"Trust me for that. Now, be cool, and the diamonds are ours. Off!"

The outer door was opened, and with very little difficulty Mark Heath
was half-lifted, half-led outside, in an inert, helpless condition, his
brain steeped in sleep, and his mind a blank. Then the two men stood in
the snow, listening for a sound within the house.

It was the elder who spoke then:

"Get your arm well under him. Hold hard! Shut the door. Mind he don't
slip down. It's dark as pitch. Now, then, come on."

At that moment John Whyley turned on his lamp.

CHAPTER TEN.

"AY, MARRY IS'T; CROWNER'S QUEST LAW."

A jury of men, chosen with the careful selection always made by the
coroner's officer, and with such extraordinary happy results, sat
solemnly and listened to the evidence, after hearing the coroner's
preliminary address, and viewing the body of the deceased.

Witness by witness, all were examined. John Whyley told all he knew,
and produced the life-preserver; Richmond Chartley, brought from her
father's bedside, where he lay perfectly insensible, gave her account of
the proceedings, and directly after joined Janet Heath, who was her
companion, and sat down to try once more to disentangle her thoughts,
which, from the time she had left the surgery with the bottle of chloral
till she was alarmed by the persistent ringing of the doctor's
night-bell, had been in a state of wild confusion.

Hendon Chartley gave his evidence. How he had been spending the evening
with a gentleman of his acquaintance, and on letting himself in with his
latch-key he had heard voices in the surgery, and gone there.

Mr James Poynter, the gentleman with whom Hendon Chartley had been
dining corroborated the last witness, and seemed disgusted that he had
not a better part to play, especially after his announcement to the
coroner that he was a great friend of the family.

For some reason of their own, the sapient jurymen exchanged glances
several times during the evidence of the last two witnesses, and shook
their heads, while one man began to make notes on the sheet of paper
before him with a very scratchy pen, whereupon two more immediately
caught the complaint, and the foreman regretted to himself that he
wasn't as handy with ink as he could wish.

The surgeon was of course a very important witness, and he told how the
man upon whose body the inquest was being held had undoubtedly died of
an excessive dose of hydrocyanic acid, of which p