“Quite so; I agree with you, Steel. But it will about smash Murchison.”
Parker Steel moved to the wash-stand and began to rinse his hands.
“I cannot see how I can give a death certificate,” he said; “the man must have been drunk. It is a case for the coroner.”
Dr. Brimley puckered his chubby mouth and whistled.
“There is no other conclusion to accept,” he answered.
Mrs. Baxter was awaiting the two gentlemen in the darkened parlor, dressed in her black silk Sabbath gown. She had a photograph-album on her knee, and was chastening her grief by referring to the faded pictures of the past. Each photograph stood for a season in the late farmer’s life. Tom Baxter as a fat and plethoric-looking youth of twenty, in a braided coat and baggy trousers, one hand on a card-board sundial, the other stuffed into a side-pocket. Tom Baxter, ten years later, in his Yeomanry uniform, mustachioed, tight-thighed, nursing a carbine, with an air of assertive self-satisfaction. Tom Baxter and his bride awkwardly linked together arm in arm, toes out, top hat and bridal bouquet much in evidence. Tom Baxter, fat, prosperous, and middle-aged, smoking his pipe in a corner of the orchard, his Irish terrier at his feet; a snapshot by a friend. The widow studied them all with solemn deliberation, glancing a little scornfully at her sister Harriet, who was snivelling over a copy of Eliza Cook’s poems.
They heard the voices of the two doctors above, the sound of a door opening, and footsteps descending the stairs. Parker Steel, suave, quiet, and serious as a black cat, appeared at the parlor door. Mrs. Baxter rose from her chair, and signalled to her sister to leave her with Parker Steel.
“Harriet, go out. Sit down, doctor,” and she replaced the album on its pink wool mat in the middle of the circular table.
Harriet absented herself without a murmur, Miss Cook’s volume still clasped in her bony fingers. From the direction of the stables came the plaintive howling of a dog, Tom Baxter’s Irish terrier, Peter, who had been chained up because he would haunt the landing outside his dead master’s room. Mrs. Baxter had fallen over the poor beast as he crouched at the top of the stairs, and poor Peter’s loyalty had not saved him from chastisement with the lady’s slipper.
Parker Steel seated himself on the extreme edge of an arm-chair, a great yellow sunflower in a Turkish-red antimacassar haloing him like a saint. He had assumed an air of studied yet anxious reserve, as though the matter in hand required delicate handling.