er Pett was there, silk hat, black kid gloves and all, not
afraid of being professionally curious. Curiosity was the order of the
day: everybody present--of any intelligent perception--wanted to know
what the presence of Cotherstone, one of the two men accused of the
murder of Stoner, signified. But it was some little time before any
curiosity was satisfied. The inquest being an adjourned one, most of the
available evidence had to be taken, and as a coroner has a wide field in
the calling of witnesses, there was more evidence produced before him
and his jury than before the magistrates. There was Myler, of course,
and old Pursey, and the sweethearting couple: there were other
witnesses, railway folks, medical experts, and townspeople who could
contribute some small quota of testimony. But all these were forgotten
when at last Cotherstone, having been duly warned by the coroner that he
need not give any evidence at all, determinedly entered the
witness-box--to swear on oath that he was witness to his partner's
crime.

Nothing could shake Cotherstone's evidence. He told a plain,
straightforward story from first to last. He had no knowledge whatever
of Stoner's having found out the secret of the Wilchester affair. He
knew nothing of Stoner's having gone over to Darlington. On the Sunday
he himself had gone up the moors for a quiet stroll. At the spinney
overhanging Hobwick Quarry he had seen Mallalieu and Stoner, and had at
once noticed that something in the shape of a quarrel was afoot. He saw
Mallalieu strike heavily at Stoner with his oak stick--saw Mallalieu, in
a sudden passion, kick the stick over the edge of the quarry, watched
him go down into the quarry and eventually leave it. He told how he
himself had gone after the stick, recovered it, taken it home, and had
eventually told the police where it was. He had never spoken to
Mallalieu on that Sunday--never seen him except under the circumstances
just detailed.

The astute barrister who represented Cotherstone had not troubled the
Coroner and his jury much by asking questions of the various witnesses.
But he had quietly elicited from all the medical men the definite
opinion that death had been caused by the blow. And when Cotherstone's
evidence was over, the barrister insisted on recalling the two
sweethearts, and he got out of them, separately (each being excluded
from the court while the other gave evidence), that they had not seen
Mallalieu and Cotherstone tog