without thinking what he was doing.”
“But what could have alarmed him?”
“That I don’t know. But there was something. He looked panic stricken.”
A stolid juryman suggested that some men were terrified of cats. The man might have seen a cat. I didn’t think his suggestion a very brilliant one, but it seemed to pass muster with the jury, who were obviously impatient to get home and only too pleased at being able to give a verdict of accident as opposed to suicide.
“It is extraordinary to me,” said the coroner, “that the doctor who first examined the body has not come forward. His name and address should have been taken at the time. It was most irregular not to do so.”
I smiled to myself. I had my own theory in regard to the doctor. In pursuance of it, I determined to make a call upon Scotland Yard at an early date.