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Start Black-Friday Now

Enjoy a eBay-$50 card

There is no better time then now.

Recieve your vouch #21855446 by completing a short-questionairre. You can use these-rewards all week for your enjoyment.

There are so many items you wont know what to buy-first.

Get-your eBay-card: 13989267 >

The actual barge you see had already been removed when I took thissnapshot but you will realize what a perfect place this alley is forthe purpose of one man cutting anothers throat in comfort and withoutfear of detection. The body as I said was decomposed beyond allrecognition; it had probably been there eleven days but sundryarticles such as a silver ring and a tie pin were recognizable andwere identified by Mrs. Kershaw as belonging to her husband. She of course was loud in denouncing Smethurst and the police had nodoubt a very strong case against him for two days after the discoveryof the body in the barge the Siberian millionaire as he was alreadypopularly called by enterprising interviewers was arrested in hisluxurious suite of rooms at the Hotel Cecil.

To confess the truth at this point I was not a little puzzled. Mrs. Kershaws story and Smethursts letters had both found their way intothe papers and follog my usual methodmind you I am only anamateur I try to reason out a case for the love of the thingI soughtabout for a motive for the crime which the police declared Smethursthad committed. To effectually get rid of a dangerous blackmailer was thegenerally accepted theory. Well! did it ever strike you how paltry thatmotive really was? Miss Polly had to confess however that it had never struck her in thatlight.

Surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by hisown individual efforts was not the sort of fool to believe that he hadanything to fear from a man like Kershaw. He must have known thatKershaw held no damning proofs against himnot enough to hang him anyway. Have you ever seen Smethurst? he added as he once more fumbledin his pocketbook. Polly replied that she had seen Smethursts picture in the illustratedpapers at the time. Then he added placing a small photograph beforeher: What strikes you most about the face?

Well I think its strange astonished expression due to the totalabsence of eyebrows and the funny foreign cut of the hair. So close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved. Exactly. Thatis what struck me most when I elbowed my way into the court that morningand first caught sight of the millionaire in the dock. He was a tall soldierlylooking man upright in stature his face very bronzed andtanned. He wore neither moustache nor beard his hair was cropped quiteclose to his head like a Frenchmans; but of course what was so veryremarkable about him was that total absence of eyebrows and eveneyelashes which gave the face such a peculiar appearanceas you say aperpetually astonished look.