The word had gone round that the bronzed young soldier from India, who occupied the best-furnished apartments in the town, was very wealthy, with a steam yacht lying at Portland, and this had been communicated to the coroner by the police sergeant. Leslie was therefore politely informed that he might stand down, though it might be necessary to recall him at the adjournment.
The next witness was Mr. Mallory. In brief snappy sentences he briefly described how he had found the body in the pool on the marsh while strolling about after the picnic-tea given by the tenant of the Manor House. Mr. Mallory's manner was distinctly that of the old official, who was aware of the fact that he was a merely formal witness. If only the coroner could have penetrated the thoughts which that sphinxlike demeanour veiled he would have started his officer hot-foot to fetch certain witnesses who were not in the room, even as spectators. Travers Nugent was playing pool at the club, and Mademoiselle Louise Aubin was attending to her young mistress's wardrobe a couple of miles away at the Manor.
Then followed the doctor, who described the dead man's injuries, and in doing so cleared the ground of all doubt as to it being a case of murder. Not only had Levi Levison been slain, but he had fallen by the hand of some one who had literally "savaged" him to death. For the gash in the throat was but an item in a whole series of wounds inflicted on the hapless Jew's body. He had been stabbed three times in the back and once in the chest, any one of the wounds being in itself sufficient to kill.
Sergeant Bruce, in charge of the local force, and a singularly intelligent specimen of the provincial police officer, added his testimony, most of it being concerned with the condition of the ground. A careful examination had led him to adopt the theory that the fatal blows had been struck while the victim was on the footpath, and that the murderer had then carried the body across the swamp to the foot of the railway embankment, and had there flung it into the pool.
"That," said the coroner, "is as far as I propose to take the case to-day."
But it was not, it appeared, as far as Mr. Lazarus Lowch proposed to take it. Bobbing up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box, the foreman wagged a minatory finger at Reggie Beauchamp, whom he had singled out among the audience.
"Before we adjourn, sir, I should like to ask Mr. Beauchamp there a question. I have reason to know that he is concealing a material piece of evidence," Lowch declaimed in his husky voice, lowering at his prey.
Mr. Mallory, wedged in, alert and watchful, near the door, gazed thoughtfully across at his young friend. The lieutenant was already shouldering his way towards the witness-stand, and the old diplomatist noted not only a burning anger in the usually good-humoured boyish face, but a trace of something like consternation. The former sentiment he could understand, for it was nothing new for the methods of Lazarus Lowch to provoke wrath, but what could account for the dashing sailor's palpable nervousness?
At a nod from the coroner Reggie was sworn, and confronted the foreman with a defiant: "Well, sir, I presume that you were eavesdropping behind my mother's garden hedge this morning?"
Lowch ignored the innuendo. "Were you on the marsh late on Wednesday evening, Mr. Beauchamp?" he demanded, in the tone of a grand inquisitor.