I was not the only observer of his condition. As he walked, with deliberate care, from his seat to the table, I noticed the coroner eyeing him critically and the jury exchanging dubious glances and whispered comments. He made a bad start by dropping the book on the floor and sniggering nervously as he stooped to pick it up; and I could see plainly, by the stiffness of the coroner’s manner that he had made an unfavourable impression before he began his evidence.
“You were secretary to the deceased?” said the coroner, when the witness had stated his name, age (33) and occupation. “What was the nature of your duties?”
“The ordinary duties of a secretary,” was the dogged reply.
“Will you kindly give us particulars of what you did for deceased?”
“I opened his business letters and answered them and some of his private ones. And I kept his accounts and paid his bills.”
“What accounts would those be? Deceased was not in business, I understand?”
“No, they were his domestic accounts; his income from investments and rents and his expenditure.”
“Did you attend upon deceased personally; I mean in the way of looking after his bodily comfort and supplying his needs?”
“I used to look in on him from time to time to see if he wanted anything done. But it wasn’t my business to wait on him. I was his secretary, not his valet.”
“Who did wait on him, and attend to his wants?”