“We're not the only people outside the family here, that's one thing,” remarked Mrs Rumbold. “Half Grinley seems to have turned up. Just curiosity, if you ask me. Oh, there's Dr Fielding come in! Well, he doesn't look as if he was worrying much, I must say.”
“No reason why he should,” said Owen.
“Well, I don't know,” said Mrs Rumbold doubtfully. “I mean, he didn't seem to know Mr Matthews had been poisoned, and him a doctor! Ned keeps on telling me no one can blame him, but what I say is, if he's a doctor he ought to have known. Don't you agree?”
“Really, I don't understand these matters,” replied Owen, who, though not particularly observant, had by this time taken in not only Mrs Rumbold's blue eyelashes, but also her arresting picture-hat, with its trail of huge pink roses, and was in consequence feeling acutely self-conscious at being seen with anyone so spectacular. He said something about wanting to have a word with his father-in-law, and retreated to a place beside Henry Lupton just as the Coroner came into court.
The Inquest, in the opinions of those people who had come to it in the hopes of witnessing a thrilling drama, was most disappointing. Beecher was called first, and described how he had found his master's body on the morning of the 15th May. Very few questions were asked him, and he soon stood down to give place to Dr Fielding.
It was generally felt that the proceedings were now going to become more interesting, and a little stir ran through the court-room as the doctor got up. Several ladies thought that he looked very handsome, and one or two people confided to their neighbours, very much as Mrs Rumbold had done, that he looked as cool as a cucumber.
He was indeed perfectly self-possessed, and gave his evidence with easy assurance, and no waste of words. Questioned, he admitted that he had not discovered, upon a cursory examination, anything about the body incompatible with his first verdict of death from syncope. He became rather technical, and one half of his audience thought: Well, even doctors can't know everything; while the other half adhered to its belief that doctors ought to know everything. Questioned further, Fielding gave a still more technical description of the cardiac trouble for which he had been treating the deceased. When asked what circumstances had led him to communicate his patient's death to the Coroner he said at once: “The dissatisfaction expressed by a member of the family with my diagnosis.”
This reply, delivered though it was in a calm voice, caused another stir to run through the court-room. It was felt that the details of some shocking family scandal were at any moment going to come to light, and when Mrs Lupton got up to give her evidence everyone stared at her hopefully, and waited in pent silence to hear what she was going to divulge.
But Mrs Lupton, who made nearly as good a witness as the doctor, divulged nothing. She knew of no reason why her brother should have been poisoned; simply she had felt that his death had not been due to natural causes. No, she did not think she could explain why she had had this feeling. It had attacked her forcibly on her first sight of the corpse. Her instinct was seldom at fault.
“What did I tell you?” whispered Sergeant Hemingway to the Superintendent.