The Castleford Conundrum by J. J. Connington

Author:J. J. Connington [Connington, J. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471906060
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2014-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The Coroner

Mr. Oliver Renishaw, the local Coroner, was a dry, precise little man with a pair of alert eyes in an expressionless, leathery face. In private life, his talent was for monologue rather than for conversation; but his talk was objective and not subjective, so that even his longest speeches failed to reveal much of his intimate thoughts. In his official capacity, caution was his most salient characteristic. He confined himself to his allotted task—to ascertain the cause of death in the cases which came under his attention—and he had not the slightest desire to borrow the mantle of Sherlock Holmes and discover the identity of a criminal. That, in his view, was entirely a police affair; and his only duty in that connection was to do nothing which might make the task of the official detectives more difficult.

He had assembled a jury, taken the evidence of Stevenage, Mrs. Haddon, Miss Lindfield, P. C. Gumley, and Inspector Westerham, and had then adjourned his inquiry until a later date when the results of fuller expert investigations might be available. It was when he came into possession of these results that he decided to take Westerham into consultation.

The Inspector, calling one evening at Mr. Renishaw’s house in response to a summons, was shown into a room where he found his host, apparently deep in thought, with a lighted cigar between his fingers. On a table beside his armchair lay a small pile of papers. Renishaw greeted his visitor with a certain dry courtesy and motioned him to take a seat.

“This conversation, you understand, Mr. Westerham, is to be regarded as hardly official. I have some information which may be of use to you. As against that, I look to you to tell me how much of that information—if any—can be made public without endangering the ultimate success of your investigations into this Castleford affair.”

As though to mark the unofficial character of the interview, he solemnly drew the Inspector’s attention to a box of cigars. Westerham helped himself. While he was lighting his cigar, Mr. Renishaw picked up the papers from the table at his side.

“I need not, I think, recapitulate the evidence given at the opening of the inquest, as that is already public property.”

Westerham nodded in agreement. He knew the man he had to deal with, and he had resolved to interrupt as little as possible. It was quicker to give Renishaw his head and let him deal with matters in his own way, even if it meant listening to some things which the Inspector knew already from other sources.

“By my instructions,” Renishaw went on, “Dr. Ripponden conducted a post-mortem examination of Mrs. Castleford’s body. I have his written report here. He found, as you know, that a projectile had entered the skin at the back, had traversed her heart, and had emerged at the front of the body, inflicting in its passage a wound likely to be almost immediately fatal.”

Again Westerham nodded. This was all familiar to him.

“Measurement of the diameter of the entrance wound suggested that it had been produced by a projectile of .

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