and he arranged his papers
with business-like exactitude.

The procedure differed in no way from that in any other coroner's court
in the kingdom, the relation of dry details by matter-of-fact persons
spoken slowly in order that they might be carefully taken down.

The scene was, indeed, a gloomy one, for the morning was dark, and the
place was lit by electric light. The jury--twelve honest householders of
Kensington--appeared from the outset eager to get back to their daily
avocations. They were unaware of the curious enigma about to be presented
to them.

Not until I began to give my evidence did they appear to evince any
curiosity regarding the case. But presently, when I had related my
midnight interview with my friend, who was now a fugitive, the foreman
put to me several questions.

"You say that after your return from your visit from this man, Sir Digby
Kemsley, he rang you up on the telephone?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?" inquired the foreman, a thin, white-headed man whose
social standing was no doubt slightly above that of his fellow jurymen.

"He asked me to return to him at once," was my reply.

"But this appears extraordinary----"

"We are not here to criticise the evidence, sir!" interrupted the coroner
sharply. "We are only here to decide how the deceased came by her
death--by accident, or by violence. Have you any doubt?"

The foreman replied in the negative, and refrained from further
cross-examining me.

The coroner himself, however, put one or two pointed questions. He asked
me whether I believed that it had actually been Sir Digby speaking on the
second occasion, when I had been rung up, to which I replied:

"At first, the voice sounded unfamiliar."

"At first! Did you recognise it afterwards?"

I paused for a few seconds, and then was compelled to admit that I had
not been entirely certain.

"Voices are, of course, often distorted by the telephone," remarked the
coroner. "But in this case you may have believed the voice to have been
your friend's because he spoke of things which you had been discussing in
private only half-an-hour before. It may have been the voice of a
stranger."

"That is my own opinion, sir," I replied.

"Ah!" he ejaculated, "and I entirely agree with you, for if your friend
had contemplated the crime of murder he would scarcely have telephoned to
you to come back. He would be most anxious to get the longest start he
could before the raising of any hue and c