"I really cannot answer that question," said John; "I should imagine that he was a single man, as neither he nor Mr. Pastern told me anything to the contrary. Had he been married, he would have brought his wife with him, I should suppose. My trainer, Langley, was married when he entered my service, and his wife and children have occupied the premises over my stables for some years."
"You infer, then, that James Conyers was unmarried?"
"Most decidedly."
"And it is your opinion that he had made no enemies in the neighbourhood?"
"It is next to impossible that he could have done so."
"To what cause, then, do you attribute his death?"
"To an unhappy accident. I can account for it in no other way. The path through the wood is used as a public thoroughfare, and the whole of the plantation is known to be infested with poachers. It was past ten o'clock at night when the shot was heard. I should imagine that it was fired by a poacher whose eyes deceived him in the shadowy light."
The coroner shook his head. "You forget, Mr. Mellish," he said, "that the cause of death was not an ordinary gun-shot wound. The shot heard was the report of a pistol, and the deceased was killed by a pistol-bullet."
John Mellish was silent. He had spoken in good faith as to his impression respecting the cause of the trainer's death. In the press and hurry, the horror and confusion of the two last days, the smaller details of the awful event had escaped his memory.
"Do you know any one amongst your servants, Mr. Mellish," asked the coroner, "whom you would consider likely to commit an act of violence of this kind? Have you any one of an especially vindictive character in your household?"