“That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore.  I suppose you see a certain danger to yourself in making it.”

“I need not say whether I do or I do not.  I have made it.”

“Very good.  Why did you not make it before?”

“For my own reasons.  I told you as much as I considered necessary for the purpose of this enquiry.  I have virtually altered nothing now.  I asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box:  I was not allowed to do so.  I am willing to make it now.”

“Make it then.”

“It is simply this,” said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner.  “I have found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally—­very occasionally, as a rule—­go late at night.  I also found it convenient, for my own reasons—­with which, I think, no one has anything to do—­to rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson.  It was to my chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight with which we are dealing.  He was not in them more than five minutes at the very outside:  I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would drive or walk straight back to his hotel.  That is the whole truth.  I wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first.  I had reasons for not doing so.  I told what I considered necessary, that I parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight.”

“What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all this at first?” asked the Treasury Counsel.

“Reasons which are private to me.”

“Will you tell them to the court?”

“No!”

“Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?”

“Yes.  To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for him for twenty years or more.”

“A document of importance?”

“Of very great importance.”

“He would have it on him when he was—­as we believe he was—­murdered and robbed?”

“He had it on him when he left me.”

“Will you tell us what it was?”

“Certainly not!”

“In fact, you won’t tell us any more than you choose to tell?”

“I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.”

“Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question.  Is it not a fact that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told this court?”

“That I shall not answer.”

“Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years ago?”

“I also decline to answer that.”

The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned to the Coroner.