The story of the circumstances of Daniel Multenius's death, as unfolded in
the witness-box into which one person went after another, appeared to be
the fairly plain one--looked at from one point of view: there was a
certain fascination in its unfolding. It began with Melky, who was first
called--to identify the deceased, to answer a few general questions about
him, and to state that when he last saw him, a few hours before his death,
he was in his usual good health: as good, at any rate, as a man of his
years--seventy-five--who was certainly growing feeble, could expect to be
in. Nothing much was asked of Melky, and nothing beyond bare facts
volunteered by him: the astute Mr. Parminter left him alone. A more
important witness was the police-surgeon, who testified that the deceased
had been dead twenty minutes when he was called to him, that he had
without doubt been violently assaulted, having been savagely seized by the
throat and by the left arm, on both of which significant marks were
plainly visible, and that the cause of death was shock following
immediately on this undoubted violence. It was evident, said this witness,
that the old man was feeble, and that he suffered from a weak heart: such
an attack as that which he had described would be sufficient to cause
death, almost instantly.

"So it is a case of murder!" muttered Melky, who had gone back to sit by
Lauriston. "That's what the police is leading up to. Be careful, mister!"

But there were three witnesses to call before Lauriston was called upon.
It was becoming a mystery to him that his evidence was kept back so long--
he had been the first person to find the old man's dead body, and it
seemed, to his thinking, that he ought to have been called at a very early
stage of the proceedings. He was about to whisper his convictions on this
point to Melky, when a door was opened and Zillah was escorted in by