Curtis shook his head. “No, I could detect no sound of any kind,” he answered. “As far as I could judge I was alone in the hall with the dead man.”
“In what position did you find the body, doctor?” asked Penfield.
“Meredith had evidently fallen forward, for he lay partly turned upon his right side, his face pressed against the carpet,” replied Curtis. “His head was almost touching the banisters which guard that side of the staircase.”
Coroner Penfield glanced about the library and saw a vacant chair near the huge open fireplace.
“That is all just now, Doctor Curtis,” he said. “Suppose you sit over here; it will be more convenient if I should want you again.” And stepping forward he walked with Curtis to the vacant chair. Returning once more to his place at the head of the big table around which were seated the jurymen, he summoned Herman, the butler, to the stand.
Herman’s perturbed state of mind was evidenced in his slowness of speech and dullness of comprehension. It required the united efforts of Penfield and the deputy coroner to administer the oath and to drag from him his age, full name and length of service with John Meredith.
“He was a kind master,” Herman stated. “Not but what he had his flare-ups and his rages like any other gentleman what has a big household. But mostly he was right ca’m.”
“And did Mr. Meredith have one of his rages recently?” asked Penfield.
Herman tugged at his red side-whiskers. Of German parentage, he had been born and raised in England and brought to the United States when a lad of fifteen by an American diplomat. From the latter’s employ he had drifted to the brokerage firm with which Meredith and his brother, Marshall Meredith, had been at that time identified. There he had stayed as office boy and utility man until Meredith engaged him as valet.
“Yes, sir,” he admitted finally. “He’s been in a temper ever since a week ago.”