Alex Pritchard (Alan Carstairs) falls to his death from a cliff

The death of Alan Carstairs at the Marchbolt cliffs is initially mistaken for the accidental death of Alex Pritchard. A photograph found with the body gives the authorities an apparent identification, and the inquest returns a verdict of death by misadventure. Later, Bobby Jones and Frankie Derwent connect the identification to a possible photograph switch and suspect that Carstairs was pushed. The event’s significance lies in that reversal: an apparently straightforward accident becomes the concealed beginning of a murder investigation.

Discovery at the Cliffs

Bobby Jones is walking along the cliff path with Dr Thomas when he spots a dark heap about forty feet below. The place is not wholly inaccessible: caddies sometimes scramble down the rocks to retrieve lost balls. Bobby and Dr Thomas descend together, with Bobby helping the less athletic doctor. They find a man of about forty, unconscious but still breathing. Dr Thomas examines him and concludes that nothing can be done. The discovery thus begins not with a witnessed fall but with an unknown man already at the bottom of the cliff, leaving the circumstances of his descent unresolved.

For Bobby, the encounter is a first direct confrontation with death. After the doctor’s examination, he sits on a projection of rock and lights a cigarette, shaken by what has happened. He studies the man’s appearance: a strong, tanned, outdoorsman-like figure, with chestnut hair greying at the temples and a face that seems capable and self-possessed. When the man’s blue eyes open, they appear alert and conscious; he speaks before Bobby can reach him. These details give the stranger an individuality that contrasts with the ease with which the subsequent public account reduces him to an identified victim of a fatal accident.

Identification and Inquest

A newspaper report describes the victim as a man who had recently returned from Siam after ten years away and was beginning a walking tour. It says that a photograph he carried identified him as Alex Pritchard, the brother of Amelia Cayman. She travels to Marchbolt and identifies the deceased as her brother. The photograph therefore becomes the crucial link between an unidentified body and a name, supplying the inquest with what appears to be a simple account of who died.

At the inquest, the coroner presents the death as an unfortunate accident. There is no suggestion that Pritchard had been depressed or otherwise likely to take his own life; instead, he is described as healthy and looking forward to his holiday. The danger of the cliff path in rising sea mist gives the jury a plausible explanation for a fall. Its verdict is death by misadventure, accompanied by a recommendation that the Town Council put a fence or rail along the dangerous stretch beside the chasm. The rider addresses the hazard of the path, but the verdict does not establish how the man came to fall—or whether the name attached to him is correct.

The Photograph and the Murder Theory

The identification begins to look less secure when Bobby and Frankie Derwent examine the circumstances surrounding the photograph. Bobby remembers seeing a photograph in the dead man’s pocket and putting it back. By the time the police arrive, it is gone and another photograph is in its place. They reason that, if there was only one photograph, the person left alone with the body had the opportunity to replace it. Roger Bassington-ffrench had been alone there. This is a deduction about access and evidence, not something Bobby witnessed him doing.

Frankie draws the more disturbing conclusion: if Pritchard was pushed, Bassington-ffrench may have been the killer. Bobby resists treating the theory as certain. He acknowledges that the idea of murder had appealed to him because it made the case more exciting, and he points out that an essential part of the theory remains conditional: the victim may not have been pushed. The exchange marks a shift from the apparent certainty of the inquest to a chain of clues whose meaning is still disputed. The unexplained substitution of the photograph turns identification itself into a possible instrument of concealment.

Reidentification and Significance

Frankie later becomes convinced that the man who died at Marchbolt was Alan Carstairs, not Alex Pritchard. She reasons that Carstairs fits the circumstances: he had no close friends or family in England likely to notice his disappearance quickly, and his travels to East Africa and South America made an absence less immediately remarkable. The newspaper likeness had struck Sylvia Bassington-ffrench as a resemblance, Frankie notes, but Sylvia did not recognize the pictured man as someone she had actually known. The public identification could therefore stand even though it was false.

The death’s meaning changes in stages: an unknown injured man is named through a photograph, the inquest accepts an accidental fall, and later investigators connect the altered photographic evidence to a concealed identity and suspected murder. Carstairs’s death is consequently more than the opening cliff tragedy. Its false identification helps hide who has disappeared, while the supposed accident directs attention toward the dangerous path rather than the possibility of a killer. The evidence presented here establishes how the error and suspicion arise; Bobby’s hesitation also preserves the difference between a compelling reconstruction and proof of exactly how Carstairs fell.