The Coroner looked round on Mr. Fransemmery and his eleven companions. Clearly, he had no relish for the task which his duties imposed. But he braced himself—with another look which took in the whole scene before him.
“This letter, gentlemen,” he said, turning again to the jury, “is written on a sheet of note-paper, on which is engraved the address Greycloister, Selcaster, and it is dated December 8th, 1905. It runs as follows:
The next time I meet you, wherever it is, and whenever it is, whether tomorrow, or a year hence, or five years hence, or ten years hence, I shall shoot you dead like the dog you are.
The Coroner laid the letter on his desk, took off his spectacles, leaned back in his chair, and looked round him with the air of a man whom something has suddenly wearied. Just as suddenly he leaned forward again, picked up the letter, and passed it to Mr. Fransemmery. As it went from hand to hand amongst the jurymen, the barrister glanced at the detective and nodded. Blick vanished from the witness-box, and the barrister, catching an inclination of the head from the Coroner, turned to the latter’s officer.
“Call John Harborough,” he said in a low voice.
Harborough once more walked to the witness-box. During the reading of the letter he had sat steadily watching the Coroner; his face, grim and impassive, betrayed nothing of whatever it was that he was thinking. It remained equally impassive as he took the oath and faced Coroner, jurymen, and the barrister, who, as the witness came forward, had possessed himself of the letter and now stood holding it in his right hand. Waiting until Harborough had taken the oath, he passed the letter across the table to a policeman and motioned him to hand it to the witness. Amidst a dead silence he asked his first question, sinking his voice to a low, but intensely clear whisper and fixing Harborough with a steady look.
“If you had met Guy Markenmore on the morrow you speak of, would you have shot him like a dog?”
“Did you hear the evidence given by Mrs. Braxfield?”
“Was it correct?—were you on the hill-side, near her house, at about four o’clock on Tuesday morning last?”
“You have travelled a great deal in wild countries, I believe, Mr. Harborough. Are you in the habit of carrying a revolver?”
