“Are you thinking that the murderer, being unaware of his victim’s injuries, calculated that the superficial injuries would not be evident after the body had been submerged for several days? That he hoped the coroner’s verdict would be death by misadventure?”

“Yes, along that line, Doctor. It’s possible, is it not?”

“Quite.”

“Therefore, the murderer knew something of pathology?”

“He could have learned that much from a medical textbook, but more likely from a published report of an inquest. I’ve read in the newspapers two such reports this last twelve-month. There’s no proof, though, that the murderer intended this.”

“But he drowned the man when he could have killed him with his hands about his throat, or with a stick or a stone.”

“If he wasn’t himself played out by the struggle and had strength only to hold his victim under water.”

“Let us pass to the death of Mrs Answerth. How old was she?”

“Sixty-nine.”

“Therefore, frail?”

“Yes and no, Inspector. Mrs Answerth had always led a very active life. Up to the time of death, she grew the vegetables in the garden about the house, and attended to the fowls and ducks. She suffered slightly from lumbago, but her heart and lungs were sound. When I last saw her, and that was two years ago, she walked upright and her mind was unimpaired.”

“She was not drowned, I think.”

“She was strangled with rough cord or light rope. The mark of the ligature was quite plain. She was dead when her body entered the water. I believe death was very rapid, and that death was due to asphyxia rather than to shock. There was but little mucus froth and no water in the lungs.

“The body was fully clothed,” the doctor proceeded. “I found more weed adhering to the back of the head than to any other part of it. There was a quantity of weed pressed into the cavity between the neck and the back of the blouse, and there was much weed adhering to the calves of the worsted stockings. All that provides me with a picture. I can see the body being dragged through shallow water by the cord or rope with which the woman was strangled, and then, when the ligature had been removed, pushed out into deep water.”