The coroner surveyed the hotel-keeper somewhat sternly.
"We are not talking about suspicions!" he cried; then, in a different tone, repeated: "This gentleman, you say, is still at your house?"
"Yes, sir, or was at breakfast-time. I have not seen him since."
"We will have to call Mr. Smith as a witness," declared the coroner, turning to the officer at his side. "Go and see if you cannot bring him as soon as you did Mr. Symonds."
But here a voice spoke up full and loud from the other room.
"It is not necessary, sir. A witness you will consider more desirable than he is in the building." And the thick-set man showed himself for an instant to the coroner, then walking back, deliberately laid his hand on the elbow which for so long a time had been the centre of Mr. Byrd's wondering conjectures.
In an instant the fine, gentlemanly figure of the stranger, whom he had seen the night before in the bar-room, appeared with a bound from beyond the jamb, and pausing excitedly before the man, now fully discovered to all around as a detective, asked him, in shaking tones of suppressed terror or rage, what it was he meant.
"I will tell you," was the ready assurance, "if you will step out here in view of the coroner and jury."
With a glance that for some reason disturbed Mr. Byrd in his newly acquired complacency, the gentleman stalked hurriedly forward and took his stand in the door-way leading into the room occupied by the persons mentioned.
"Now," he cried, "what have you to say?"