Part 47

“It won’t matter much if you do,” said Thorndyke. “We have finished our routine work for the day and our time is now our own.” He led the way up to our chambers, where, having given the fire a stir, he drew up three arm-chairs.

“Now, Stalker,” said he. “Warm your toes and tell us your troubles.”

Mr. Stalker spread out his hands to the blaze and began reflectively: “It will be enough, I think, if I give you the facts--and most of them you probably know already. You have heard about this man whose remains were found in the ashes of a burnt rick? Well, it turns out that he was a certain Mr. Reginald Reed, an outside broker, as I understand; but what is of more interest to us is that he was a client of ours. We have issued a policy on his life for three thousand pounds. I thought I remembered the name when I saw it in the paper this afternoon, so I looked up our books, and there it was, sure enough.”

“When was the policy issued?” Thorndyke asked.

“Ah!” exclaimed Stalker. “That’s the exasperating feature of the case. The policy was issued less than a year ago. He has only paid a single premium. So we stand to drop practically the whole three thousand. Of course, we have to take the fat with the lean, but we don’t like to take it in such precious large lumps.”

“Of course you don’t,” agreed Thorndyke. “But now: you have come to consult me--about what?”

“Well,” replied Stalker, “I put it to you: isn’t there something obviously fishy about the case? Are the circumstances normal? For instance, how the devil came a respectable city gentleman to be smoking his pipe in a haystack out in a lonely meadow at two o’clock in the morning, or thereabouts?”

“I agree,” said Thorndyke, “that the circumstances are highly abnormal. But there is no doubt that the man is dead. Extremely dead, if I may use the expression. What is the point that you wish to raise?”

“I am not raising any point,” replied Stalker. “We should like you to attend the inquest and watch the case for us. Of course, in our policies, as you know, suicide is expressly ruled out; and if this should turn out to have been a case of suicide----”

“What is there to suggest that it was?” asked Thorndyke.

“What is there to suggest that it wasn’t?” retorted Stalker.

“Nothing,” rejoined Thorndyke. “But a negative plea is of no use to you. You will have to furnish positive proof of suicide, or else pay the claim.”

“Yes, I realize that,” said Stalker, “and I am not suggesting--but there, it is of no use discussing the matter while we know so little. I leave the case in your hands. Can you attend the inquest?”

“I shall make it my business to do so,” replied Thorndyke.

“Very well,” said Stalker, rising and putting on his gloves, “then we will leave it at that; and we couldn’t leave it in better case.”

When our visitor had gone I remarked to Thorndyke: “Stalker seems to have conceived the same idea as my learned senior--fraudulent suicide.”

“It is not surprising,” he replied. “Stalker is a shrewd man and he perceives that when an abnormal thing has happened we may look for an abnormal explanation. Fraudulent suicide was a speculative possibility yesterday: to-day, in the light of these new facts, it is the most probable theory. But mere probabilities won’t help Stalker. If there is no direct evidence of suicide--and there is not likely to be any--the verdict will be Death by Misadventure, and the Griffin Company will have to pay.”

“I suppose you won’t do anything until you have heard what transpires at the inquest?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I think we should do well to go down and just go over the ground. At present we have the facts at third hand, and we don’t know what may have been overlooked. As to-morrow is fairly free I propose that we make an early start and see the place ourselves.”

“Is there any particular point that you want to clear up?”

“No; I have nothing definite in view. The circumstances are compatible with either accident, suicide or homicide, with an undoubted leaning towards suicide. But, at present, I have a completely open mind. I am, in fact, going down to Dartford in the hope of getting a lead in some definite direction.”

When we alighted at Dartford Station on the following morning, Thorndyke looked enquiringly up and down the platform until he espied an inspector, when he approached the official and asked for a direction to the site of the burnt rick.

The official glanced at Thorndyke’s canvas-covered research-case and at my binocular and camera as he replied with a smile: “You are not the first, by a long way, that has asked that question. There has been a regular procession of Press gentlemen that way this morning. The place is about a mile from here. You take the foot-path to Joyce Green and turn off towards the creek opposite Temple Farm. This is about where the rick stood,” he added, as Thorndyke produced his one-inch ordnance map and a pencil, “a few yards from that dyke.”

With this direction and the open map we set forth from the station, and taking our way along the unfrequented path soon left the town behind. As we crossed the second stile, where the path rejoined the road, Thorndyke paused to survey the prospect. “Stalker’s question,” he remarked, “was not unreasonable. This road leads nowhere but to the river, and one does rather wonder what a city man can have been doing out on these marshes in the small hours of the morning. I think that will be our objective, where you see those men at work by the shepherd’s hut, or whatever it is.”

We struck off across the level meadows, out of which arose the red sails of a couple of barges, creeping down the invisible creek; and as we approached our objective the shepherd’s hut resolved itself into a contractor’s office van, and the men were seen to be working with shovels and sieves on the ashes of the rick. A police inspector was superintending the operations, and when we drew near he accosted us with a civil inquiry as to our business.

Thorndyke presented his card and explained that he was watching the case in the interests of the Griffin Assurance Company. “I suppose,” he added, “I shall be given the necessary facilities?”

“Certainly,” replied the officer, glancing at my colleague with an odd mixture of respect and suspicion; “and if you can spot anything that we’ve overlooked, you are very welcome. It’s all for the public good. Is there anything in particular that you want to see?”

“I should like to see everything that has been recovered so far. The remains of the body have been removed, I suppose?”