The coroner questioned the surgeon very closely as to how long he thought the murdered man had been dead. The medical man declined to give any positive statement on this point; he could only say that when he was called in, the body was cold, and that the deceased might have been dead three hours—or he might have been dead five hours. It was impossible to form an opinion with regard to the exact time at which death had taken place.
The evidence of the waiter and the landlord of the George only went to show that the two men had arrived at the hotel together; that they had appeared in very high spirits, and on excellent terms with each other; that Mr. Dunbar had shown very great concern and anxiety about the absence of his companion, and had declined to eat his dinner until nine o'clock.
This closed the evidence; and the jury retired.
They were absent about a quarter of an hour, and then returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.
Henry Dunbar, Arthur Lovell, and Mr. Balderby went back to the hotel. It was past six o'clock when the coroner's inquest was concluded, and the three men sat down to dinner together at seven.
That dinner-party was not a pleasant one; there was a feeling of oppression upon the minds of the three men. The awful event of the previous day cast its dreadful shadow upon them. They could not talk freely of this subject—for it was too ghastly a theme for discussion—and to talk of any other seemed almost impossible.
Arthur Lovell had observed with surprise that Henry Dunbar had not once spoken of his daughter. And yet this was scarcely strange; the utterance of that name might have jarred upon the father's feelings at such a time as this.
"You will write to Miss Dunbar to-night, will you not, sir?" the young man said at last. "I fear that she will have been very anxious about you all this day. She was alarmed by your message to Mr. Balderby."
"I shall not write," said the banker; "for I hope to see my daughter to-night."
"You will leave Winchester this evening, then?"