Hardcastle's Frustration Read Free

contemporaries, he regarded it as an infernal invention that would not last. ‘Better use the thing to get a couple of our people down here to shift the body to St Mary’s, then, and while you’re at it, alert Dr Spilsbury as to when they’re likely to arrive. And bring that sack with you, Marriott. It might tell us something.’
    â€˜The telephone’s in the front office, Charlie,’ said the Thames Division sergeant.
    â€˜Thanks, Jock,’ said Marriott, and left the room to make his calls.
    Hardcastle spent the next few minutes closely inspecting the body. With the assistance of the river policeman, he turned it on to its face.
    â€˜Aha! What have we here?’ he said, moving closer to examine an injury on the back of the dead man’s head. ‘Looks like a bullet wound.’ He stepped back and tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. ‘That settles it; it’s a murder without a doubt.’
    â€˜Looks that way, sir,’ said the river policeman cautiously. He was convinced, from his long experience in such matters, that a body tied up in a sack had been the victim of a murder, and wondered why the DDI had at first appeared to be in some doubt.
    â€˜With your knowledge of the river, Skipper, have you any idea where the body might’ve been put in?’
    â€˜Difficult to say, sir. It depends on the date and on the flow of the tide when he was dumped, and he might’ve been caught up on some obstruction before floating free again. But I’m surprised it wasn’t weighted down.’
    â€˜So am I, Skipper,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Bit of an amateur killer by the looks of it. I suppose you’ve not been advised about a missing person,’ he asked hopefully.
    â€˜No, sir. Reports of that sort are usually made to a land station.’
    â€˜Everything’s been arranged, sir,’ said Marriott, returning from making his telephone calls.
    â€˜Good. In that case, we’ll get back to the nick and put our thinking caps on, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle. ‘And we’ll get Mr Collins to go to St Mary’s and take fingerprints from the victim. You never know, he might find that there’s a record of him.’
    Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins was an expert in the comparatively new science of fingerprint identification. It was only thirteen years previously that such evidence had been accepted by the courts, and had been a factor in securing the conviction of the notorious Stratton brothers for the murders of a Deptford oil shop owner and his wife.
    â€˜We could always chop off the fingers and send them straight to the Yard, if it’ll help, sir,’ volunteered the river sergeant.
    â€˜I think we’ll let Dr Spilsbury have the whole body, Skipper,’ said Hardcastle with a wry grin, ‘otherwise he might come to the wrong conclusion. Sorry to deprive you of your fee.’ It was well known that Thames Division officers coveted the small remuneration they received for such primitive surgery.
    Mounting the steps to Victoria Embankment, Hardcastle hailed a taxi. ‘New Scotland Yard, cabbie,’ he said, and turning to Marriott, added, ‘Tell ’em Cannon Row, Marriott, and half the time you’ll end up at Cannon Street in the City.’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Marriott wearily. He had been the recipient of this advice on almost every occasion that he and the DDI had returned to the police station by cab.
    â€˜Learn anything from the sack our body was tied up in, Marriott?’ asked Hardcastle, when his sergeant joined him.
    â€˜It’s a sugar sack, sir, stamped Henry Tate and Sons. They’ve got a refinery at Silvertown.’
    â€˜Well, that doesn’t help much,’ grunted Hardcastle. ‘There must be hundreds of sacks like that knocking about, although it could mean that this here murder’s down to a grocer.’ He placed his pipe in the ashtray