But the eyes that had seen him enter saw him leave, and the
shadow followed him through the sleeping town until he, too, sought his
own place of slumber.

CHAPTER XIII

ADJOURNED

Ever since Triffitt had made his lucky scoop in connection with the
Herapath Mystery he had lived in a state of temporary glory, with strong
hopes of making it a permanent one. Up to the morning of the event, which
gave him a whole column of the _Argus_ (big type, extra leaded), Triffitt,
as a junior reporter, had never accomplished anything notable. As he was
fond of remarking, he never got a chance. Police-court cases--county-court
cases--fires--coroners' inquests--street accidents--they were all exciting
enough, no doubt, to the people actively concerned in them, but you never
got more than twenty or thirty lines out of their details. However, the
chance did come that morning, and Triffitt made the most of it, and
the news editor (a highly exacting and particular person) blessed him
moderately, and told him, moreover, that he could call the Herapath case
his own. Thenceforth Triffitt ate, drank, smoked, and slept with the
case; it was the only thing he ever thought of. But at half-past one on
the afternoon of the third day after what one may call the actual start
of the affair, Triffitt sat in a dark corner of a tea-shop in Kensington
High Street, munching ham sandwiches, sipping coffee, and thinking
lugubriously, if not despairingly. He had spent two and a half hours in
the adjacent Coroner's Court, listening to all that was said in evidence
about the death of Jacob Herapath, and he had heard absolutely nothing
that was not quite well known to him when the Coroner took his seat,
inspected his jurymen, and opened the inquiry. Two and a half hours, at
the end of which the court adjourned for lunch--and the affair was just
as mysterious as ever, and not a single witness had said a new thing, not
a single fresh fact had been brought forward out of which a fellow could
make good, rousing copy!

"Rotten!" mumbled Triffitt into his cup. "Extra rotten! Somebody's keeping
something back--that's about it!"

Just then another young gentleman came into the alcove in which Triffitt
sat disconsolate--a pink-cheeked young gentleman, who affected a tweed
suit of loud checks and a sporting coat, and wore a bit of feather in
the band of his rakish billycock. Triffitt recognized him as a
fellow-scribe, one of the youthful bloods of an opposition