Death Knocks Three Times Read Online Free PDF Page A

decide if it was accident, and if so, whose carelessness was responsible. If it was not an accident there were two alternatives. Either the Colonel had deliberately set free the lid himself or someone had laid a trap for him. The jury would hear the evidence and must give a true verdict in accordance with the facts. There seemed no doubt that the lid had actually been pulled down by the dead man himself; indeed, the loofah, attached by its thick cable, was still in his hand. The head had taken the full force of the blow, and there were injuries to the skull, as well as dislocation of the cerebral vertebrae.
    “Means ‘e broke ‘is bloomin’ neck,” muttered one juryman to his neighbor.
    “Why don’t he say it plain, then?” said the neighbor in carrying tones.
    The coroner then proceeded to call his witnesses. It was going to be a job to show it was suicide, reflected Crook. The old man had no troubles, financial or domestic, and, for his age, he was in excellent health. He hadn’t a morbid temperament, and only a day or two earlier he had remarked to Bligh he saw no reason why he shouldn’t live to a hundred.
    John Sherren, in the witness-box, said unhesitatingly that there
    was nothing to support a suggestion of suicide. “In fact,” he averred, “he seemed in better spirits than I had seen him for some time. Quarrelsome, too, and that was always a good sign. He spoke of coming to London, getting about before he got into a rut, he called it, or became too old and set to travel. When I reminded him that London would have changed a good deal in the past thirty years, he retorted that he came of a tough generation, not like some of the milk-and-water youngsters of today. He said he hadn’t seen a doctor professionally for twenty-five years, and he hoped it would be another twenty-five before he did.”
    That part of his evidence was plain sailing, but he got into a little trouble when he was asked to tell in detail about the quarrel of which he had spoken, and to which Bligh was prepared to give testimony.
    “It was quite insignificant,” he said, trying to pass the whole affair off airily. “Violent? No, I should hardly call it that. It was simply that when I warned my uncle he’d find London greatly changed and perhaps hardly the place for an old man he, as it were, blew up. Took offense. Asked me if I thought he was a nincompoop. Or perhaps I was afraid he was coming south to consult his lawyer, but I needn’t worry about that. I should be no worse off, that much he could promise me.”
    “And what did you deduce from that?”
    “I really didn’t give the matter much consideration. I’d never discussed finance widi my uncle, and fortunately I had a competence”—yes he actually said competence—“of my own, and then there are the royalties from my books.”
    The coroner made it perfectly obvious that he had no knowledge of John Sherren as a writer and had no intention of correcting his ignorance.
    “Did he say anything else?”
    “I told him I was quite uninterested in his reasons for coming to town, and he said, ‘You’re even more of a fool than I imagined. What’s more, you’re a liar. Why else do you come up here without an invitation if you don’t hope to draw dividends?’ “
    The fellow was either incredibly naive or intelligent above the average. Crook decided, spilling the beans like that. He seemed, however, to have taken the wind out of the coroner’s sails.
    All he could think of to say next was: “So there was no foundation whatever for your uncle’s suggestion? Is that what you wish the jury to understand?”
    “None whatsoever.”
    “And naturally you resented it?”
    The pink face assumed a yet more cherubic expression. “Why, no, hardly that. I knew the poor old boy was eccentric—who wouldn’t be, living in such conditions?—it would have been absurd to take offense.”
    “And he didn’t reveal the nature of his intentions as regards the will?”
    “We didn’t