g Wellesley still more closely.

"Do you think, knowing all that you do now, that it had anything to do
with it indirectly? Indirectly!"

Self-controlled though he was, Wellesley could not repress a start of
surprise at this question. It was obviously unexpected--and it seemed to
those who, like Brent and Tansley, were watching him narrowly, that he
was considerably taken aback by it. He hesitated.

"I want an answer to that," said Meeking, after a pause.

"Well," replied Wellesley at last, "I can't say. What I mean by that is
that I am not in a position to say. I am not sufficiently acquainted
with--let me call them facts to be able to say. What I do say is that
Mrs. Mallett's business with me and with Wallingford that evening was of
an essentially private nature and had nothing whatever to do with what
happened in the Mayor's Parlour just about the time she was in my
drawing-room."

"That is, as far as you are aware?"

"As far as I am aware--yes! But I am quite sure it hadn't."

"You can't give this court any information that would help to solve this
problem?"

"I cannot!"

"Well, a question or two more. When Mrs. Mallett left you at your door
in Piper's Passage--I mean, when you let her out, just before a quarter
to eight, what did you next do?"

"I went upstairs again to my drawing-room."

"May I ask why?"

"Yes. I thought of going to see Wallingford, in the Mayor's Parlour."

"Did you go?"

"No. I should have gone, but I suddenly remembered that I had an
appointment with a patient in Meadow Gate at ten minutes to eight
o'clock. So I went back to the surgery, exchanged my jacket for a coat
and went out."

"On your oath, have you the slightest idea as to who killed John
Wallingford?"

"I have not the least idea! I never have had."

Meeking nodded, as much as to imply that he had no further questions to
ask; when his witness had stepped down, he turned to the Coroner.

"I should like to have Bunning, the caretaker, recalled, sir," he said.
"I want to ask him certain questions which have just occurred to me.
Bunning," he continued, when the ex-sergeant had been summoned to the
witness-box, "I want you to give me some information about the relation
of your rooms to the upper portion of the Moot Hall. You live in rooms
on the ground floor, don't you? Yes? Very well, now, is there any
entrance to your rooms other than that at the front of the building--the
entrance from the market-place?"

"Yes,