A Connoisseur's Case by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

the body, and Judith heard a stifled exclamation.
    â€˜What is it, John?’
    â€˜He’s caught himself a very queer crack. I don’t like it. And I can’t do much down here. So we’re faced with what we were talking about: the problem of getting out. Go to the other gate – will you? – and see if, by any chance, the sluice or valve or whatever it’s called is working. If we can get the level down and the gates open, then I can lug him into the canal at that end, and we can manage some sort of scramble up the bank.’
    Judith did as she was told.
    â€˜No go,’ she called, almost at once. ‘There isn’t a handle to crank the thing with.’
    â€˜Just cast around. It may have been chucked aside and be covered with grass or something.’
    â€˜You’re right.’ Judith spoke again almost at once. ‘I’ve found it. And it fits. And it’s working.’ She paused, and Appleby could hear her winding vigorously. ‘The water’s going out, all right. But there may be too much mud on the bottom for me to budge the gate. Can you come and tug at it while I shove.’
    â€˜Yes – but I’ll have to bring Crabtree with me. And rust may beat us, as well as mud. If the hinges are stuck fast, then you’ll just have to go for help. Delay won’t harm me. But it will spoil any slim chance this poor devil may have.’
    Judith felt that John’s tone conveyed a fuller knowledge about Seth Crabtree than his words did. And the grim task of extrication went on. The gates did move – surprisingly easily. And the inert body was eventually got up on the bank. It oughtn’t, they knew, to have been manhandled at all before medical aid was summoned. But in the circumstances there seemed no help for it.
    â€˜If the man who passed us on the towpath was really the local doctor,’ Judith said, ‘perhaps one of us ought to go after him.’
    â€˜And perhaps it ought to be me.’ Appleby was kneeling beside Crabtree as he spoke. ‘At the moment I represent the law, after all.’
    Judith glanced swiftly at her husband.
    â€˜John! You don’t mean–?’
    â€˜I mean that the fellow was coming straight from this spot. He may have been the last person to see Crabtree alive. And that’s to put it – well, cautiously.’
    For a moment Judith didn’t take this in.
    â€˜Oughtn’t we to get the water out of his lungs, and try artificial respiration? I can do the breath technique.’
    Appleby shook his head gently. Then, equally gently, he turned Crabtree’s head as it lay on the ground. And Judith momentarily recoiled.
    â€˜Could it have happened’ – she asked in a controlled voice – ‘by his striking against something as he fell? I mean, it could be an accident, surely?’
    â€˜Yes – upon one condition.’ Expertly, Appleby had been feeling for pulse and heart. ‘Some pathological fragility of the skull. But it’s only a remote possibility. The police surgeon will be able, I imagine, to tell at once. But I can’t see that ’ – and Appleby brought out a handkerchief and laid it over the dead man’s head – ‘as anything other than a deliberate and crushing blow.’
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    Appleby stood up. He looked at the body. He looked at the open lock gates and frowned. He looked at the line of the disused canal, with its foot or two of water scummed with green. He crossed it again by the still closed gates at the east end, and stepped delicately up and down the towpath, scanning the ground. He returned and did the same on the other bank.
    â€˜As I thought,’ he said, ‘there’s a track in the direction of the wharf or shed or whatever it is, farther along.’
    Judith didn’t seem to hear.
    â€˜That we should have stumbled on this,’ she said. ‘That you should.’
    â€˜Yes – that I should.’