“The body was still quite warm. As it was a cold night, and the body was lying in a very open situation, the cooling process would be very rapid.”
“Can you tell us the time exactly when you made this first examination of the body, and came to this opinion?”
“It was sixteen minutes past eight when I was sent for, and I arrived at the spot where the body lay at between twenty and five-and-twenty minutes past.”
“And the body had, in your opinion, been lying there about an hour?”
“Or considerably less.”
“You would suppose, then, that death had taken place at about what time? Or is it impossible to get a closer estimate than that?”
“It is difficult to say exactly, of course. But I should be strongly inclined to put the time of death at eight o’clock, or even later.”
“At, in fact, a few minutes before the body was first discovered by the boy?”
“A very few minutes.”
There was another sensation among the listening throng.