“Well, if it wasn’t suicide, it was murder, and if it wasn’t murder it was suicide—”
“Aye, that’s right,” Mr. Hapton cried, brightening up a little.
Fortunately, I was the next to be interrogated, and I snapped out my answer even before our foreman had completed his question. “Murder, undoubtedly,” I said, not because I had really any such certainty, or had made up my mind on the matter, but in order to get the thing settled. My very unrural promptitude gave the cue to the rest, and “murder” went round with affecting unanimity.
“Now, Mester Hapton,” Tim Dallott added, “everybody but you’s said murder—you’ll not stand out.”
“I’m not one to be contrary-like,” Mr. Hapton said. “But murder—it’s an ugly business, that.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter very much,” I interposed. “We’re not going to hang anybody this afternoon.”
“Nor not to mention no names,” our foreman put in. “Persons or person unknown—that’s what it is.”
“Ah, well,” Mr. Hapton said, with a gloomy shake of the head, “if you’re all set on murder, murder let it be, but it’s an ugly word.”
And that was our verdict—“Murder by some person or persons unknown.” But, for my part, like Mr. Hapton, I wasn’t at all sure. And, curiously enough, the hatpin was not so much as mentioned.
It was the day following the inquest that I met Detective Pepster in the village.