attention. Great men may hold up their hands and cry "Enough!" But small men must sit with pencil poised, apparently intensely interested, and listen through until the patient has exhausted his long-winded recollections of all his ills.

Contrary to his usual custom, Sir Bernard did not now return to Hove each evening, but remained at Harley Street--dining alone off a chop or a steak, and going out afterwards, probably to his club. His change of manner surprised me. I noticed in him distinct signs of nervous disorder; and on several afternoons he sent round to me at the Hospital, saying that he could not see his patients, and asking me to run back to Harley Street and take his place.

On the evening before the adjourned inquest I remarked to him that he did not appear very well, and his reply, in a strained, desponding voice, was:

"Poor Courtenay has gone. He was my best friend."

Yes, it was as I expected, he was sorrowing over his friend.

When we had re-assembled at the Star and Garter, he entered quietly and took a seat beside me just before the commencement of the proceedings.

The Coroner, having read over all the depositions taken on the first occasion, asked the police if they had any further evidence to offer, whereupon the local inspector of the T Division answered with an air of mystery:

"We have nothing, sir, which we can make public. Active inquiries are still in progress."

"No further medical evidence?" asked the coroner.

I turned towards Sir Bernard inquiringly, and as I did so my eye caught a face hidden by a black veil, seated among the public at the far side of the room. It was Ethelwynn herself--come there to watch the proceedings and hear with her own ears whether the police had obtained traces of the assassin!

Her anxious countenance shone through her veil haggard and white; her eyes were fixed upon the Coroner. She hung breathlessly upon his every word.

"We have no further evidence," replied the inspector.

There was a pause. The public who were there in search of some solution of the bewildering mystery which had been published in every paper through the land, were disappointed. They had expected at least to hear some expert evidence--which, if not 

 Prev. P 56/194 next