Chapter 3

 The next day, August rose almost an hour before Frobisher had said breakfast was served and again visited the street where the body had been found. His previous night’s efforts to find any traces of a struggle, witnesses or any other clues as to what had happened had proved entirely fruitless. The snow had covered the ground with a carpet of white more than two inches deep, and there were no signs of car tracks, footprints or anything else. He’d then returned to the hotel storeroom, had a few brief words with the doctor that Frobisher had called – and learned that the probable cause of death was a broken neck caused by a blow to the back of the head. He’d then taken a whisky nightcap with Frobisher and retired to bed.

After a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast, and two mugs of heavily sugared tea, August took directions from Frobisher and headed off to the local police station. There he was received by the desk-sergeant, Walter Gooding.

“Before we get on to the matter of last night’s death,” August said, “I’m curious to know how this chap Newton died.”

“Found dead on the road to Witchford,” the sergeant explained, “knocked down by some passing motor car they reckoned”.

August’s eyes narrowed a little. “Only reckoned – but not certain then?” he asked.

“Well, no, not certain, I suppose. There were no witnesses you see. But that was the coroner’s verdict. Accidental death caused by person or persons unknown – most likely caused by him being hit by a car travelling at speed. It was Doctor Phillips who you met last night as did the post mortem. Said he had a broken leg, a couple of broken ribs and a fractured skull. The bump to the head being what killed him.”

“Right,” said August, “and there was no doubt about the identification? Miss Wenthrop was sure it was Newton?”

“Oh, no doubt at all, sir,” said the sergeant. “Alice Wenthrop may be ancient but she’s still got all her faculties, and she’s probably got sharper eyes than me. She was very definite it was Newton.”

“He was an albino too I understand. Can’t be many of them round here, I expect?”

“No, that’s for sure. And then there was his birthmark, of course. You couldn’t miss that. Big ugly red thing on the side of his neck. That was distinctive just by itself, I’d say.”

“Yes,” said August, “and the strange thing is that the body young Jack found outside the Railway Hotel last night has exactly the same birthmark – or so the landlord says.”

“So, if last night’s body is Newton’s, then the question, I guess,” said the sergeant, “is whose body was it we put in the ground last week?”

August nodded vaguely but gave no answer.

“Tea, inspector?” Gooding asked, and Brighton nodded vaguely again.

The two men then fell to silence as the sergeant left the main office and went into the small side room. At the sink in the far corner he rinsed out a brown china teapot and two rather grubby looking mugs. He boiled water on a gas burner, warmed the pot, and spooned in tea from a Coronation caddy.

With his tea subsequently supplied and sipped, August lit his pipe and returned to the sergeant’s question: “I think we have no option but to see about an exhumation,” he said. “Whereabouts was Newton laid to rest?”

“In the graveyard round the back of St. Peter’s. At the top of the street, on the same side as the Railway hotel,” Gooding answered.

“Right, so can you arrange for a Coroner’s warrant, sergeant, and then we can make arrangements with the vicar and see whether or not Newton was the one you buried last week.”

“And if it turns out not to be?” asked the sergeant.

“Well, then we’ll have two deaths to explain,” August replied, “and I’ll be staying at the March Railway Hotel rather longer than I expected.”

August sat down at the station desk sipping his tea and puffing on his pipe while the sergeant rang through to the coroner’s office and explained the situation. At the end of the call the sergeant returned the handset to the cradle and asked “What now then, sir?”

“Well, I’ll need to telephone my super and let him know what’s going on, and then, I think, we’d best pay a visit to Miss Wenthrop. If she’s up to it, I’d like her to take a look at last night’s body. And then I want to have a word with whoever it was who found Newton’s body on the road to Witchford.”

“Goat,” said the sergeant.

“Goat?” said August.

“Angus Goat,” Gooding confirmed. “Our local solicitor. He was the one who found Newton. Nearly drove over the body in fact. Driving home from some meeting he’d had in Cambridge.”