Beware of the Trains by Edmund Crispin Read Free Book Online Page A

her for; and so I was fairly sure that if she were given a chance of making a clean breast of the thing, she’d probably do it.
    “No, the real danger was that Bowen simply hadn’t noticed the evidence which proved Mrs. Foley guilty; or alternatively, that if he had noticed it, he was keeping quiet about it out of humanitarian feeling or local patriotism or something (there was the chance, too, that he’d been having an affair with Mrs. Foley, and was protecting her for that reason). To the first of these possibilities the objections were ( a ) that Bowen had been in the Thames police, ( b ) that he’d been in the Navy, and ( c ) that he’d recently read the standard text-books on Criminal Investigation. To the second, the objection was that—to use your words—Bowen was ’strict and rigid and pound-of-flesh and letter-of-the-law,’ and therefore unlikely to let a criminal escape the consequences of his acts for sentimental reasons. Most dangerous of all, for me, was the possibility that he’d been having an affair with Mrs. Foley prior to Foley’s death: in that case, she would in a sense have been blackmailing him .
    “No, I won’t pretend there was anything waterproof about my ideas, in this instance; the balance of probability was in favour of them, and that was all. Even as it is, I take it that the evidence against him—”
    “Won’t be strong enough for prosecution,” Best put in. “No, you’re right about that, I’m afraid: after all, it’s basically only her word against his. On the other hand, these deductions you made might help a bit.”
    “Not waterproof enough, as I said. He can always plead that he simply overlooked the particular bit of evidence that proved Mrs. Foley guilty—and you can’t condemn a man for that. After all, Best, you overlooked it yourself.”
    “Damn me if I know what it is yet,” said Best a shade grimly. “Come on, sir, don’t be a tease: let’s have it.”
    For answer, Fen ran his eye over the books ranged on Best’s mantelpiece. Rising, he crossed the room and took one down.
    “Listen to Gross,” he commanded, searching through the pages. “Here it is: Hans Gross, Criminal Investigation, Third Edition, page 435, footnote. ‘To say that footgear is the only thing a corpse does not lose easily through the action of water is inadequate;—the author has never been able to believe it is ever lost. Bodies often make horrible journeys, especially in swiftly flowing mountain streams, over boulders and trunks of trees, and thereby occasionally lose whole limbs. But if the feet are kept intact, and if the corpse has on boots or shoes, not mere sandals, these are never lost; the foot swells, the leather shrinks, and so the footgear “fits uncommonly tight.”’”
    Fen replaced the volume on the shelf. “All of which rather makes hay of Mrs. Foley’s story,” he observed. “According to her, Foley was pushed into the river while in the act of kicking her with hobnailed boots; yet his body was eventually recovered without—to quote you again—’a stitch of clothing on it anywhere.’ So either Mrs. Foley was lying or Gross is—and I know which of them I’d put my money on. What I think must have happened is that Foley assaulted his wife and then went into the cottage and took off his boots; whereupon Mrs. Foley seized a poker, or some such thing, and very justifiably knocked him unconscious with it, subsequently dragging him to the river-bank in his stockinged feet (possibly with the help of the faithful idiot, and possibly under the impression that he was already dead), and there shoving him in and leaving him to drown. However, she’ll give us the details herself in due course, no doubt.”
    Best was sobered. ‘Yes, I certainly ought to have remembered my Gross,” he said. “And I see now what you mean about the Thames police and the Navy and the text-books, in connection with Bowen: the boots business’d be the sort of detail he really would know