Part 51

“Why did you dissolve the partnership?”

“I had to. Reed was impossible in a business sense. He gambled incessantly in stocks and I had to pay his losses. I lent him, for this purpose, at one time and another, over two thousand pounds. He gave me bills for the loans, but he was never able to meet them, and in the end, when we dissolved, I got him to insure his life for three thousand pounds and to draw up a document making his debt to me the first charge on his estate in the event of his death.”

“Had you ever any reason to suppose that he contemplated suicide?”

“None whatever. After he left me, he entered into partnership with a Mr. Walter Jarman, and whenever I met him, he seemed to be quite happy and contented, though I gathered that he was still gambling a good deal. I saw him a week ago to-day and he then told me that he proposed to take a short yachting holiday with his partner, who owned a small cutter. That was the last time that I saw him alive.”

As the witness was about to retire, Thorndyke rose, and having obtained the coroner’s permission to cross-examine, asked:

“You have spoken of a yacht. Do you know what her name is and where she has been kept lately?”

“Her name is the Moonbeam, and I believe Jarman kept her somewhere in the Thames, but I don’t know where.”

“And as to Jarman himself: what do you know about him, as to his character, for instance?”

“I knew him very slightly. He appeared to be rather a dissipated man. Drank a good deal, I should say, and I think he was a bit of a gambler.”

“Do you know if he was a heavy smoker?”

“He didn’t smoke at all, but he was an inveterate snuff-taker.”

At this point the foreman of the jury interposed with the audible remark that “he didn’t see what this had to do with the inquiry,” and the coroner looked dubiously at Thorndyke; but as my colleague sat down, the objection was not pursued.

The next witness was the caretaker of the building in which Reed and Jarman’s office was situated. His evidence was to the effect that on the previous Monday evening at about eight o’clock, he saw Mr. Jarman let himself into the office with his key. “I don’t know how long he stayed there,” he continued, in reply to the coroner’s question. “I had finished my work and was going up to my rooms at the top of the building. I didn’t see him again.”

“Did you notice anything unusual in his appearance?” asked Thorndyke, rising to cross-examine. “Was his face at all flushed, for instance?”

“I couldn’t say. I was going up the stairs and I just looked back over my shoulder when I heard him. His face was turned away from me.”

“But you had no difficulty in recognizing him?”

“No: I should have known him a mile off. He had his overcoat on, and it is a very peculiar overcoat--light brown with a sort of greenish check. You couldn’t possibly mistake it.”

“What should you say was Mr. Jarman’s height?”

“About five feet nine or ten, I should say.”

Here the foreman of the jury again interposed. “Aren’t we wasting time, sir?” he inquired impatiently. “These details about Jarman may be very important to the police, but they don’t concern us. We are inquiring into the death of Mr. Reginald Reed.”

The coroner looked deprecatingly at Thorndyke and remarked: “There is some truth in what the foreman says.”

“I submit, sir,” replied Thorndyke, “that there is no truth in it at all. We are not inquiring into the death of Reginald Reed, but into that of a man whose remains were found in a burned rick.”

“But the body has been identified as that of Reginald Reed.”

“Then,” said Thorndyke, “I submit that it has been wrongly identified. I suggest that the body is that of Walter Jarman and I am prepared to produce witnesses who will prove that it is.”

“But,” exclaimed the coroner, “we have just heard the evidence of a witness who states that he saw Jarman alive eighteen hours after the rick was fired.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Thorndyke. “We have heard the witness say that he saw Jarman’s overcoat. He expressly stated that he did not see the man’s face.”

The coroner hastily conferred with the jury--who openly scoffed at Thorndyke’s suggestion--and then said: “I find what you say perfectly incredible and so do the jury. It is utterly irreconcilable with the facts. You had better call your witnesses and let us dispose of this extraordinary suggestion.”

Thorndyke bowed to the coroner and called Mr. Andrew Darton; whereupon a middle-aged man of markedly professional aspect came forward and, having been sworn, gave evidence as follows: