Part 21 (1/2)
CORONER: And what did you do then?
MORTLAKE: I went out for an hour or so to make some inquiries. Then I returned, and told my landlady I should be leaving by an early train for--for the country.
CORONER: And that was the last you saw of the deceased?
MORTLAKE (with emotion): The last.
CORONER: How was he when you left him?
MORTLAKE: Mainly concerned about my trouble.
CORONER: Otherwise you saw nothing unusual about him?
MORTLAKE: Nothing.
CORONER: What time did you leave the house on Tuesday morning?
MORTLAKE: At about five-and-twenty minutes past four.
CORONER: Are you sure that you shut the street door?
MORTLAKE: Quite sure. Knowing my landlady was rather a timid person, I even slipped the bolt of the big lock, which was usually tied back. It was impossible for any one to get in, even with a latch-key.
Mrs. Drabdump's evidence (which, of course, preceded his) was more important, and occupied a considerable time, unduly eked out by Drabdumpian padding. Thus she not only deposed that Mr. Constant had the toothache, but that it was going to last about a week; in tragi-comic indifference to the radical cure that had been effected. Her account of the last hours of the deceased tallied with Mortlake's, only that she feared Mortlake was quarrelling with him over something in the letter that came by the nine o'clock post. Deceased had left the house a little after Mortlake, but had returned before him, and had gone straight to his bedroom. She had not actually seen him come in, having been in the kitchen, but she heard his latch-key, followed by his light step up the stairs.
A JURYMAN: How do you know it was not somebody else? (_Sensation, of which the juryman tries to look unconscious_.)
WITNESS: He called down to me over the banisters, and says in his sweetish voice, ”Be hextra sure to wake me at a quarter to seven, Mrs.
Drabdump, or else I shan't get to my tram meeting.” (_Juryman collapses_.)
CORONER: And did you wake him?
MRS. DRABDUMP (breaking down): Oh, my lud, how can you ask?
CORONER: There, there, compose yourself. I mean did you try to wake him?
MRS. DRABDUMP: I have taken in and done for lodgers this seventeen years, my lud, and have always gave satisfaction; and Mr. Mortlake, he wouldn't ha' recommended me otherwise, though I wish to Heaven the poor gentleman had never--
CORONER: Yes, yes, of course. You tried to rouse him?
But it was some time before Mrs. Drabdump was sufficiently calm to explain that, though she had overslept herself, and though it would have been all the same anyhow, she _had_ come up to time. Bit by bit the tragic story was forced from her lips--a tragedy that even her telling could not make tawdry. She told with superfluous detail how--when Mr.
Grodman broke in the door--she saw her unhappy gentleman-lodger lying on his back in bed, stone dead, with a gaping red wound in his throat; how her stronger-minded companion calmed her a little by spreading a handkerchief over the distorted face; how they then looked vainly about and under the bed for any instrument by which the deed could have been done, the veteran detective carefully making a rapid inventory of the contents of the room, and taking notes of the precise position and condition of the body before anything was disturbed by the arrival of gapers or bunglers; how she had pointed out to him that both the windows were firmly bolted to keep out the cold night air; how, having noted this down with a puzzled, pitying shake of the head, he had opened the window to summon the police, and espied in the fog one Denzil Cantercot, whom he called, and told to run to the nearest police-station and ask them to send on an inspector and a surgeon; how they both remained in the room till the police arrived, Grodman pondering deeply the while and making notes every now and again, as fresh points occurred to him, and asking her questions about the poor, weak-headed young man. Pressed as to what she meant by calling the deceased ”weak-headed,” she replied that some of her neighbours wrote him begging letters, though, Heaven knew, they were better off than herself, who had to sc.r.a.pe her fingers to the bone for every penny she earned. Under further pressure from Mr. Talbot, who was watching the inquiry on behalf of Arthur Constant's family, Mrs. Drabdump admitted that the deceased had behaved like a human being, nor was there anything externally eccentric or queer in his conduct. He was always cheerful and pleasant spoken, though certainly soft--G.o.d rest his soul.
No; he never shaved, but wore all the hair that Heaven had given him.
By a JURYMAN: She thought deceased was in the habit of locking his door when he went to bed. Of course, she couldn't say for certain. (Laughter.) There was no need to bolt the door as well. The bolt slid upwards, and was at the top of the door. When she first let lodgings, her reasons for which she seemed anxious to publish, there had only been a bolt, but a suspicious lodger, she would not call him a gentleman, had complained that he could not fasten his door behind him, and so she had been put to the expense of having a lock made. The complaining lodger went off soon after without paying his rent. (Laughter.) She had always known he would.
The CORONER: Was deceased at all nervous?
WITNESS: No, he was a very nice gentleman. (A laugh.)