oison there was,
naturally enough, a bottle in the doctor's surgery; but how it had been
administered, whether by accident, purposely, or with suicidal intent,
it was impossible to say; and apparently the only man who could throw
any light upon the subject was Doctor Chartley himself, who was now
lying in a precarious state, perfectly insensible from the pressure of
bone upon the brain, and too feeble for an operation to be performed.

"Not the only man," said one of the jury; "three men were seen by the
policeman to leave the surgery."

The coroner said "Exactly;" and there was a murmur of assent; while,
after stating that it was impossible to say how long Dr Chartley would
be before he could appear, and that it was quite possible that he would
never be able to give evidence at all, the surgeon's evidence came to an
end.

Elizabeth Gundry was called; and a frightened-looking smudgy woman came
forward, trembling and fighting hard not to burst into tears, hysterical
sobbing having filled up so much of her time since the foggy night that
her voice had degenerated into an appealing whine. She was
smudgy-looking, but undoubtedly clean; only life in underground
kitchens, and the ingraining of London blacks with the baking process of
cookery, had given her skin an unwholesome tinge, which her reddened
eyes did not improve.

Questioned, she knew nothing but that she thought she had heard the
doctor's bell ring; but that she always put her head under the clothes
if she did hear it, and she did so that night. Further questioned why,
she said with sobs that it was a very large house, and nobody was kept
but her and Bob; and she was "that tired when she went to bed that she
thought it weren't fair to expect her to get up and answer the
night-bell, and so she never would hear it if it rang. It warn't her
place; for though she did housemaid's work, and there was two sets of
front-doorsteps, she considered herself a cook."

Here there was a furious burst of sobbing, and the foreman of the jury
wanted to know why.

Now he, being a pleasant-looking man, won upon Elizabeth Gundry more
than the coroner did, that gentleman being suggestive of an extremely
sharp ratting terrier grown fat. So Elizabeth informed the foreman that
her grief was, of course, partly on account of master, and she thought
it very shocking for there to be a murder in "our house;" but what she
wanted to know was what had become of Bob, whom she was sure on