“You are quite sure you found the street door locked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you noticed nothing unusual about the place?”

“Only the open door to the store room, sir.  Mr. Hume was always particular about closing up, sir.  For a man who was in the habit of taking a sup of drink, sir, I’ll say he was very particular.”

“When you noticed the door being open you went in at once, I suppose?”

“No, sir; I did not.  After I got me water, I set down on the top step to get me breath.  When I saw the door stan’nin’ open, thinks I to meself, thinks I; ‘Mr. Hume is up early this mornin’.’  But everything was quiet as the grave,” in a hushed dramatic tone.  “Sorra the sound did I hear.  So I gets up and goes in.  And in the front room I sees him lyin’.  Mr. Hume was never a handsome man, sir; and he’d gained nothing in looks by the end he’d met with.  God save us, how I ever got out into the street, I’ll never know.”

She rocked to and fro and fanned herself with her apron.

“It must have been a very severe shock, Mrs. Dwyer,” agreed the coroner.  “Now,” after a pause, “do you know anything—­however slight, mind you—­that would seem to point to who did this thing?”

Mrs. Dwyer shook her head.

“Me acquaintance with Mr. Hume was a business one only, sir,” she said.  “I never set foot into his place further than the hall except on the days when I went to get me pay—­and this morning, save us from harm!”

“You know nothing of his friends then—­of his habits?”

“There is the Jew boy, outside there, that worked for him.  He’s a nice, good mannered little felly, and is the only person I ever see in the office when I went there, barrin’ the boss himself.  As for Mr. Hume’s habits, I can say only what everybody knows.  He were drunk when he engaged me, and he were drunk the last time I seen him alive.”

“That will be all, Mrs. Dwyer,” said Stillman.  “Thank you.  Curran, I’ll see the young man next.”

As Curran and Mrs. Dwyer went out the young coroner turned to his two visitors.

“I am still assured that we have the motive for the crime in the attempt to steal the painting,” he said.  “But it will do no harm to get all the light we can upon every side of the matter.  The smallest clue,” importantly, “may prove of the utmost value at the inquest.”

Ashton-Kirk smilingly nodded his entire assent to this.  Then Curran showed in the clerk.

The young man still carried the thick volume and, when he sat down, laid it upon a corner of Stillman’s desk.  Its back was turned toward Ashton-Kirk and he noted that it was a work on anatomy such as first-year medical students use.

“What is your name, please?” asked the coroner.

“Isidore Brolatsky,” replied the young man.

“You are, or were, employed by Mr. Hume?”

“As a clerk, yes, sir.  I’ve been with him for some years.”  Brolatsky spoke with scarcely a trace of accent.  “He didn’t pay much, but then there wasn’t much to do, and I had plenty of time to study.”