“Didn’t they say Mr. Habershon was a F.Z.S.? But he was really a solicitor, wasn’t he?”

  “No; he had studied for the law, but didn’t go on with it. He came in for twenty thousand from the sister—that is Miss Rowe’s mother—who left part of this cash. Habershon had two sisters. My paper had the bally genealogical tree in it. Looks as if the police weren’t letting out much.”

  “I thought that, too. But mine said one sister left forty thousand odd, and the other sixty. When their husbands died, they lived together in a big house at Hampstead. Maysie Rowe went to school here, and then to finish in Paris, Rainy was at Harrow, and then for a year in Rome. His mother died while he was away, and the other sister died soon after. It seems they were very devoted.”

  Ned assented. “You do hear of such cases. But we’ll have an end to all this newspaper talk very soon. I had half a dozen telephone calls after I got home last night, and two early pressmen looking for a worm this morning. I told them there was nothing doing.”

  “What’ll happen at this inquest?” asked Nancy.

  “I’ve never been to one, but I expect just identification; then we tell about the finding, and the doctor says what he found. Seems to me they’ll have two verdicts. The two will be suicide; if it comes out that old Habershon objected to the match. He’ll be accident, I expect. Anyway, that will settle it, and no one except the poor devils themselves will be a ha’penny the worse.—Oh, I forgot my miserable self!”

  They drove on in silence. The inquest was to be held at Upperton, on account of the lack of proper facilities at Fen Court. They had fortunately not asked Ned to let his ill-starred house be further damned from a selling point of view by holding the inquest there.

  The little country town was seething with people when they drove in, and made their way to the court. Londoners, and people from three adjacent counties, thronged the streets, with curious natives, pressmen, photographers, the riff-raff that a sensation breeds, and a sprinkling of police officers.

  Ned could not drive and bend his head, but Nancy buried hers on her bosom as cameras clicked. An adventurous pressman jumped on the running-board, but Ned pushed him off, and a constable grabbed him, and pushed him further off.

  The little court was crowded when they came in, but Superintendent Langley was on the watch, the proceedings opened with the swearing of the jury, and their short absence to view the bodies. When they came back, the court began its proceedings in a wonderful silence, so deep that the Coroner’s first words seemed to crash on the air.

  After a few remarks, he called on Mrs. Agnes Hoing to identify the bodies. He was taking the case of the two young people first.

  Mrs. Hoing, a tall gaunt woman, with an austere face, took the oath impressively. She deposed that she was Mr. Habershon’s housekeeper. She agreed that the bodies of the man and girl were those of Mr. Habershon’s wards, Miss Rowe, and Mr. Rainy respectively. They lived with their guardian. She agreed that Mr. Habershon had taken both out with him in his car on the Tuesday. He had left home at six o’clock. She thought he drove the car himself. He had not been seen by her again until she had identified his body that morning.

  Questioned by the Coroner, she said that she thought Mr. Rainy had been in love with his cousin. She drew in her lips as she said that. She had certainly understood that there was trouble over it. It was not the first time there had been trouble. Mr. Habershon was not a very effusive sort of man, but she was sure he was fond of his wards. She understood that he thought it was unwise of cousins to marry.

  “Did Mr. Habershon quarrel with Mr. Rainy over this?” she was asked.

  Again that curious drawing in of the lips, “No, sir,” she said. “Mr. Habershon was very dignified. He was a good employer and a kind man.”

  “Let me put it another way, Mrs. Hoing. Did Mr. Rainy quarrel with his uncle. Did he exhibit resentment at this objection?”

  “He did, sir. Not that I would say he was a fierce young man, or not what he should be, but he did talk nasty to me about his uncle once, and I checked him.”

  “But you are not aware that they had any row?”

  “I have my own room, sir, and I don’t listen at doors, and I don’t hear what I’m not intended to hear.”

  “Quite. I understand. Then there was no open breach, as far as you are aware?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why Mr. Habershon took his wards for this drive? Or where he professed to be going?”

  “No, sir. I never asked and he didn’t tell me.”

  “You never heard either of these unfortunate young people talk of suicide.”

  “No, sir. I wouldn’t have thought it of them. They hadn’t anything to grumble at; being so young. If they’d waited a year or two, they could have done what they liked.”

  The Coroner suddenly wore an air of haste to be done with this witness.

  “Thank you. You may stand down,” he said, hurriedly, “I shall now call upon Miss Nancy Johnson to give evidence.”

  Ned had been watching the coroner’s face. He thought there was something significant in his expression. Something in Mrs. Hoing’s last phrase had made a difference. There was something new in the wind. What was it?

  Nancy went up composedly enough, and took the oath in low but distinct tones. Her appearance excited a great deal of interest, but her evidence, while sensational enough, fell flatly on the ears of an audience who had expected to find this pretty girl more intimately mixed up with the case—Mr. Habershon’s choice for his nephew, it might be! When she stood down, Ned was called, and told briefly what he had seen, and done. Then came Hoggett, dry and brief, and the Superintendent, who explained what had been done to recover the bodies.

