledge of anatomy.
“Then let me illustrate the point with a few simple facts about the heart, Inspector. The heart is the most efficient motor in the world. It goes on and on every second of the day and night without any of the frequent breakdowns of the mechanical motor. Its daily performance is equivalent to the energy required to lift a load of 40,000 lb. one yard, or an elevator containing three persons a height of 100 yards. Every twenty-four hours it despatches into the circulatory system of the body 20,000 pints of blood, pumping it through the arteries. And the power of the pumping I have already given you as being able to lift three persons in an elevator 100 yards into the air during the course of a day.”
The inspector fought valiantly against the boredom creeping over him. Doctor Manson continued. “Supposing you have a pump, Mackenzie, pumping up water, and you suddenly severed the pipe at any point along the system. What would happen?” Mackenzie grasped the simile. So did the sergeant. “It would gush out.” The answer came from them simultaneously.
“Quite!” Doctor Manson looked pleased by the realization. “And so it is with a decapitated person. I have seen a man guillotined. So soon as the head is severed, the blood spouts from the neck artery in a gush, projecting the stream some three or four feet, probably more. Now you see why the blood area of eighteen inches by two feet worried me. I realized that the little area shown on the railway track was incompatible with the amount, which should have been left by the beheading. But there was one point in my mind which could still leave little blood there and not yet negative the idea of suicide.”
“And that, sir?” asked Mackenzie.
“That the stream of blood might have gushed upwards and distributed its force on the undercarriage of the train . . .”
“I get it, Doctor,” said Kenway. “And when Inspector Mackenzie said there was no blood on the undercarriage . . .”
“Then I knew, Kenway, that the man was dead when the train ran over him.”
Mackenzie digested this explanation with considerable misgiving. It appeared to put him in an even worse position. Kenway came to his assistance.
“I suppose, Doctor, he could have died on the line while going over the short cut?” he asked. “And have fallen the way he was found? A man in a sudden heart attack, or in a fit, generally drops flat.”
“Nothing in the attitude of Canley’s body, when found, discredits the possibility.” Manson emphasized the qualifying words.
“Then that’s it,” whooped Mackenzie, and rubbed his hands.
“Only he didn’t die on the line,” added Manson, devastatingly.
Mackenzie bowed under this new blow. The sergeant rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin and whispered to Kenway.
“Bunny wishes to ask, Doctor,” Kenway interpreted, “how come about not dying on the line?”
“A pertinent question, Kenway, and one raising interesting possibilities. But too long to explain at the moment. Let us get the man on the line first.”
“He didn’t die on the line . . . he was on the line . . . and the train ran over his body.” Inspector Mackenzie declaimed like a schoolboy reciting blank verse. He thought it over. “That can only mean that he was taken there, Doctor.” He put the statement as a query.
“Well, Inspector,” challenged the Doctor. “And what is wrong with that?”
“The person, or persons, who took him there had to arrive at and leave the spot,” Kenway said ruminatingly. He made it sound like an algebraical equation.
“And there is no trace whatever of a second person,” said Mackenzie, triumphantly. “Only Canley’s footsteps going and not coming from.” He placed the doctor in the position of having his back to the wall.
Manson stared at them and then began to laugh—silently at first, and then loudly. “Cucullus non facit monachum,” he said. “The cowl does not make a monk. In other words, do not look at the coat but at what lies under the coat. I gather you di
d not study logic, Mackenzie?”
“They didn’t teach logic at the Board School, sir,” the detective said, reproachfully.
“No! They don’t even teach it in the present elementary schools, Inspector. How they expect children to think correctly, I don’t know. But there, that has nothing to do with us and this problem. However, a little lesson in logic ought to be beneficial here. You have said that there is no trace of anyone having been on the scene other than Canley who was found dead?” Mackenzie nodded.
“And you have now agreed with me, following the description of what happens when a living man is decapitated, that Canley was not alive when the train severed his head?”
Another nod, after some hesitation.
“You will agree with me that a dead man cannot walk up an embankment and on to a line and throw away a cigar of his own volition?”
Once again Mackenzie nodded his head. He looked like a rabbit being mesmerized by a watching serpent.
“I have said that Canley did not die on the line, and that a natural outcome of that is that he was taken there.”
Mackenzie waited.
“Then what do you mean by saying that there is no trace of anyone other than Canley having been on the scene? The very circumstances which we have discovered proves that someone else was on the line with Canley. If someone was there, then there is evidence somewhere that they were there. What you mean, Mackenzie, is that there is no obvious evidence of their presence. It has to be searched for.
“There was a case some years ago which might illustrate the point. The landlady of a boarding house, unable to make a woman guest in a room answer her knocks, sought the help of a man living in the house. He secured a ladder and with the help of a stranger called on from the street, he climbed the ladder to the window of the room, which was on the second floor. He broke a pane of glass in the window, unfastened the catch, pushed up the window and climbed in. Within a minute he was out of the room again on the ladder shouting ‘murder’, and calling for the man below to fetch the police. When questioned later, he said that he had left the room exactly as he found it.
