CHAPTER XIII
Ever since Triffitt had made his lucky scoop in connection with the Herapath Mystery he had lived in a state of temporary glory, with strong hopes of making it a permanent one. Up to the morning of the event, which gave him a whole column of the Argus (big type, extra leaded), Triffitt, as a junior reporter, had never accomplished anything notable. As he was fond of remarking, he never got a chance. Police-court cases—county-court cases—fires—coroners’ inquests—street accidents—they were all exciting enough, no doubt, to the people actively concerned in them, but you never got more than twenty or thirty lines out of their details. However, the chance did come that morning, and Triffitt made the most of it, and the news editor (a highly exacting and particular person) blessed him moderately, and told him, moreover, that he could call the Herapath case his own. Thenceforth Triffitt ate, drank, smoked, and slept with the case; it was the only thing he ever thought of. But at half-past one on the afternoon of the third day after what one may call the actual start of the affair, Triffitt sat in a dark corner of a tea-shop in Kensington High Street, munching ham sandwiches, sipping coffee, and thinking lugubriously, if not despairingly. He had spent two and a half hours in the adjacent Coroner’s Court, listening to all that was said in evidence about the death of Jacob Herapath, and he had heard absolutely nothing that was not quite well known to him when the Coroner took his seat, inspected his jurymen, and opened the inquiry. Two and a half hours, at the end of which the court adjourned for lunch—and the affair was just as mysterious as ever, and not a single witness had said a new thing, not a single fresh fact had been brought forward out of which a fellow could make good, rousing copy!
“Rotten!” mumbled Triffitt into his cup. “Extra rotten! Somebody’s keeping something back—that’s about it!”
Just then another young gentleman came into the alcove in which Triffitt sat disconsolate—a pink-cheeked young gentleman, who affected a tweed suit of loud checks and a sporting coat, and wore a bit of feather in the band of his rakish billycock. Triffitt recognized him as a fellow-scribe, one of the youthful bloods of an opposition journal, whom he sometimes met on the cricket-field; he also remembered that he had caught a glimpse of him in the Coroner’s Court, and he hastened to make room for him.
“Hullo!” said Triffitt.
“What-ho!” responded the pink young gentleman. He beckoned knowingly to a waitress, and looked at her narrowly when she came. “Got such a thing as a muffin?” he asked.
“Muffins, sir—yes, sir,” replied the waitress, “Fresh muffins.”