“I was not greatly impressed by the activity of the defence,” I remarked maliciously as we walked home.

Thorndyke smiled.  “You surely did not expect me to cast my pearls of forensic learning before a coroner’s jury,” said he.

“I expected that you would have something to say on behalf of your client,” I replied.  “As it was, his accusers had it all their own way.”

“And why not?” he asked.  “Of what concern to us is the verdict of the coroner’s jury?”

“It would have seemed more decent to make some sort of defence,” I replied.

“My dear Jervis,” he rejoined, “you do not seem to appreciate the great virtue of what Lord Beaconsfield so felicitously called ’a policy of masterly inactivity’; and yet that is one of the great lessons that a medical training impresses on the student.”

“That may be so,” said I.  “But the result, up to the present, of your masterly policy is that a verdict of wilful murder stands against your client, and I don’t see what other verdict the jury could have found.”

“Neither do I,” said Thorndyke.

I had written to my principal, Dr. Cooper, describing the stirring events that were taking place in the village, and had received a reply from him instructing me to place the house at Thorndyke’s disposal, and to give him every facility for his work.  In accordance with which edict my colleague took possession of a well-lighted, disused stable-loft, and announced his intention of moving his things into it.  Now, as these “things” included the mysterious contents of the hamper that the housemaid had seen, I was possessed with a consuming desire to be present at the “flitting,” and I do not mind confessing that I purposely lurked about the stairs in the hopes of thus picking up a few crumbs of information.

But Thorndyke was one too many for me.  A misbegotten infant in the village having been seized with inopportune convulsions, I was compelled, most reluctantly, to hasten to its relief; and I returned only in time to find Thorndyke in the act of locking the door of the loft.

“A nice light, roomy place to work in,” he remarked, as he descended the steps, slipping the key into his pocket.

“Yes,” I replied, and added boldly:  “What do you intend to do up there?”

“Work up the case for the defence,” he replied, “and, as I have now heard all that the prosecution have to say, I shall be able to forge ahead.”

This was vague enough, but I consoled myself with the reflection that in a very few days I should, in common with the rest of the world, be in possession of the results of his mysterious proceedings.  For, in view of the approaching assizes, preparations were being made to push the case through the magistrate’s court as quickly as possible in order to obtain a committal in time for the ensuing sessions.  Draper had, of course, been already charged before a justice of the peace and evidence of arrest taken, and it was expected that the adjourned hearing would commence before the local magistrates on the fifth day after the inquest.