The coroner lost his head for a moment.
'How do you know it was locked?'
'Because I saw it. I got as far as his room, and I could have got him out if I could have got in. But it was locked, and it was too strong to break down. I went back to get an axe, but the floor of the corridor caved in before I could get back.'
'Well, supposing his door was locked—what of it?' demanded the coroner in an exasperated voice. 'Why shouldn't he lock his door?'
Simon spoke very gently and evenly.
'I imagine he had every reason for locking it,' he replied. 'When a man goes to stay in a house full of his bitterest enemies, people whom he's fighting with all the resources at his command, people to whom wholesale slaughter is merely a matter of business, he's a fool if he doesn't lock his door. But it hasn't been proved that he did lock it. I simply said that his door was locked; and I might add that the key was not in it.'
'Beg pardon, sir.' The captain of the fire brigade stood up at the far end of the room. 'I found a door key among the daybree in the libry.'
There was a hushed pause.
'Exactly,' said the coroner, with sarcastic emphasis. 'Kennet locked his door and took out the key. I fail to see any sinister implications in that—in fact, I have frequently done it myself.'
'And have you frequently held inquests without bringing any evidence to establish the cause of death?' retorted the Saint recklessly.
For an instant he thought that even he had gone too far. When he thought about it afterwards, in cold blood, the consequences that he had invited with it brought him out in a dank sweat. But at that moment he was too furious to care.
The coroner had gone white around the nostrils.
'Mr Templar, you will withdraw that remark at once.'
'I apologize,' said the Saint immediately. It was the only thing to do. 'Of course I withdraw it.'
'I have seen the body myself,' said the coroner tightly. 'And in a straightforward case like this, where there is absolutely no evidence to justify a suspicion of foul play, it is not thought necessary to add to the suffering of the relatives of the deceased by ordering an autopsy.'
He moved his hands over his blotter, looking down at them; and then he brought his eyes back to the Saint with grim decisiveness.
'I do not wish to repeat my previous remarks. But I cannot too strongly express the grave view which I take of such wild and unfounded accusations as you have made. I have only refrained from committing you for contempt of court because I prefer not to give you the publicity which you are doubtless seeking. But you had better go back to your seat at once, before I change my mind.'
Simon hesitated. Every instinct he had revolted against obedience. But he knew that there was nothing else he could do. He was as helpless as a fly caught in the meshes of a remorseless machine.
He bowed stiffly and walked down from the dais into the midst of a silence in which the fall of a feather would have sounded deafening.
None of the party from Whiteways even looked at him. But he noticed, with one lonely tingle of hope, that Lady Valerie's eyes were narrowed in an expression of intense concentrated thought. She seemed to be considering astounding possibilities.
The coroner consulted inaudibly with the police sergeant, and then he cleared
