“I was interested in financial affairs.”

“Like Marbury.  Where did you carry on your business?”

“In London, of course.”

“At what address?”

For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive.  His brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch.  And now he squared his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.

“I resent these questions about my private affairs!” he snapped out.

“Possibly.  But I must put them.  I repeat my last question.”

“And I refuse to answer it.”

“Then I ask you another.  Where did you live in London at the time you are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?”

“I refuse to answer that question also!”

The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE NEW WITNESS

The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence.  He was addressing the witness.

“I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,” he said, “there is no wish to trouble you with unnecessary questions.  But we are here to get at the truth of this matter of John Marbury’s death, and as you are the only witness we have had who knew him personally—­”

Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.

“I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!” he exclaimed.  “And I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I met him the other evening.  But I resent being questioned on my private affairs of twenty years ago—­I very much resent it!  Any question that is really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.”

The Treasury Counsel rose again.  His manner had become of the quietest, and Spargo again became keenly attentive.

“Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not yield him offence,” he remarked drily.  He turned once more to the witness, regarding him as if with interest.  “Can you tell us of any person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under discussion—­twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?” he asked.

Aylmore shook his head angrily.

“No, I can’t,’’ he replied.

“And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at that time who knew you both!”

“Possibly—­at that time.  But when I returned to England my business and my life lay in different directions to those of that time.  I don’t know of anybody who knew Marbury then—­anybody.”

The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him; Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the door of the court.  The Counsel looked again at the witness.

“One more question.  You told the court a little time since that you parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of Waterloo Bridge—­at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.”