“The coroner’s jury did—in spite of the coroner—but it may come before another jury yet, Mullins! I remember the case perfectly; the medical evidence was that the shot had been fired at arm’s length. That isn’t the range at which we usually bring ourselves down! Then there was nothing to show that the man ever possessed a pistol, or even the price of one; he was so stony it would have gone up the spout long before. The very same point crops up in the case of this poor boy. Who says he ever had a revolver in his life? His father tells me explicitly that he never had; I happened to ask the question,” added Thrush, without explaining in what connection. “Well, sir,” said Mullins, with respect enough in his tone, “you talk about jumping to conclusions, but it strikes me the gentleman who write for the papers could give me some yards and a licking, sir!” This was a sprightly speech for Mullins; but it was delivered with the very faintest of deferential smiles, and Mr. Thrush shook his spectacles without one at all. “The gentlemen on this paper have a knack of lighting on the truth, however,” he remarked; “it may be by fair means, or it may be by foul, but they have a way of getting there before the others start.” Mullins remarked with quiet confidence that they were not going to do it this time. His position was, briefly, that he could not bring himself to believe in two separate mysteries, at one and the same time and place, with no sort of connection between them. “That would be too much of a coincidence,” said Mullins, sententiously. Thrush looked at him for a moment. “But life’s one long collection of coincidences! That’s what I’m always telling you; the mistake is to look on them as anything else. Don’t you call it a bit of a coincidence that both these men should meet their death at the very hour of the morning when you’re on your way over here from Netting Hill, and in much the same degree of latitude, which you’ve got to cross somewhere or other on your way? Yet who has the nerve to say you must have gone through Holland Walk that other morning, and been mixed up in that affair because you are in this?” “I don’t admit I’m mixed up in anything,” replied Mullins, with some warmth. “I mean as a witness of sorts. I was merely reducing your argument to the absurd, Mullins; you didn’t take me literally, did you? It’s no use talking when we both seem to have made up our minds; but I’m always ready to unmake mine if you show me that young Mr. Upton carried a pistol, Mullins! Now I should like my breakfast, Mullins, and you must be roaring inside for yours. The man who’s been knocking up chemists all night is the man to whom breakfast is due; get your own and then mine, and after that you can tell me how you got on.”