“None,” was the response.
And then the woman whom I had loved so fervently and well, turned and re-seated herself. She glanced across at me. Did she read my thoughts?
Her glance was a glance of triumph.
Medical evidence was next taken, Sir Bernard Eyton being the first witness. He gave his opinion in his habitual sharp, snappy voice, terse and to the point.
In technical language he explained the disease from which his patient had been suffering, and then proceeded to describe the result of the post-mortem, how the wound inside was eight times larger than the exterior incision.
“That seems very remarkable!” exclaimed the coroner, himself a surgeon of no mean repute, laying down his pen and regarding the physician with interest suddenly aroused. “Have you ever seen a similar wound in your experience, Sir Bernard?”
“Never!” was the reply. “My friends, Doctor Boyd and Doctor Farmer, were with me, and we are agreed that it is utterly impossible that the cardiac injuries I have described could have been caused by the external wound.”
“Then how were they caused?” asked the coroner.
“I cannot tell.”
There was no cross-examination. I followed, merely corroborating what my chief had said. Then, after the police surgeon had given his evidence, Dr. Diplock turned to the twelve Kew tradesmen who had been “summoned and sworn” as jurymen, and addressing them said: