‘We could land ourselves in trouble,’ said the editor, ‘if it seemed we were implying that one of these breeders employs a dog-stealer, and that’s what your half-baked notion amounts to, my boy.’
The police had not been able to find the square of cloth which had been cut from the trousers, but the medical evidence was clear as to the cause of death. The man had not been savaged by the dog. He had died from concussion followed by drowning. There were no marks of a dog’s teeth on the body, and when the trousers were produced it was clear that these had not been attacked by Sekhmet, either, as no dog could have effected so neat a hole in the material.
Susan was called upon to testify to her discovery of the body. She went on to assure the court (and was backed up firmly but unofficially by Bryony from the public benches) that Sekhmet had never attempted to attack anybody, but had been fascinated by the smell of the aniseed which had been sprinkled lavishly on the trousers.
The vet from Axehead testified that he was called occasionally to Crozier Lodge to inoculate puppies against the various diseases to which puppies are liable and, later, to give the necessary ‘boosters’. The adult dogs, he said, were amenable and without vice, good guard dogs, but trustworthy, well cared for and well trained.
The police sergeant agreed. He had been present with the inspector and had seen the body in the river. There had never been any complaints about the behaviour of the Crozier Lodge hounds. He had a dog of his own and knew that dog-stealers often sprayed aniseed on their trousers. Dogs would follow the scent of it anywhere.
‘Let us look,’ said the sergeant — a young man who was well read, ‘at The Episode of the Dog McIntosh.’
‘The dog did what?’
‘No, sir. McIntosh was the name of the dog in question.’
‘That is not the name given me by the last witness.’
‘I refer, sir, to the dog in the Episode.’
‘Oh, I see. A scottie, I suppose.’
‘An Aberdeen terrier, sir, yes.’
‘Prefer West Highland myself,’ commented the coroner, ‘but what has that dog to do with this present enquiry?’
‘I advanced it as an instance of the effect the smell of aniseed has on the canine population. The Episode concerns the, abstraction of the dog McIntosh from a London apartment (to which it should not have been taken) by means of this same device, sir.’
‘What same device?’
‘The device of sprinkling aniseed on the trousers, sir.’
‘Oh, we’ve got to the point at last, have we? Has it ever occurred to you, sergeant, that you are wasted in the police force and would stand an excellent chance of getting into Parliament and wasting the time of the House instead of my time?’
(In parenthesis it may be revealed that the well-read sergeant did leave the Force. He took a course in teacher training, became a schoolmaster and later the head of a school. In the course of time he also was appointed to serve on the local Bench, where he was the terror of young constables who were called upon to give evidence. It was his habit to warn them: ‘Now, be very careful, officer. I have been a member of the police force myself and know all the dodges.’)
The medical examination had concluded that, although the head wound had not been fatal in itself, it had been the contributory factor in the subsequent drowning. There was nothing to show whether a piece had been cut from the trousers at the scene of the accident or previously, so there was no proof that another person had been present before Susan saw the body.
The inference that the man, embarrassed by the attentions of Sekhmet, had abandoned his trousers to her and had leapt into the river to get away from her, still stood, ridiculous though it sounded. The verdict was that, in doing so, he had slipped on the treacherous boulders, knocked himself unconscious and had subsequently drowned as the result of this accident.
5
Theories and Speculations
« ^ »
So we suspect that there has been dirty work at the crossroads or, in this case, at the confluence of the waters,’ said Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were back at the Stone House. ‘What are you going to do about it? According to the verdict we heard pronounced, the answer is a lemon.’
‘There are various ways of dealing with dirty work,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Name two.’
‘Well, there is the way adopted by the priest and the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan — pass by on the other side of the road and so avoid all chance of becoming implicated. Another way is to proceed with some dirty work of one’s own. I fail to see how lemons come into the matter.’
‘Just a manner of saying that the verdict has shut all doors to further investigation of that de-trousered fellow’s death.’
‘Not necessarily. The circumstances are bizarre and therefore, to that extent, interesting. Further interest is added by the fact that Bryony shares our suspicions.’
‘It’s a pity Sekhmet can’t talk.’
‘I hardly think Susan would agree with you.’
‘Do you think the dead man was the Crozier Lodge prowler?’
‘Time will tell, perhaps.’
‘It seems a bit much to suspect Susan on no evidence at all.’
‘We have only Susan’s word for it that the man was dead when she got to Watersmeet. Her wet jeans could be (and no doubt were) explained by her statement that she waded into the river to look at the body. She is the one person, apart from the two sisters, who could be quite sure that Sekhmet would not attack her, whatever she did.’
‘The evidence is that Sekhmet would not attack anybody.’
‘I am acting as the Devil’s advocate, as usual, but one must always be prepared to look at a problem from all sides.’
‘You don’t deny that somebody enticed Sekhmet away with intent to steal her, do you?’
‘I have an open mind about the question of stealing her. Why steal a comparatively valueless Labrador bitch when there are two pedigree Pharaoh hounds of the same sex at Crozier Lodge? It does not strike me as a very sensible procedure.’
‘Oh, well, yes, there is that, I suppose. The smell of aniseed would have attracted the other hounds as much as it did Sekhmet, but, of course, the answer is that all the Pharaohs were shut safely away, so Sekhmet was the only dog available.’
‘We come now to the question of the mutilated trousers.’
‘Well, if the circumstances of the death were more suspicious than the inquest verdict would have us believe, there is no doubt why that particular chunk was chopped out of them, although there is no reason to think Susan did that. It would have shown the name of the tailor or outfitter who had supplied the pants and the police are pretty hot at tracing people when they’ve got that much to go on. On the other hand, if the death was purely accidental, surely somebody will turn up at some time and report this man as missing.’
‘A question which ought to have been raised at the inquest is whether the trousers on which Sekhmet was sitting were the trousers of the dead man or of somebody else. They could be the murderer’s own trousers (if murder has been committed) and he could have gone off in the victim’s garments.’
‘Well, that would let Susan out, surely?’
‘Who can tell? The Rant sisters could say what she was wearing when she went off to Watersmeet, no doubt, but — ’