The coroner, who knew him perfectly, invited him to make a statement, and in a weak, halting, hesitating manner he did so. When it was finished he was asked a few questions.
"You were aware that Mr. Thornton intended coming to London?"
"He wrote to us to that effect, but he specified no date on which we might look for him."
"You did not know of his arrival in London—until when?"
"Until my son, Gilbert, who had been making inquiries, told me of Mr. Thornton's coming to the Law Courts Hotel, and of the subsequent disappearance. Thereafter my firm offered a reward for any information which might lead us to know what had become of him."
"Your son Gilbert had been making inquiries—why?"
Francis Eversleigh, stumbling at every second or third word, gave an account of the circumstances which had resulted in the discovery that Morris Thornton had come to London, and had thereafter disappeared.
"I was naturally very anxious," said Eversleigh. "Mr. Thornton was an old and dear friend, and his only child, a daughter, had lived with us for some years."
"Was Mr. Silwood also a friend of the deceased?"
"Almost as much as I was."