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his defence. This might be a very grave injustice, for you must remember that the police will continue their investigations quite independently of any verdict you may return, and therefore an open verdict such as that which I suggest to you will be a far safer course for you to adopt. Gentlemen, consider your verdict.”
    The jury laid their heads together and then intimated through their foreman that they would like to retire. The coroner’s officer took charge of them, and they filed out.
    At the back of the hall Herbert Mitchell, with his friend Jim Milsom, engaged in a whispered conversation.
    â€œI’ve seen a lot of these coroner’s juries,” said Milsom. “Did you notice that little rat-faced blighter trying to stampede his fellow jurymen into a verdict? He’s the real cantankerous little tradesman who is the curse of his nonconformist minister, and you’ll see when he lets himself go in the jury room he’ll worry the life out of those sober slab-sided fellow jurymen of his into bringing in a verdict against Pomeroy just because the coroner told them not to.”
    â€œOr because the evidence is pretty strong against him,” said Mitchell.
    â€œWell, you wait and see. I give him ten minutes to bring those heavy-wits round to his way of thinking.”
    â€œAnd if they do bring in such a verdict what’s going to be done about it?”
    â€œWell, I suppose that the coroner will have to sign a warrant committing that poor devil to prison, and it will be the devil’s own job to get him out of it. There, what did I tell you—” he pointed to the clock—”the ten minutes are up and the jury are filing back into their places. Look at my rat-faced friend. He’s triumphant for, you see, he feels that he’s served his country by downing a paid official.”
    â€œGentlemen, have you considered your verdict?” asked the coroner. The foreman stood up.
    â€œYes sir. We find that the deceased” (the worthy man pronounced the word ‘diseased’) “met her death at the hands of her husband, Miles Pomeroy.”
    â€œI have nothing to do but to record your verdict, but I think it right to say that in reporting your verdict to the proper authority I shall record my opinion that it is against the weight of evidence.”
    â€œWhat did I tell you,” said Milsom. “I’ve attended a dozen of these inquests, but this, I think, takes the cake. It was quite obvious from the evidence that some garment worn by the murderer was smothered in blood, and it is up to the police to find out who owned that raincoat. I don’t think much of that Inspector Aitkin, do you?”
    â€œI don’t think he’s a flyer,” said Mitchell. “He didn’t seem to me to have covered the ground. Of course, when we reached the house that morning Pomeroy was perfectly at ease, and when he found his wife’s body in the bathroom he was half demented.”
    â€œExactly. I’m sure that he wasn’t acting. Besides, the woman was dead when we arrived, and yet Pomeroy took us into the house. If he’d been guilty all he had to do was to say that his wife wasn’t well enough to receive visitors, and then plan his escape from the murder charge. There’s one man at the Yard and only one, so far as I know, who would tackle this case with success, and that’s a fellow named Richardson, the youngest of the superintendents. I wonder whether, if I went round there, I could get him sent down? I know the head of the C.I.D. slightly—well enough, at any rate, to get an interview with him.”
    While they were talking the divisional detective inspector had come over to Pomeroy with the coroner’s warrant in his hand. Beyond a strained look in Pomeroy’s eyes he received the intimation that he was a prisoner quite calmly.

Chapter Four
    I T WAS CHARACTERISTIC of that would-be protagonist in criminology, Jim