CHAPTER FIVE1
Shortly afterwards, three experienced men stood and looked at the sorry remains on the kitchen floor at High Garth. All three had had experience of “old mortality.” Macdonald, perhaps, had met such contingencies more frequently than the others, but Inspector Bord of Carnton had had to deal with corpses washed up on the treacherous sands of Morecambe Bay, and Doctor Lee, the police surgeon, had held his present post for many years. A young photographer had performed his gruesome task of obtaining close-ups of the dead man, and had then taken his gear outside. Bord looked at the hole in the wall and at the ladder like steps and then at the spread-eagled body.
“Looks plain enough, or was arranged to look plain enough,” he said. “The question is, who was deceased and how long h
