"You had no idea that the man was Sir Hubert Pine?" asked a juryman.
"Certainly not. I should not have fired had I recognized him. The moment I opened the door he flung himself upon me. I fired and he ran away. It was not until we all went out and found him dead by the shrubbery that I recognized my brother-in-law. I thought he was in Paris."
Inspector Darby deposed that he had examined the shrubbery, and had noted broken twigs here and there, which showed that some one must have been concealed behind the screen of laurels. The grass—somewhat long in the thicket—had been trampled. But nothing had been discovered likely to lead to the discovery of the assassin who had been ambushed in this manner.
"Are there no footmarks?" questioned the Coroner.
"There has been no rain for weeks to soften the ground," explained the witness, "therefore it is impossible to discover any footmarks. The broken twigs and trampled grass show that some one was hidden in the shrubbery, but when this person left the screen of laurels, there is nothing to show in which direction the escape was made."
And indeed all the evidence was useless to trace the criminal. The Manor had been bolted and barred by Lord Garvington himself, along with some footmen and his butler, so no one within could have fired the second shot. The evidence of Mother Cockleshell, of Chaldea, and of various other gypsies, went to show that no one had left the camp on that night with the exception of Hearne, and even his absence had not been made known until the fact of the death was made public next morning. Hearne, as several of the gypsies stated, had retired about eleven to his tent and had said nothing about going to The Manor, much less about leaving the camp. Silver's statements revealed nothing, since, far from seeking his brother-in-law's house, Pine, had pointedly declared that in order to keep his secret he would be careful not to go near the place.
"And Pine had no enemies to my knowledge who desired his death," declared the secretary. "We were so intimate that had his life been in danger he certainly would have spoken about it to me."
"You can throw no light on the darkness?" asked the Coroner hopelessly.
"None," said the witness. "Nor, so far as I can see, is any one else able to throw any light on the subject. Pine's secret was not a dishonorable one, as he was such an upright man that no one could have desired to kill him."
Apparently there was no solution to the mystery, as every one concluded, when the evidence was fully threshed out. An open verdict was brought in, and the proceedings ended in this unsatisfactory manner.