"What are those two circumstances?" he enquired.
"Well, in the first place," said the doctor, "the old gentleman seldom went outside the house, not once a month at most, and only then on fine days. Yesterday, his man-servant tells me, he did not stir beyond the study door. Isaac is certain that he was wearing his carpet slippers at dinner time, and also when he looked in upon him before retiring, yet when he was found this morning he was wearing boots."
"That is most curious, certainly," said Jim, "but I must confess I fail to see anything remarkable in it."
"Not perhaps in the fact of his wearing the boots," said the medical gentleman, "but there is another point which, taken in conjunction with it, makes one pause to think. On the first finger of the right hand I found that the nail had been recently broken, and in a painful fashion. What is more, the second and third fingers had smears of blood upon them. Now with the exception of the nail to which I have alluded and which did not bleed, he had not a trace of a wound on either finger. That I am quite certain of, for I searched diligently. Moreover, there is not a trace of blood upon the table at which he was seated. And there is one thing stranger still."
"What is that?"
"As you are aware, it commenced to rain at a late hour last night. Unfortunately I know it, for the reason that I was compelled to be out in it. The roads were plastered with mud. Now though Mr. Bursfield, for some reason of his own, had put on his boots, he could not have ventured outside, for there is not a speck of mud upon them. In that case, why the boots, and where did the blood come from?"
"You are perfectly sure that he died of heart disease?"
"As sure as I can be of anything," said the doctor. "Nevertheless, it's altogether a mysterious affair."
This also proved to be the opinion of the Coroner's Jury, and as there was no one forthcoming to clear it up, a mystery it was likely to remain for all time. Had the Coroner and his Jury, however, known the history of the bruises under the thick bandage which the young Squire of Childerbridge wore round his throat, they would have been enlightened.
As nobody was able to account for anything save the doctor, however, a verdict of "Death from Natural Causes" was returned, and three days later, Abraham Bursfield was laid to rest with his forefathers in the little churchyard, scarcely fifty paces away from the grave of the man who had fallen by his hands.