United States or Monaco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Put it in your own fashion." Epplewhite folded his hands on the ledge of the witness-box and looked around the court before finally settling his eyes on the Coroner: it seemed to Brent as if he were carefully considering the composition, severally and collectively, of his audience.
The two detectives and the coroner came back while the discussion was still in progress and listened in silence to Freylinghuisen's statement of the case. Grady's mahogany face told absolutely nothing of what was passing in his brain, but Simmonds was plainly bewildered.
Did they rise from the dead? What are they seeking here? They had a very low-voiced conversation with father. I listened in vain. Only later on, when they got warmed with their subject and spoke more audibly, did I understand them. "There is no other way," said the professor. "Put it in your will that the coroner shall pierce your heart through with a knife."
And that was the revolver that was found in Lane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner, with a letter vouching for the fact that it had been so found." He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically and refilled his glass.
"But coroner and jury alike, aye, and every spectator in that crowded court, had seen that the man's eyes had rested during that one moment of hesitation upon the face of the Earl of Brockelsby." The man in the corner blinked across at Polly with his funny mild blue eyes. "No wonder you are puzzled," he continued, "so was everybody in the court that day, every one save myself.
Of this I am certain, however. Mr. Whitmore came down here to-day expecting to meet death. In fact, he had prepared himself for it by destroying or secreting all his personal papers. More than that I am not prepared to say at present." "Is there anything further that I can do?" "Nothing, coroner, beyond ordering an immediate autopsy." "Very well," replied the coroner, preparing to go.
Through his big lenses the coroner gazed curiously at the bronze haft protruding from the dead man's chest. "A bayonet," said he. "Not a common weapon in a crime like this. In fact, I should say it was rather in the nature of an innovation." "It probably belonged in Hume's stock," suggested Osborne. "There seems to be about everything here." But Stillman shook his head.
"How'n hell do I know?" Lite retorted irritably. "I didn't see it done." Jim studied awhile, an ear cocked for the signal that the coroner was ready to begin the inquest. "Say," he leaned over and whispered in Lite's ear, "where was Aleck at, all day yesterday?" "Riding over in the bend, looking for black-leg signs," said Lite promptly. "Packed a lunch, same as I did."
In the witness-box was the dead man's widow a pathetic figure in heavy mourning, who was telling the Coroner that on the night of her husband's death he went out late in the evening just to take a walk round, as he expressed it. No she had no idea whatever of where he was going, nor if he had any particular object in going out at all.
"The coroner is called in, and, as his physician, I must advise him. The family physician has pronounced it due to natural causes, the uremic coma of latent kidney trouble. Some of the newspapers, I think the Star among them, have hinted at suicide. And then there are others, who have flatly asserted it was murder." The coroner's physician paused to see if we were following him.
Word Of The Day