from an inner room of which the door
I have just referred to opens. Now I suggest to you, Dr. Wellesley, that
you should give us the name of the person who was with you in your
drawing-room?"

Wellesley, who, during this exordium, had steadily watched his
questioner, shook his head more decidedly than before.

"No!" he answered promptly. "I shall not say who my caller was."

Meeking spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He turned to
the Coroner who, for the last few minutes, had shown signs of being ill
at ease, and had frequently shaken his head at Wellesley's point-blank
refusals.

"I don't know if it is any use appealing to you, sir," said Meeking.
"The witness----"

The Coroner leaned towards Wellesley, his whole attitude conciliatory
and inviting.

"I really think that it would be better, doctor, if you could find it in
your way to answer Mr. Meeking's question----"

"I have answered it, sir," interrupted Wellesley. "My answer is--no!"

"Yes, yes, but I don't want the jury to get any false impressions--to
draw any wrong conclusions," said the Coroner a little testily. "I feel
sure that in your own interest----"

"I am not thinking of my own interest," declared Wellesley. "Once
again--I shall not give the name of my caller."

There was a further pause, during which Meeking and the Coroner
exchanged glances. Then Meeking suddenly turned again to the
witness-box.

"Was your caller a man or a woman?" he asked.

"That I shan't say!" answered Wellesley steadily.

"Who admitted him--or her?"

"I did."

"How--by what door of your house?"

"By the side-door in Piper's Passage."

"Did any of your servants see the caller?"

"No."

"How came that about? You have several servants."

"My caller came to that door by arrangement with myself at a certain
time--7.30--was admitted by me, and taken straight up to my drawing-room
by a side staircase. My caller left, when the interview was over, by the
same way."

"The interview, then, was a secret one?"

"Precisely! Secret; private; confidential."

"And you flatly refuse to give us the caller's name?"

"Flatly!"

Meeking hesitated a moment. Then, with a sudden gesture, as though he
washed his hands of the whole episode, he dropped back into his seat,
bundled his papers together, and made some evidently cynical remark to
Hawthwaite who sat near to him. But Hawthwaite made no response: he was
watching the Coroner, and in answer to a questio