"How do you come to know
all this?"
"I listen to the words of those qualified to speak with knowledge and
authority. I have mixed in varied company this past week, wholly on your
account. Don't be led away by the mere formalities of the opening day of
the inquest. The coroner deliberately shut off all real evidence except
as to the cause of death. On Wednesday the situation will change, and you
cannot fail to be shocked by what you hear, because you will be there."
"I am given to understand that, even if I am called, my testimony will be
of no importance."
"Such may be the police view. Mr. Ingerman will press for a very
different estimate."
"Has he told you that?"
"Yes."
"So, although foreman of the jury, you have not declined to hobnob with
a man who is avowedly Mr. Grant's enemy?"
"I would hobnob with worse people if, by so doing, I might serve you."
Grant, "fed up," as he put it to Hart, with watching the _tete a tete_
between Doris and the chemist, sprang to his feet and went through a
pantomime easy enough to follow save for one or two signs. Doris held
both hands aloft. Well knowing that anything in the nature of a
pre-arranged code would be gall and wormwood to Siddle, she explained
laughingly:
"Mr.
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