“I fear so,” was my reply, although at heart I was honestly glad that the inquiries were left to the local constabulary.
“Well, sir,” exclaimed the foreman of the jury to the Coroner, “we are, I think, entirely in your hands.”
“You’ve heard the evidence, and that is as far as we can proceed to-day,” he said. “Of course if you deem it wiser to adjourn for a week you may do so. You are here to decide not who committed the murder but to inquire by what means the deceased came by his death. About the latter I think you can have no doubt, and if you return a verdict in accordance with the evidence—a verdict of wilful murder—then the police will push their inquiries, I hope, to some successful issue. Are you all agreed?”
The twelve villagers in their Sunday tweeds whispered together and the local baker at last replied in the affirmative. Then the verdict was signed, and Knight in a loud voice thanked the jury for their attendance and declared the court closed.
Thus ended the official inquiry into the death of the man unknown—the man who had carried secreted within his vest the paper with those strange cabalistic numbers written upon it, and who, strangest of all, had worn in the ring upon his finger a portrait of my love!
Chapter Eleven.
Certain Questions and their Answers.
The inquest concluded, I walked back to the Hall with the Earl. The latter was annoyed that the Home Secretary had not acted upon his suggestion. He was young, and therefore impetuous sometimes, as a man of his great wealth is perhaps apt to be. Since his marriage he had, I noticed, become more quick-tempered, restless and rather less good-humoured than in his buoyant bachelor days. The gay irresponsibility of Marigold, his wife, worried him, I knew, and I therefore looked upon his irritability as only natural.