"Just possible but decidedly improbable, both from the position of the wound and the direction of the blow," was Dr. Page's opinion.
It was a downward, oblique stab in the throat which had pierced the larynx and penetrated the jugular vein. The deceased would have been unable to cry out and would probably have quickly become insensible from asphyxiation. Unless he was left-handed the stab could scarcely have been self-given.
The police authorities committed themselves to no definite theory at that stage, and at their request the inquiry was adjourned for a month.
Morriston, leaving the hall with Kelson and Gifford, asked them to walk back with him to Wynford Place.
"Let us throw off this depressing business as well as we can," he said. "Of course I have had to break it to my sister and the others; they would have seen it to-day in print. Thank goodness the papers don't look beyond the suicide idea, so they are not making much fuss about it. If they took a more sensational view, as I fear they will now after the medical evidence, it would be a terrible nuisance."
"I hope the ladies were not much upset when you told them,"
Gifford remarked.
"Well, they already had an idea that something was seriously wrong, and that took the edge off the announcement. Of course they were horribly shocked at the idea of the tragedy so close at hand, though I softened the details as well as I could."
"If the suicide idea is to be abandoned," said Kelson, speaking with an unusually gloomy, preoccupied air, "the police have an uncommonly difficult and delicate task before them."
"Yes, indeed," Morriston responded. "And I should say that abnormally keen person, the brother, will keep them up to collar."
"He means to," Kelson replied rather grimly. "We had him for an hour last night cross-examining us, naturally to no purpose; we could tell him nothing."