“You heard what I wanted, did you?” asked Henry. “We had a dreadful line, and I could scarcely hear what you were saying over the ’phone.”

“Oh, yes, I heard all right,” returned the other. “You wanted to know all about a man who died in the British Museum Reading Room about a year ago, or less. Reports of his death, details of the findings at the inquest, and so on. Though, as I said, why on earth ye wanted all this information is more than I can imagine.”

“You’ll know in good time, Macgregor,” Henry told him. “In fact, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I could put you in the way of what I believe you call a scoop.”

“What do you want to know first?” asked Macgregor.

“Who was the man?”

“His name was Wilkinson. He was Professor of English Literature at Northfield University.”

“What?” Henry nearly jumped out of his skin. “Was he the great authority on the Elizabethan drama?”

“That’s the fellow. Had some patent theory of his own that Shakespeare’s plays were written by two people together—one was Shakespeare himself and the other Kit Marlowe. He worked it out very well, though ’twas all balderdash, of course.”

“When did he die?”

“Let’s see.” Macgregor referred to the bundle of cuttings.

“It’s now June 20. It was exactly five months ago—on January 20 of this year.”

“What was the verdict of the inquest?”

“Natural death. It was proved that he’d been suffering from some form of heart trouble—I don’t understand the queer jargon of these doctor fellows. Still, everybody agreed that he was in such a condition that he might be expected to pop off at any moment, and it was just chance that he did so in the British Museum. He was handling some damned great book weighing about half a hundredweight, and he just collapsed on the floor and died. He was absolutely stone-dead before they could get him to the ambulance, let alone getting him near the hospital.”

“Was there a post-mortem examination?” Again Macgregor consulted the papers he had brought with him from the office.

“It doesn’t mention it here, and I shouldn’t think that there was anything of the sort, or they’d have made a special point of reporting it,” he said at length.

“Very careless of the coroner,” said Henry.