But I had two ascertained facts—that Kitty Clevedon had worn the hatpin to White Towers, and that she had been abroad in the Dale during the early hours of that tragic morning.
CHAPTER V
KITTY CLEVEDON AND RONALD THOYNE
I met Sergeant Gamley, the officer who had called on me in company with Detective Pepster, and I asked him whether the public would be admitted freely to the inquest.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose they have the right, but the accommodation is very limited, very. When the witnesses and the lawyers and the family and the police and the reporters and people who must be there are squeezed in there’ll not be a lot of room for outsiders. Did you want—ah, now, I am looking for another juryman. Stokkins has fallen ill. How would you like—?”
“Excellent!” I interrupted. “As long as you don’t make me foreman it will suit me very well. I should like to hear the story in full—being a neighbour, you know.”
I did not add that it would also afford me an opportunity of seeing the body without making any obvious attempt in that connection.
It was an ordinary country jury, consisting mostly of farmers, with a small shopkeeper or two, and Tim Dallott, landlord of the “Waggon and Horses,” as foreman. We visited the chamber where the body lay, but it did not add anything to my knowledge except that I was able to form some idea what the man had looked like in life, which did at least add to the interest of the mystery.
An inquest is a singularly useless form of inquiry at its best. It is doubly and trebly so when the police use it, as frequently they do, for purposes of their own, to conceal the truth rather than reveal it. The real duty of the jury is to determine the cause of death, for, though it may declare that So-and-so was a murderer, the actual demands of the law are satisfied if the jury simply decides that a murder has been committed. A coroner who knows his business does not travel far outside the brief allotted him by the police, and generally manages—though not invariably—to keep his jury within the limits assigned himself.
I have had a long and very varied experience of inquests and was not, therefore, surprised that the inquiry regarding Sir Philip Clevedon’s death should be merely formally opened and then immediately adjourned, for the purpose, it was stated, of a post-mortem examination. I regarded that as a mere subterfuge—in which, as it happened, I was wrong—and easily realised that the police did not want as yet to tell all they knew, which in its turn suggested that they had some sort of a line on the murderer and did not desire to give him (or her) any information.
Meanwhile I busied myself making some very careful inquiries regarding Miss Kitty Clevedon. Through her midnight visit to me, I was in possession of some information so far not within the knowledge of the police, unless, indeed, she had herself told them, which I doubted; and I intended, for a bit at all events, to keep it to myself. Exactly what connection she had with the tragedy I could not say, but I meant that she should tell me—in which determination I reckoned without Kitty Clevedon. I met her as she was walking from Cartordale to Hapforth House. She was warmly clad in furs and, a little flushed by the wind that was blowing smartly across the moors, was looking very pretty and attractive. She saw me approaching her and, curiously enough, made no attempt to avoid me. In point of fact, I expected a direct “cut,” but she stopped as I drew near and even held out her hand.