Part 21 (1/2)
”That will do. You may sit down.” The coroner looked around the courtroom. ”Is Doctor Bardon present?”
For reply the young physician came forward from one side of the room.
He looked pale and slightly troubled. In a low voice he corroborated the testimony already given regarding the finding of the two bodies, and told what he had done in his effort to restore Mr. Langmore to life.
”I thought there might be a spark there still, but I was mistaken,” he went on. ”He looked so natural--and Mrs. Langmore looked natural, too, for the matter of that. But both were stone dead.”
”What was the cause of death?”
”That is something of a mystery. I have tried my best to get at the bottom of it, but I cannot, nor can my colleague, Doctor Soper.”
”Were the pair strangled, smothered, poisoned?” suggested the coroner.
”I have a theory that they were poisoned, but not in an ordinary way.
Neither Doctor Soper nor myself could find any traces of ordinary poison.”
”What is your theory?”
”Something was used to stupefy them, and so much was used that it killed them.”
”In that case the murder might have been unintentional?”
”Yes. Somebody might have thought to stupefy Mr. Langmore and then rob him. But the drug, being too powerful, or used too long, might have done its deadly work. Then the crime may have been discovered by Mrs.
Langmore and the murderer might have turned on her to conceal his first wrongdoing.”
”Hum. Have you--ahem! any idea of the nature of the poison?”
”No, excepting that it had a very powerful odor. When I bent over Mr.
Langmore I got several whiffs of it and it made me sick at the stomach.
But the odor was soon gone.”
”And you have no idea what the poison was?”
”No, nor has Doctor Soper. It may be something new, or something little known. Chemists are constantly discovering new things,” went on the young physician, bound to clear himself of any suspicion of ignorance concerning medical matters.
”You found no marks of violence, as if there had been a struggle?”
”The only marks I found were two scratches on the right arm of Mrs.
Langmore, right above the wrist, and a scratch on Mr. Langmore's left cheek.”
”Finger nail scratches?”
”Possibly, or else they may have been made by a ring or bracelet--if there was a struggle.”
”Hum! Have you anything else to tell, doctor?”
”I have not. I am willing to tell all I know.”