He and Lauriston and Guyler walked out together; on the steps of the police-station Ayscough called him back. "I say!" he said, confidentially. "Leave that Mr. Killick business alone for an hour or two. I can tell you of something much more interesting than that, and possibly of more importance. Go round to the Coroner's Court--Mr. Lauriston knows where it is." "What's on?" asked Lauriston. "Inquest on that man Parslett," replied Ayscough with a meaning nod. "You'll hear some queer evidence if I'm not mistaken. I'm going there myself, presently." He turned in again, and the three young men looked at each other. "Say!" remarked Guyler, "I reckon that's good advice. Let's go to this court." Lauriston led them to the scene of his own recent examination by Mr. Parminter. But on this occasion the court was crowded; it was with great difficulty that they contrived to squeeze themselves into a corner of it. In another corner, but far away from their own, Lauriston saw Melky Rubinstein; Melky, wedged in, and finding it impossible to move, made a grimace at Lauriston and jerked his thumb in the direction of the door, as a signal that he would meet him there when the proceedings were over. The inquest had already begun when Purdie and his companions forced their way into the court. In the witness-box was the dead man's widow--a pathetic figure in heavy mourning, who was telling the Coroner that on the night of her husband's death he went out late in the evening--just to take a walk round, as he expressed it. No--she had no idea whatever of where he was going, nor if he had any particular object in going out at all. He had not said one word to her about going out to get money from any one. After he went out she never saw him again until she was fetched to St. Mary's Hospital, where she found him in the hands of the doctors. He died, without having regained consciousness, just after she reached the hospital. Nothing very startling so far, thought Purdie, at the end of the widow's evidence, and he wondered why Ayscough had sent them round. But more interest came with the next witness--a smart, bustling, middle-aged man, evidently a well-to-do business man, who entered the box pretty much as if he had been sitting down in his own office, to ring his bell and ask for the day's letters. A whisper running round the court informed the onlookers that this was the gentleman who picked Parslett up in the street. Purdie and his two companions pricked their ears. Martin James Gardiner--turf commission agent--resident in Portsdown Road, Maida Vale. Had lived there several years--knew the district well--did not know the dead man by sight at all--had never seen him, that he knew of, until the evening in question. "Tell us exactly what happened, Mr. Gardiner--in your own way," said the Coroner. Mr. Gardiner leaned over the front of the witness-box, and took the court and the public into his confidence--genially.