ppear
impatient is to court a reputation for flippancy and want of
attention. Great men may hold up their hands and cry "Enough!" But
small men must sit with pencil poised, apparently intensely
interested, and listen through until the patient has exhausted his
long-winded recollections of all his ills.

Contrary to his usual custom, Sir Bernard did not now return to Hove
each evening, but remained at Harley Street--dining alone off a chop
or a steak, and going out afterwards, probably to his club. His change
of manner surprised me. I noticed in him distinct signs of nervous
disorder; and on several afternoons he sent round to me at the
Hospital, saying that he could not see his patients, and asking me to
run back to Harley Street and take his place.

On the evening before the adjourned inquest I remarked to him that he
did not appear very well, and his reply, in a strained, desponding
voice, was:

"Poor Courtenay has gone. He was my best friend."

Yes, it was as I expected, he was sorrowing over his friend.

When we had re-assembled at the Star and Garter, he entered quietly
and took a seat beside me just before the commencement of the
proceedings.

The Coroner, having read over all the depositions taken on the first
occasion, asked the police if they had any further evidence to offer,
whereupon the local inspector of the T Division answered with an air
of mystery:

"We have nothing, sir, which we can make public. Active inquiries are
still in progress."

"No further medical evidence?" asked the coroner.

I turned towards Sir Bernard inquiringly, and as I did so my eye
caught a face hidden by a black veil, seated among the public at the
far side of the room. It was Ethelwynn herself--come there to watch
the proceedings and hear with her own ears whether the police had
obtained traces of the assassin!

Her anxious countenance shone through her veil haggard and white; her
eyes were fixed upon the Coroner. She hung breathlessly upon his every
word.

"We have no further evidence," replied the inspector.

There was a pause. The public who were there in search of some
solution of the bewildering mystery which had been published in every
paper through the land, were disappointed. They had expected at least
to hear some expert evidence--which, if not always reliable, is always
interesting. But there seemed an inclination on the part of the police
to maintain a silence which increased rather than lessened the
m