"It fell on the floor and broke."
"Have you often had quarrels with your father?"
"Occasionally.
He had a quick temper and always wished his own way, and I was not so patient with him as I should have been."
"What did you quarrel about?"
"Different things."
"What, for instance?"
"Sometimes because he thought I spent too much money, sometimes over a question of managing the estate; occasionally because he had heard gossip about me."
"What do you mean by 'gossip'?"
"Stories that I'd been gambling or drinking too much."
"Were the stories true?"
"They were always exaggerated."
"And this quarrel the night before his death was more serious than usual?"
"Possibly—yes."
"You did not speak to each other at the breakfast table?"
"No."
Radnor's face was set in strained lines; it was evident that this was a very painful subject.
"Did you have any conversation later?"
"Only a few words."
"Please repeat what was said."
Radnor appeared to hesitate and then replied a trifle wearily that he did not remember the exact words; that it was merely a recapitulation of what had been said the night before.
Upon being urged to give the gist of the conversation he replied that his father had wished to make up their quarrel, but on the old basis, and he had refused.
The Colonel had repeated that he was still too young a man to give over his affairs into the hands of another,—that he had a good many years before him in which he intended to be his own master.
Radnor had replied that he was too old a man to be treated any longer as a boy, and that he would go away and work where he would be paid for what he did.
"And may I ask," the coroner inquired placidly, "whether you had any particular work in mind when you made that statement, or was it merely a figure of rhetoric calculated to bring Colonel Gaylord to terms?"
Rad scowled and said nothing, and the rest of his answers were terseness itself.
"Did you and your father have any further conversation on the ride over, or in the course of the day?"
"No."
"You purposely avoided meeting each other?"
"I suppose so."
"Then those words after breakfast when you threatened to leave home were absolutely the last words you ever spoke to your father?"
It was a subject Radnor did not like to think about.
His lips trembled slightly and he answered with a visible effort.
"Yes."
A slight murmur ran around the room, partly of sympathy, partly of doubt.
The coroner put the same question again and Radnor repeated his answer, this time with a flush of anger.
The coroner paused a moment and then continued without comment:
"You entered the cave with the rest of the party?"
"Yes."
"But you left the others before they had made the complete round?"
"Yes."
"Why was that?"
"I was not particularly interested. I had seen the cave many times before."
"Where did you leave the party?"
"I believe in the gallery of the broken column."
"You left the cave immediately?"
"Yes."
"Did you enter it again?"
"No."
"You forgot Miss Mathers's coat and left it in the gallery of the broken column?"