  Mr. Hench was not in court, nor, to Ned’s surprise, was Inspector Brews. The doctor followed the Superintendent, and proved more timid and hesitating in the box than he had been when he had first examined the bodies.

  Questioned, he agreed that death was due to drowning. There were no signs of violence on the young couple, except sundry marks made by the instruments used to drag the pond.

  Here Ned noticed another shade of expression cross the face of the Coroner, as he leaned forward.

  “Did you examine the organs, Dr. Sant?”

  Dr. Sant drew in his lips, “Cursorily, sir.”

  “As a result of what you found there, you have had to call in the services of the Home Office Expert?”

  The court buzzed for a moment, and every eye was fixed on the doctor. He replied very slowly and softly, “That is so, sir.”

  “But you are still of opinion that death was due to drowning?”

  “I am, sir.”

  Superintendent Langley was whispering to the Coroner now, who nodded. Ned felt Nancy’s hand clutch his under the table at which they sat. He returned the pressure, but kept his eyes fixed on the Coroner’s grave face.

  The Coroner spoke briefly. The police had requested an adjournment, to make further inquiries. The case was adjourned for a week. They would now consider the question how the late Mr. Habershon met his death. A fresh jury would be sworn.

  “What’s it all mean?” whispered Nancy to her companion, as the business of empanelling another jury was gone through.

  “Don’t know! Looks ugly,” he whispered back.

  The Coroner took up the tale once more. He remarked that it would be necessary for three of the witnesses in the first case to be recalled. Superintendent Langley repeated his evidence word for word. Then Dr. Sant was up again, and giving the result of his examination.

  He said that death was due in this case to drowning. He had found marks on the body due to the grapnel being used. Also he had found an abrasion and a bruise on the back of the neck. That might be due to a fall. He believed it was so. Asked to explain more clearly he observed that Mr. Habershon must have slipped in. His feet going from under him, as he stood on the slimy moss-covered bank, he might have shot forward into the water, his neck striking the stones which made a rim round the pond, and so causing the bruise.

  Pressed for details, he deposed that he had made some experiments. If a man ran up to the edge of the pond, and there checked himself and slipped, the lower limbs would shoot forward as it fell, the head falling back a little as the body dropped.

  “But there was nothing in the organs of the deceased to suggest that his death might have been due to any cause other than drowning—violence, for example, or drugs?” asked the Coroner.

  “No, sir. I am of opinion that death was due to drowning. It is possible, of course, that the blow on the back of the neck and the lower part of the head deprived the deceased of the strength to get out of the pond. I think he would have found it almost impossible in any case.”

  Again Langley was at the Coroner’s elbow, and again there was a pause, and then the dry announcement that this inquest was also adjourned for a week, for further inquiries. There was a general gasp, a buzz of conversation, then a stern rebuke from the Coroner, who motioned the police to clear the court as he retired.

  Ned hustled Nancy out hurriedly. He wanted to get away before the pressmen cornered him. He managed to get clear of the court, and reaching the car, discovered that the only open road was that leading towards Fen Court.

  “Hop in!” he said, “we’ll run over to the house. I want to see what damage the sensation-hunters have done. It’ll be plenty unless someone checks ’em.”

  As they spun away up the road, Nancy recovered her spirits a little, after the depression that had weighed on them during the court proceedings.

  “What did the adjournment mean, Ned?” she asked presently.

  He smiled grimly, “Something wrong, old thing. The Home Office fellow signifies some dope or drug, and that hints at murder. The morbid brutes will be pulling my place to pieces for souvenirs later on.—Like hounds round the court house, weren’t they?”

  Nancy nodded, “And it’s got nothing to do with them.”

  “Nothing at all! If I’m interested, it’s because I have to be.”

  Chapter V

  NANCY reflected for a few moments before she spoke again. Then, “But the old man wasn’t doped, or poisoned,” she said.

  “No. And the car was two miles and a half away.”

  She frowned.

  “So that the whole three must have been carried there—to the pond.”

  “Doesn’t follow,” said he. “The old chap may have driven there, after they had left the car, and fallen in.”

  They drove on. Presently they came to the point where the short lane to Fen Court met the main road. Here they found a few straggling sensation-seekers, and a stout constable. He pulled up the car and Ned had a short talk with him before he was allowed to go on.

  “Intelligent of the Superintendent,” he said to Nancy as they resumed their progress. “He discovered that this lane is private property, over which I have a right of way. He won’t let any of the crowd get near the house.”

  When they had pulled the car up at the gate and entered the grounds, they saw a detective at a window, and, in the garden, Inspector Brews. Brews hurried up to meet them, smiling.

  “Well, here you are, Mr. Hope,” he greeted Ned, raising his hat to Nancy. “I have been very busy here; hadn’t time to go over to the inquest. What came of it?”

  “Adjournment,” said Ned briefly. “Home Office intervention.”

  Brews nodded, “Well, well. It’s a funny case altogether. You didn’t know Mr. Habershon, of course. No? Useful if we could make out what he was interested in, don’t you think.”

  “Mr. Hench said he was interested in birds,” said Nancy.

  Brew beamed at her, “Birds. Oh, of course. He was paying for the publication of Hench’s work on birds.”

