Chapter Seven.
Ella’s Suspicions.
The formula of the oath fell upon my ears in a dull monotone, as mechanically I raised the Bible to my lips, afterwards replying to the Coroner’s formal questions regarding my name, address and occupation. The discovery I had made filled me with fierce, bitter hatred against my dead companion, and, dazed by the startling suddenness of the revelation, I stood like a man in a dream.
Dr Diplock, the Coroner, noticed it, and his sharp injunction to answer his question brought me back to a knowledge of my surroundings. I was standing in full view of an assembly of some three hundred persons, so filled by curiosity, and eager to hear my story, that the silence was complete.
“I beg your pardon, but I did not hear the question,” I said, bracing myself with effort.
“The deceased was your friend, I believe?”
“Yes,” I answered. “He shared a furnished cottage with me at Shepperton. I have known him for some time.”
“Were you with him at the day of his death?”
“I left him at Shepperton in the morning, when I went to town, and he called upon me at the Foreign Office about one o’clock. We lunched together, and then, returning to Downing Street, parted. We met again at Shepperton later, and came here, to Staines, in response to an invitation to dinner at ‘The Nook.’ I—”