“Yet I suppose you remember the very similar occurrence in Holland Walk?”
“Oh yes, sir, but it was a case of suicide.”
“I don’t agree.”
“But surely, sir, the jury brought it in suicide?”
“The coroner’s jury did—in spite of the coroner—but it may come before another jury yet, Mullins! I remember the case perfectly; the medical evidence was that the shot had been fired at arm’s length. That isn’t the range at which we usually bring ourselves down! Then there was nothing to show that the man ever possessed a pistol, or even the price of one; he was so stony it would have gone up the spout long before. The very same point crops up in the case of this poor boy. Who says he ever had a revolver in his life? His father tells me explicitly that he never had; I happened to ask the question,” added Thrush, without explaining in what connection.
“Well, sir,” said Mullins, with respect enough in his tone, “you talk about jumping to conclusions, but it strikes me the gentleman who write for the papers could give me some yards and a licking, sir!”
This was a sprightly speech for Mullins; but it was delivered with the very faintest of deferential smiles, and Mr. Thrush shook his spectacles without one at all.
“The gentlemen on this paper have a knack of lighting on the truth, however,” he remarked; “it may be by fair means, or it may be by foul, but they have a way of getting there before the others start.”
Mullins remarked with quiet confidence that they were not going to do it this time. His position was, briefly, that he could not bring himself to believe in two separate mysteries, at one and the same time and place, with no sort of connection between them.
“That would be too much of a coincidence,” said Mullins, sententiously.