The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth

recalled.
    The Coroner: ‘On July 16th Mr. Everton had ordered his dinner for half past eight?’
    Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘You are the cook?’
    Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘Dinner was ordered for half past eight, yet at a quarter-past eight you went upstairs to turn down his bed. Isn’t that a little unusual?’
    Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir. Everything was cold, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘You mean you had no cooking to do?’
    Mrs. Mercer: ‘No, sir. Everything was ready in the dining-room except for my pudding, which I was keeping on the ice.’
    The Coroner: ‘I see. Thank you, Mrs. Mercer, that will do. Now, Mrs. Thompson, let us get this quite clear. You have sworn that Alfred Mercer was in the kitchen or in the pantry between half past seven and twenty minutes past eight, which was the time that the alarm was given as near as we can fix it?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘I have here a plan of the house. It bears out your statement that there is no way out of the pantry except through the kitchen. The pantry window, I am told, is barred, so that there would be no egress that way. You swear that you did not leave the kitchen yourself between seven-thirty and eight-twenty?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘You swear that Alfred Mercer did not pass through the kitchen during that time?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘He come into the kitchen, sir. Me being so deaf, he had to come right up to me before I could hear what he said, but he never went through anywhere except back to his pantry.’
    The Coroner: ‘I see — you were talking?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘And Mrs. Mercer was there all the time until she went to turn down the bed?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘I think she went through to the dining-room once, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘What time was that?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘Somewhere about eight o’clock, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘How long was she away?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘Not above a few minutes, sir.’
    The Coroner: ‘Did she seem as usual?’
    Mrs Thompson: ‘Well, no sir, I can’t say she did. Shocking bad she was with toothache, poor thing. That’s what Mercer come in to talk to me about — said he couldn’t get her to go to the dentist. “And what’s the sense,” he said, “crying your eyes out with pain instead of taking and having it out?” ’
    The Coroner: ‘I see. And Mrs. Mercer was crying with her toothache?’
    Mrs. Thompson: ‘All the time, poor thing.’
    That finished with Mrs. Thompson.
    CHAPTER SIX
    There was medical evidence, there was police evidence, there was evidence about the will. The medical evidence said that James Everton had died at once. He had been shot through the left temple. The police surgeon had arrived at a quarter to nine. He said that in his opinion Mr. Everton could not have moved after he was shot. He certainly could not have dropped the pistol where Mr. Grey said he had found it, neither could he have thrown it there. He must have fallen forward and died at once. The shot had been fired from a distance of at least a yard, probably more. This, together with the absence of his finger-marks on the pistol, made suicide out of the question. The exact time of death was always difficult to determine, but there was nothing to contradict the evidence of his having been alive at eight o’clock.
    The Coroner: ‘He might have been dead as long as three-quarters of an hour when you first saw him?’
    ‘It is possible.’
    The Coroner: ‘Not longer?’
    ‘I should say not longer, but it is difficult to place these things exactly.’
    The Coroner: ‘He might have been alive as late as twenty past eight?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    There was more of this sort of thing. In the upshot it seemed to Hilary that the medical evidence left them just where they were as far as the time question went. Medically speaking, James Everton might have been shot at twenty past eight, when the Mercers said they