"And you believe, therefore, that Mr. Dunbar was absent for an hour?"
"Yes, sir; an hour—or more."
"An hour, or more?"
"Yes, sir."
"He was absent more than an hour; do you mean to say that?"
"It might have been more, sir. I didn't keep no particular 'count of the time."
Arthur Lovell had taken out his pocket-book, and was making notes of the verger's evidence.
The old man went on to describe his having shown Mr. Dunbar all over the cathedral. He made no mention of that sudden faintness which had seized upon the Anglo-Indian at the door of one of the chapels; but he described the rich man's manner as having been affable in the extreme. He told how Henry Dunbar had loitered at the door of the cathedral, and afterwards lingered in the quadrangle, waiting for the coming of his servant. He told all this with many encomiums upon the rich man's pleasant manner.
The next, and perhaps the most important, witnesses were the two labourers, Philip Murtock and Patrick Hennessy, who had found the body of the murdered man.
Patrick Hennessy was sent out of the room while Murtock gave his evidence; but the evidence of the two men tallied in every particular.