“I must say I think you are wasting our time, Mr Westray. I am the last person to stifle legitimate inquiry, but no inquiry is really needed here; it is quite certain that this poor man came to his end by falling heavily, and dashing his head against this wooden note in the pedals.”
“Is it quite certain?” Westray asked. “Is Dr Ennefer quite sure that the wound could have been caused by a mere fall; I only want to know that Dr Ennefer is quite sure.”
The coroner looked at the doctor with a deprecating glance, which implied apologies that so much unnecessary trouble should be given, and a hope that he would be graciously pleased to put an end to it by an authoritative statement.
“Oh, I am quite sure,” the doctor responded. “Yes”—and he hesitated for the fraction of a second—“oh yes, there is no doubt such a wound could be caused by a fall.”
“I merely wish to point out,” said Westray, “that the pedal-note on which he fell is to a certain extent a yielding substance; it would yield, you must remember, at the first impact.”
“That is quite true,” the doctor said; “I had taken that into account, and admit that one would scarcely expect so serious an injury to have been caused. But, of course, it was so caused, because there is no other explanation; you don’t suggest, I presume, that there was any foul play. It is certainly a case of accident or foul play.”
“Oh no, I don’t suggest anything.”
The coroner raised his eyebrows; he was tired, and could not understand such waste of time. But the doctor, curiously enough, seemed to have grown more tolerant of interruption.
“I have examined the injury very carefully,” he said, “and have come to the deliberate conclusion that it must have been caused by the wooden key. We must also recollect that the effect of any blow would be intensified by a weak state of health. I don’t wish to rake up anything against the poor fellow’s memory, or to say any word that may cause you pain, Mr Westray, as his friend; but an examination of the body revealed traces of chronic alcoholism. We must recollect that.”
“The man was, in fact, a confirmed drunkard,” the coroner said. He lived at Carisbury, and, being a stranger both to Cullerne and its inhabitants, had no scruple in speaking plainly; and, besides this, he was nettled at the architect’s interference. “You mean the man was a confirmed drunkard,” he repeated.