“One word more,” he said in a quavering voice. “May I ask to be accommodated with a seat for the rest of the proceedings? I see there is some room left on the witnesses’ bench.” And, without waiting for permission, he nimbly stepped across and sat down.
Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. Her friend, the inspector, was bending over her.
“Perhaps you’d like to come along now,” he said urgently.—“I don’t suppose you want to hear the medical evidence. It’s always painful for a female to hear that. And there’ll be an awful rush when the inquest’s over. I could get you away quietly now.”
She rose, and, pulling her veil down over her pale face, followed him obediently.
Down the stone staircase they went, and through the big, now empty, room downstairs.
“I’ll let you out the back way,” he said. “I expect you’re tired, ma’am, and will like to get home to a cup o’ tea.”
“I don’t know how to thank you!” There were tears in her eyes. She was trembling with excitement and emotion. “You have been good to me.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said a little awkwardly. “I expect you went though a pretty bad time, didn’t you?”
“Will they be having that old gentleman again?” she spoke in a whisper, and looked up at him with a pleading, agonised look.
“Good Lord, no! Crazy old fool! We’re troubled with a lot of those sort of people, you know, ma’am, and they often do have funny names, too. You see, that sort is busy all their lives in the City, or what not; then they retires when they gets about sixty, and they’re fit to hang themselves with dulness. Why, there’s hundreds of lunies of the sort to be met in London. You can’t go about at night and not meet ’em. Plenty of ’em!”