Watching the scene, as a mere spectator (he had particularly requested Mr. Narkom to make arrangements that he should not be called in any official capacity) Cleek felt that he could more clearly review the situation.
Constable Roberts was the first witness to be called. He told, briefly, of his encounter with the young "military gent," who had fetched him in a car at 10 o'clock on March 11th, and dragged him forth upon what proved eventually to be nothing more than a wild-goose chase. The lady whom the young gent had said was lying dead was alive, "and very much alive, sir!" added the constable with some conviction, "and 'e was as took in as wot I was meself."
Cleek nodded at this, and the little one-sided smile slid slowly up his face at this unconscious admission.
The coroner also nodded.
"Indeed," he said, in proper judicial manner, "and did you meet no one then upon the return journey, Mr. Roberts?"
"Er—er——" Roberts began, staring confusedly round the room, and turning red, "that is, no one as is any bearings upon the case, so to speak—not suspicious at all wasn't, sir, and—and——"
But the Coroner's voice broke in upon his flounderings with sharp incisiveness.
"That isn't altogether your affair, Mr. Roberts," he said, concisely, "the meting out of justice lies in other hands, and whether he was a suspicious character or not remains, of course, to be seen. The point is, who was it?"
A sort of grayness dropped down like a veil over the policeman's ruddy countenance, he drew in his breath with a little gasp, and passed a hand over his perspiring forehead.
"The gentleman wot I saw was Sir Edgar Brenton," he said, suddenly, in a strangled voice, "but what 'e 'as to do with it, beats me. For 'e was coming back from the station——"