Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/175

Rh, “that Brown Hirst was a compound fracture from the sustentaculum tali to the tripod of Haller; and from the tripod of Haller to the corpus callossum, he was a simple fracture.”

“Horrible,” drawled the sheriff.

“And he said further,” continued the man of the law, “that the suiciding decedent was probably afflicted with some species of psychical neurosis.”

“Domine miserere!” murmured the guardian of order.

“So the travelling Æsculapius testified, and as the coroner was quite unable to spell the craft terms, he simply wrote down in the record that Doctor Leon Dupey of Cincinnati, after a careful examination, had pronounced Brown Hirst dead, which was far less prolix and entirely true.”

“That coroner,” observed White Carter, “should be United States Senator from Kansas.”

Huron took up the note and put it with the other papers.

“I judge this to be a plain case of suicide,”