The medical report of him declared that what little mental faculty he possessed was seriously shaken; nothing satisfactory was extracted from him at the adjourned inquest, and for aught I know to the contrary, he may never have recovered to this day.
I returned to the hotel at Welmingham so jaded in body and mind, so weakened and depressed by all that I had gone through, as to be quite unfit to endure the local gossip about the inquest, and to answer the trivial questions that the talkers addressed to me in the coffee-room.
But I was bound to appear, if called on, at the adjourned inquest, and doubly bound to answer my bail before the magistrate at Knowlesbury.
All the proceedings at the inquest had been reported in the local paper that morning--there was nothing I could tell her which she did not know already.
There was to be an
inquest on Leonard's' body tomorrow, and the police required his son to attend.
"The less said at the
inquest the better in the interests of justice."
I understand, however, from the inquest that there were some objects which you failed to overlook?"
"I confess that this notebook, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views which I may have formed.
I read at the inquest a description of his cabin, in which it stated that the old logbooks of his vessel were preserved in it.
In the zenith of the evening, Little Swills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Is much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee!
There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothing else.
And all you can do is to murmur silly things about 'heart seizure' and '
inquest on Friday.' You ought to be ashamed of yourself, John Cavendish."