  “It would be a lot more interesting to me if I could discover what you fellows suspect,” said Ned.

  “We suspect? Well, I suppose it’s too early for suspicions yet. Must have grounds for that, you know.”

  “Of course. But what did the doctor find? Some grounds there, perhaps.”

  Neither Ned nor Nancy expected the detective to enlighten them, but he replied at once, “Perhaps. It all depends. No need to make a mystery of that. The doctor found dope; not much, but enough. I don’t know what kind of dope, but he suspects it was administered in coffee.”

  “Then it was murder?” said Nancy, in an awed voice.

  Brews shrugged. “Doesn’t follow, Miss Johnson. You can administer to yourself. Like anæsthetics for dentistry, you know. It’s just possible that a suicide might like to lighten the last pangs.”

  Ned nodded, “I see. Why didn’t Hench turn up at the inquest?”

  “Wasn’t needed. He saw nothing until you had made the discovery. I am going over there now. Would you care to come with me? He was over here first thing this morning, and said he would like a word with you.”

  Ned glanced at Nancy, “Care to come?”

  She agreed, “I wonder what he wants.”

  As they left the garden together, and set out towards Mr. Hench’s cottage, Brews surprised them by talking quite freely about the case.

  “People have odd ideas about us,” he confided to them. “Mysterious, sinister fellows, detectives—that sort of thing! Absolute nonsense, if you ask me. We’re plain men, doing a plain job. Take me, for instance. I can’t see through a brick wall. If any one can, let him come forward, and give me his views! Every one has a view. It may be wrong or right, but it’s a view. Now what would be your ideas about this case, if it was your duty to go into it?”

  Nancy stared at her companion, then at Brews. Ned laughed.

  “My views? At a venture, I should say it was suicide; with your anæsthetic twist to it, and Mr. Habershon coming along afterwards to see what had happened to them.”

  Brew nodded, “And you would think they tied their wrists together—when? After taking the dope, or before?”

  “After, I should say.”

  “Then they brought their coffee down to the pond, eh? In a thermos evidently.”

  Ned bit his lip. Nancy replied quickly, “But didn’t they have coffee in some place at Upperton?”

  “They did,” said Brews, “but there was a thermos in the car. More coffee, you see. Odd that!”

  “Very odd. But can it be proved that there was coffee in the thermos?”

  “There was, Mr. Hope. And the doctor suspects that it was tinctured with some dope. Now, how did they tie their wrists together if they were under the influence of that?”

  Nancy ventured an objection, “But if they were doped in the café, or in the car, and Mr. Habershon was driving it, they must have been carried to the pond.”

  Brews agreed, “Exactly— if! Habershon was sixty-six, but the doctor reports him a strong, well-muscled, healthy man, quite capable of carrying two light young people—one at a time, of course—to the pond at your place, Mr. Hope. From the gate, that is.”

  “But the car was two miles and a half away?”

  “When found. Quite. But what was to prevent any one from driving it there, leaving it, and going back to the pond.”

  “Then it was murder?”

  Brews smiled. “Now you see what a tangle it looks, even to us. We see the opportunity, but not the motive. We don’t know why Habershon drove down here, or why the two accompanied him; or why, having had coffee at Upperton, they had more in the car. We don’t know why Mr. Habershon, if it was he, went back, and risked discovery.”

  Nancy nodded, “He might say they had run away, and he had followed them, suspecting that they meditated suicide.”

  “He might have done. It might be true. But who is to tell us? They are all dead, you know. Still, I like to hear every one’s point of view. Here we are at Mr. Hench’s. No doubt he will have his ideas too. It may be interesting to hear them.”

  Ned concluded that the local inspector was a master of wild and whirling words, but of little else. He looked a thoroughly decent, cheery fellow, but there was nothing in his countenance to suggest an overplus of grey matter behind and above it.

  “Funny old cottage,” he said, dryly.

  They had been walking down a field path, and were now at the gate of a straggling and neglected little orchard, in the middle of which a tiny black-and-white cottage stood. Hench hurried out of the low doorway to greet them, but Ned had an idea that the little man was not too pleased to find Inspector Brews with the party. When they had exchanged some commonplaces, Ned went to the point.

  Mr. Brews said you wished to see me, Mr. Hench. “That is why I came over.”

  Brews beamed. Hench scratched his head perplexedly, “I do hope the Inspector didn’t suggest it had anything to do with that dreadful affair, Mr. Hope?” he twittered, and, seeing the wonder in his visitor’s eyes, added hastily, “I thought, as you were a literary man, you might know of a publisher to take up my book, now that poor Mr. Habershon is gone.”

  Ned suppressed a gasp. Apparently the selfish little blighter thought of no one but himself.

  “I’m afraid I have no influence with publishers,” he said, dryly, “not in that line, at least.”

  Brews intervened genially, “Evidently a misunderstanding, gentlemen. I thought I would show Mr. Hope the way over, Mr Hench, but, now I am here, perhaps you can help me. No mystery, you know. Just got to look at me to know I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Hench! But you’re a man of the world, and trained to observation too. What do you think of this little case of ours?”