Coroner: I mean did he seem afraid of being robbed?
Witness: No, he was always goin' to demonstrations. (Laughter.) I told
him to be careful. I told him I lost a purse with 3s. 2d. myself on
Jubilee Day.
Mrs. Drabdump resumed her seat, weeping vaguely.
The Coroner: Gentlemen, we shall have an opportunity of viewing the room
shortly.
The story of the discovery of the body was retold, though more
scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into
the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the
reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His
book, "Criminals I Have Caught," passed from the twenty-third to the
twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated
that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was
quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked.
He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows; the chimney
was very narrow. The cut looked as if done by a razor. There was no
instrument lying about the room. He had known the deceased about a
month. He seemed a very earnest, simple-minded young fellow who spoke a
great deal about the brotherhood of man. (The hardened old man-hunter's
voice was not free from a tremor as he spoke jerkily of the dead man's
enthusiasms.) He should have thought the deceased the last man in the
world to commit suicide.
Mr. Denzil Cantercot was next called. He was a poet. (Laughter.) He was
on his way to Mr. Grodman's house to tell him he had been unable to do
some writing for him because he was suffering from writer's cramp, when
Mr. Grodman called to him from the window of No. 11 and asked him to run
for the police. No, he did not run; he was a philosopher. (Laughter.) He
returned with them to the door, but did not go up. He had no stomach for
crude sensations. (Laughter.) The gray fog was sufficiently unbeautiful
for him for one morning. (Laughter.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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