“If I should not be intruding,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I should like to be present.”
Stillman smiled with the air of a man triumphant, but who still desired to show charity.
“I shall be pleased to see you, sir,” he said, “then or at any other time.”
V
Stillman Asks Questions
It wanted a few minutes of when Ashton-Kirk, still accompanied by the curious Pendleton, walked into the outer room of the coroner’s suite.
“Mr. Stillman will be here at any moment now,” said Curran. Then lowering his voice and making a short little gesture from the elbow, he added: “These people are the ones he wanted to see.”
As he and Pendleton sat down, Ashton-Kirk looked at the persons referred to. The first was a thin, wiry little woman, unmistakably Irish, cleanly dressed and with sharp, inquisitive eyes. Engaged in a low-pitched conversation with her was a thick-necked German, heavy of paunch and with a fat, red face. The third was a spectacled young Jew, poring over a huge volume which he seemed to have brought with him. He had a tremendous head of curling black hair; his clothing was shabby. There was a rapt expression upon his face; plainly nothing existed for him at that moment outside the pages of his book.
After a brief space, the coroner came in.
“Ah, how do you do, gentlemen,” greeted he. He was good-natured and strove to be easy; but his natural nervousness clung to him. “I am glad to see you.”
He looked at Curran and nodded at the three inquiringly.
“Yes, sir,” replied the clerk; “these are the parties.”
“Then we will get down to business.” He opened a door and entered an inner room. “Will you come in?” he asked of Ashton-Kirk and Pendleton.
They followed him at once; and Curran, addressing the little Irishwoman, said:
“Now, Mrs. Dwyer, this way, please.”
She arose briskly and also entered the inner room. Stillman seated himself at a desk and carefully perched his glasses upon his nose.
“I perhaps take more trouble than is customary in these cases,” he said to Ashton-Kirk. “It is usual to hear statements, I believe, only when they are proffered as testimony at the inquest. But it seems to me that the office should be carried on in a more thorough way. Preparation, I think, is necessary to get at the facts.”
Then he faced the woman who had taken a chair beside the desk.
“Your full name, please,” said he.
“Honora Dwyer. I’m a widow with four children; I live at 71 Cormant Street, an’ me husban’ has been dead these three years,” declared she, in a breath.
Stillman smiled.
“You don’t believe in keeping anything back, Mrs. Dwyer, I can see that,” said he. “And a very good trait it is.” He leaned back in his swivel chair and looked at her through the glasses. “You are the person who discovered the body of Mr. Hume, are you not?”
“Yes, sir, I were,” replied Mrs. Dwyer; “and God spare me such another sight.”
“Tell us about it,” said the coroner.
“I work as scrubwoman for a good many in Christie Place an’ the immejeat neighborhood,” said Mrs. Dwyer, genteelly. “But I always gets to Mr. Hume’s first.”
“You are quite sure you found the street door locked?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you noticed nothing unusual about the place?”
“Only the open door to the store room, sir. Mr. Hume was always particular about closing up, sir. For a man who was in the habit of taking a sup of drink, sir, I’ll say he was very particular.”
“When you noticed the door being open you went in at once, I suppose?”
“No, sir; I did not. After I got me water, I set down on the top step to get me breath. When I saw the door stan’nin’ open, thinks I to meself, thinks I; ‘Mr. Hume is up early this mornin’.’ But everything was quiet as the grave,” in a hushed dramatic tone. “Sorra the sound did I hear. So I gets up and goes in. And in the front room I sees him lyin’. Mr. Hume was never a handsome man, sir; and he’d gained nothing in looks by the end he’d met with. God save us, how I ever got out into the street, I’ll never know.”
She rocked to and fro and fanned herself with her apron.
“It must have been a very severe shock, Mrs. Dwyer,” agreed the coroner. “Now,” after a pause, “do you know anything—however slight, mind you—that would seem to point to who did this thing?”
Mrs. Dwyer shook her head.
“Me acquaintance with Mr. Hume was a business one only, sir,” she said. “I never set foot into his place further than the hall except on the days when I went to get me pay—and this morning, save us from harm!”
“You know nothing of his friends then—of his habits?”
“There is the Jew boy, outside there, that worked for him. He’s a nice, good mannered little felly, and is the only person I ever see in the office when I went there, barrin’ the boss himself. As for Mr. Hume’s habits, I can say only what everybody knows. He were drunk when he engaged me, and he were drunk the last time I seen him alive.”
“That will be all, Mrs. Dwyer,” said Stillman. “Thank you. Curran, I’ll see the young man next.”
As Curran and Mrs. Dwyer went out the young coroner turned to his two visitors.
“I am still assured that we have the motive for the crime in the attempt to steal the painting,” he said. “But it will do no harm to get all the light we can upon every side of the matter. The smallest clue,” importantly, “may prove of the utmost value at the inquest.”
Ashton-Kirk smilingly nodded his entire assent to this. Then Curran showed in the clerk.
The young man still carried the thick volume and, when he sat down, laid it upon a corner of Stillman’s desk. Its
