“Five years, sir. I began as office boy to—to gain experience, you know. I was fourteen then and I am nineteen now.”
“No more?” said Mr. Steadman approvingly.
Mr. Brunton, who had looked distinctly depressed at the mention of his lowly beginning, began to perk up.
“And Mr. Thompson has been managing clerk all the time,” the barrister went on. “No, I don't think you could very well mistake his voice. But Miss Hoyle had only been a short time with Mr. Bechcombe, you say—you had not seen much of her? At the office, I mean, not the inquest.”
“Not much, sir. Because she never came into our office. She always went into her own by the door next Mr. Bechcombe's room. Most of the clerks really did not know her by sight at all, let alone recognize her voice. But it was part of my job to go into Mr. Bechcombe's room with the midday mail, and more often than not she would be there taking down Mr. Bechcombe's instructions in shorthand. Very often too he would make her repeat the last sentence he had given her before he broke off. It was in that way I got to know her voice a little, for I never spoke to her beyond passing the time of day if we met accidentally, for she was always one that kept herself to herself,” Mr. Brunton concluded, quite out of breath with his long speech.
John Steadman nodded.
“Yes, you would have a fair chance of becoming acquainted with her voice that way. Better, I think, than at the inquest. The words that you overheard, I take it you reported as accurately as possible.”
“Oh, yes, sir.” Mr. Brunton moved restlessly from one leg to the other. “You see, I recognized Mr. Thompson's voice with the first words and, knowing how important it was that the police should find him, I listened for all I was worth.”
“I take it from the words you have reported that Thompson had some hold over the girl,” Mr. Steadman pursued. “Had you previously had any idea of any connexion between them?”
Mr. Brunton shook his head in emphatic negative.