“And being the coroner,” said he, “you get this note, which requests you to call at No. 9 Blank street to examine the body of a young man which is supposed—only supposed, you see—to have—well, to have died under suspicious circumstances.”
“Go on,” said I.
“No,” he returned; “not till I know how you like it. Stagers and another knows it; and it wouldn’t be very safe for you to split, besides not making nothing out of it. But what I say is this, Do you like the business of coroner?”
I did not like it; but just then two hundred in gold was life to me, so I said: “Let me hear the whole of it first. I am safe.”
“That’s square enough,” said the man. “My wife’s got”—correcting himself with a shivery shrug—“my wife had a brother that took to cutting up rough because when I’d been up too late I handled her a leetle hard now and again.
“Luckily he fell sick with typhoid just then—you see, he lived with us. When he got better I guessed he’d drop all that; but somehow he was worse than ever—clean off his head, and strong as an ox. My wife said to put him away in an asylum. I didn’t think that would do. At last he tried to get out. He was going to see the police about—well—the thing was awful serious, and my wife carrying on like mad, and wanting doctors. I had no mind to run, and something had got to be done. So Simon Stagers and I talked it over. The end of it was, he took worse of a sudden, and got so he didn’t know nothing. Then I rushed for a doctor. He said it was a perforation, and there ought to have been a doctor when he was first took sick.
“Well, the man died, and as I kept about the house, my wife had no chance to talk. The doctor fussed a bit, but at last he gave a certificate. I thought we were done with it. But my wife she writes a note and gives it to a boy in the alley to put in the post. We suspicioned her, and Stagers was on the watch. After the boy got away a bit, Simon bribed him with a quarter to give him the note, which wasn’t no less than a request to the coroner to come to the house to-morrow and make an examination, as foul play was suspected—and poison.”
When the man quit talking he glared at me. I sat still. I was cold all over. I was afraid to go on, and afraid to go back, besides which, I did not doubt that there was a good deal of money in the case.
“Of course,” said I, “it’s nonsense; only I suppose you don’t want the officers about, and a fuss, and that sort of thing.”
“Exactly,” said my friend. “It’s all bosh about poison. You’re the coroner. You take this note and come to my house. Says you: ‘Mrs. File, are you the woman that wrote this note? Because in that case I must examine the body.’”