It was just eleven when I slid inside the dim public house on Dover Street and took a seat near the back wall. The murder had been committed in the parish of St. George's and so the inquest was held there as well. The room was warm and stuffy, the smell of steaming wool and damp hair pomade just covering the odor of stale cabbage. My swordstick, still covered with dried blood, lay naked on a table before the coroner.
The coroner called the proceedings to order. Sir Montague Harris had chosen to attend, and the coroner had called in a doctor, rather unnecessarily, I thought, because Inglethorpe had obviously died of the stab wound, and the butler could fix the time of death within half an hour.
The doctor, a thin, spidery man with pomaded black hair, confirmed that because of the warmth of the body and the stickiness of the blood when he'd been found, that Inglethorpe had died not more than thirty minutes before that, in other words, by half-past two yesterday afternoon.
The coroner interviewed the butler who had discovered the body. The man was nervous, wetting his lips and darting his gaze about, but no more uncomfortable than any man being asked such questions might be. He'd seen his master at two o'clock, he'd said, when Inglethorpe had risen from bed and taken a light meal.
The butler had returned to the servants' hall and attended to duties below stairs until he'd gone upstairs again at half-past two. He'd found the front door standing open and closed it, annoyed that the footman had not noticed. Then he'd stepped into the reception room and found his master on the floor.
The butler's lips were gray when he finished, and he walked heavily to his seat.
Pomeroy rose and gave his evidence about being summoned by the Queen's Square magistrate to the scene of the crime, finding Inglethorpe dead, and recognizing the walking stick as belonging to one Captain Lacey. When he finished, and the coroner asked me to rise.
As I took my place before the coroner I spied Bartholomew sitting to the right of the jury and Grenville next to him, his curled-brimmed hat resting on his knee. Grenville caught my eye but sent no acknowledgement.
I identified the swordstick and explained how I had left it behind on Wednesday, when I'd attended a gathering at Inglethorpe's house. The coroner asked what kind of gathering, and I told him of the scientific gas that Inglethorpe had in the bags, which produced an interesting, but temporary euphoria. The coroner nodded, as though he'd heard of such things before.
I explained that I'd returned to Inglethorpe's yesterday-to look for the walking stick, which I could not afford to lose-and had found instead the Runner, Pomeroy, who'd informed me of Inglethorpe's death.
The coroner seemed quite interested in me. He tried to make me tell him that I had arrived at Inglethorpe's unseen at quarter past two, crept in, and stabbed the man to death, being obliging enough to leave my own sword behind, and then return soon after to be confronted by a Runner. Fortunately, I could place myself at the moneylender's in the City during the hour that Inglethorpe met his end.
Disappointed, the coroner questioned me about why I had not returned to Inglethorpe's as soon as I'd realized I'd left the stick behind, and I explained that I'd borrowed another from a friend, since I'd had other engagements. He at last seemed to take my word for it and dismissed me.
Calling the butler back, the coroner asked what had become of the walking stick between the time I'd left it and the time I'd returned for it the next day. The butler, still nervous, said that he'd found no walking stick left behind in the sitting room where Mr. Inglethorpe's guests had gathered; he'd never seen it. Neither had any of the other servants in the house.
The coroner nodded, made a tick on his paper, and moved on to his next note. He questioned the butler about who had been in the house when Inglethorpe died, which had been the servants and no other guests, according to the butler. The coroner then asked about the gathering the day before-one of those attending could have taken the walking stick then returned and killed Inglethorpe, he said.
He asked the gentlemen who'd been present at the gathering, including Mr. Yardley and Mr. Price-Davies, to rise and tell their stories.
Each was similar. The gentlemen had been invited by Inglethorpe to partake of his magical gas in the upstairs drawing room, where'd they'd breathed the air and sat in comfort. Three gentlemen had departed the house before I had. Mr. Yardley said he thought he remembered seeing the walking stick left behind, but he'd not mentioned it to his host. Whyever should he? he demanded when the coroner asked him why not. Inglethorpe had servants to clean up the rooms and restore any lost property. That's what servants were for, wasn't it? Mr. Yardley hadn't thought anything more about it.
Mr. Price-Davies hadn't remembered one way or another about any walking stick. None of the gentlemen claimed to have returned to visit Inglethorpe the next day, and all could put themselves somewhere else, with witnesses, at the time of Inglethorpe's death.
After this, the coroner summoned the two ladies who'd been present from the private room in which they'd been waiting. Lady Breckenridge sat tall and straight before the coroner and told him in clear tones that she had gone to Inglethorpe's on Wednesday, departed his house at about half-past four, hadn't taken Captain Lacey's walking stick, and had not returned to Inglethorpe's the next day. Between two and three on Thursday, when Inglethorpe had died, she'd been at her toilette, attended by three maids who could all attest to that fact.
In her dark blue pelisse and widow's bonnet, Lady Breckenridge looked quiet and respectable and elegant, but her eyes were as sharp as ever. She stared haughtily down her nose at the coroner, and if she'd had a cigarillo to hand, she would have blown smoke into his face.
Mrs. Danbury, however, looked quite unhappy. Sir Gideon Derwent escorted her, I was pleased to see, and he stood beside her while the coroner questioned her.
She told the same story as had Lady Breckenridge; she'd gone to the gathering at Inglethorpe's invitation, partaken of the strange gas, then gone home. No, she did not remember noticing any other gentleman going away with the walking stick. She had gone out yesterday afternoon to shop, though she could not remember precisely where she had been between two and three, but she certainly had not gone to stab Inglethorpe.
The coroner nodded and dismissed her, and Sir Gideon led her away. Mrs. Danbury's face was white, and she leaned heavily on Sir Gideon's arm.
It occurred to me, and I wondered if it had occurred to the jury, that the butler himself had the best opportunity to dispatch his master. He would know when everyone in the house would be safely out of the way, he could divert Inglethorpe to the reception room, and he could have hidden my walking stick beforehand and professed to have no knowledge of it. The butler must have thought so, as well, because his nervousness increased as the inquest went on.
The coroner finished, and the jury went aside to confer. When they returned, they gave their verdict, death by person or persons unknown. The coroner instructed Pomeroy and his patrols to continue investigating to find the culprit. He then closed the inquest and dismissed us.
Lady Breckenridge emerged from the public house behind me as we all filed out. I tipped my hat, and she bowed. "Good morning, Captain," she said, without stopping. "Ghastly hour to be dragged from one's home."
She continued to her landau. Her footman quickly set a padded step-stool on the ground in front of it, and Lady Breckenridge stepped from it to the carriage without breaking stride. A pair of splendid ankles flashed, and then she was inside, the footman shutting the door.