"You know nothing of his friends then—of his habits?"
"There is the Jew boy, outside there, that worked for him. He's a nice, good mannered little felly, and is the only person I ever see in the office when I went there, barrin' the boss himself. As for Mr. Hume's habits, I can say only what everybody knows. He were drunk when he engaged me, and he were drunk the last time I seen him alive."
"That will be all, Mrs. Dwyer," said Stillman. "Thank you. Curran, I'll see the young man next."
As Curran and Mrs. Dwyer went out the young coroner turned to his two visitors.
"I am still assured that we have the motive for the crime in the attempt to steal the painting," he said. "But it will do no harm to get all the light we can upon every side of the matter. The smallest clue," importantly, "may prove of the utmost value at the inquest."
Ashton-Kirk smilingly nodded his entire assent to this. Then Curran showed in the clerk.
The young man still carried the thick volume and, when he sat down, laid it upon a corner of Stillman's desk. Its back was turned toward Ashton-Kirk and he noted that it was a work on anatomy such as first-year medical students use.
"What is your name, please?" asked the coroner.
"Isidore Brolatsky," replied the young man.
"You are, or were, employed by Mr. Hume?"