“Thank you. Will you proceed with your statement?”
“Inspector Sugg then asked me whether I would send a medical man round to view the body. I said that I would go myself.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I confess to my share of ordinary human curiosity, Mr. Coroner.”
Laughter from a medical student at the back of the room.
“On arriving at the flat I found the deceased lying on his back in the bath. I examined him, and came to the conclusion that death had been caused by a blow on the back of the neck, dislocating the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, bruising the spinal cord and producing internal haemorrhage and partial paralysis of the brain. I judged the deceased to have been dead at least twelve hours, possibly more. I observed no other sign of violence of any kind upon the body. Deceased was a strong, well-nourished man of about fifty to fifty-five years of age.”
“In your opinion, could the blow have been self-inflicted?”
“Certainly not. It had been made with a heavy, blunt instrument from behind, with great force and considerable judgment. It is quite impossible that it was self-inflicted.”
“Could it have been the result of an accident?”
“That is possible, of course.”