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THE VIADUCT MURDER

good shove, and falls just over the edge; there's nothing for him to catch on to; and between his own motion and the slope of the embankment he gets pitched on to the buttress. I don't know any place along this line where the drop comes so close. The coroner will call attention to that⁠—it's extraordinary the way coroners do draw attention to all the least important aspects of the case. I read a newspaper account once of a man who was killed by a motor-car just as he came out of church, and I'm blessed if the coroner didn't draw attention to the dangerous habit of standing about outside churches."

"I must say, the place seems made for something like this happening. Do you see how the line curves away from this side?"

"Why shouldn't it?"

"What I mean is, it would be very hard for anybody to see Brotherhood fall out of the train unless he was travelling in the same coach: the other coaches would be out of view (unless a man were leaning right out of the window), simply owing to the curve⁠—and of course a fog would make the job all the easier."

"By Jove, that's true. I must say, I stick to my murder theory, whatever the jury make of it. In fact, I hope they will bring in suicide, because then the police won't be fussing round all over the place. It looks to me like a murder, and a carefully planned one."

"I'd just like to try your stone-throwing trick