Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? Read Online Free PDF

help.”
    â€œI see. Thank you. That is all I want to ask just now.”
    Inspector Aitkin left the house with a confident smile upon his features.

Chapter Three
    T WO DAYS after their adventure on the Ealing estate Jim Milsom rang up his friend Herbert Mitchell.
    â€œIs that you, Herbert? Milsom speaking. You’re coming down to the inquest, of course?”
    â€œNo, they haven’t subpoenaed me.”
    â€œWhat does that matter? They’ve left me out too, but we have a duty to perform. We’ve got to see that Pomeroy has a fair ‘do.’ I’ll come round with the car and drive you down. It’s a public enquiry, and we’ll jolly well see that justice is done.”
    On the way down they discussed the case. “You’ll see,” said Milsom, “that the police have got together every scrap of evidence that bears against Pomeroy and haven’t worried themselves about any other possible malefactor.”
    â€œWell, that’s quite natural, isn’t it? Who else could it be but Pomeroy? Oh, I know what you’ll say—that Pomeroy isn’t at all the kind of person to commit a murder—but remember that still waters run deep and these innocent-looking culprits are very often born actors.”
    â€œI hope to goodness the coroner is a discriminating bloke. He may have something up his sleeve that we know nothing about.”
    The two took their seats unobtrusively in the coroner’s court—a bare room which was used for dances and concerts and was furnished with the hardest kind of chair that people can be condemned to sit upon. The jury had already been sworn, and the coroner, a man who knew his job, had been furnished by the police with the results of enquiries that had been made about the bridge party at the house of the Claremonts on the evening before the murder. It was of a sensational character. Though it had no direct bearing upon the crime, the coroner determined to bring it before the jury through the witnesses who had been present. In his opening charge to the jury he explained that even trivial incidents might have a bearing upon their verdict. First he called Miss Lane, who described her meeting with Mr Pomeroy on the morning of the murder. She said that he was quietly weeding the lawn in his garden; that he seemed quite normal and in no way disturbed in manner; that he led the way into the lounge and went to the bathroom to see whether his wife was in a fit state to receive them. Then she described his cry for help and what she found in the bathroom. No questions were put to her.
    â€˜â€˜Edward Green,” called the coroner. Dr Green took his place at the witness stand. After the usual questions about his qualifications, the coroner asked him, “Were you the regular medical attendant of the deceased woman?”
    â€œI was.”
    â€œWould you describe her as a person of normal health?”
    â€œYes, physically she was, but she had fits of cerebral excitement when perhaps she would not act normally.”
    â€œIn simpler language you would say that she had a bad temper?”
    â€œYes, and when in that condition she would not have full command of her language or her acts.”
    â€œOn the morning of September thirteenth were you called to her by telephone?”
    â€œI was. Mr Pomeroy took me into the bathroom, where I found the deceased lying against the end of the bath. I sent Miss Lane to telephone to Dr Leach.”
    â€œIn what state was the body?”
    â€œThe woman seemed to have been dead for a little over an hour; the body had not begun to stiffen. When I reached the bathroom the water had been run off and the bath was empty. The shoulders were lying against the taps, but the head had fallen forward on the chest. There was a deep scalp wound on the top of the head which had produced a fracture of the skull. That, undoubtedly, was the cause of death.”
    â€œWas it the sort of blow that might