These two left the office together ten minutes after Mr. Delverton had
gone. Next morning when the housekeeper went to the offices he found
Thomas Farrell sitting at the table in his private room, his head fallen
on his arms, which were stretched across the table. He had died from the
effects of poison, yet the tumbler beside him showed no traces of poison.

Medical evidence proved that he had been dead some hours, but there was
nothing to show at what time he had returned to the office.

"In view of the doctor's statement it must have been between ten minutes
past seven and midnight," Southey told me. "The poison would produce
intense drowsiness, then sleep from which there was no waking. The time
of its action would vary in different individuals. I am inclined to think
it was late when he returned. He was a well-known figure in Austin Friars
and Throgmorton Street, and had he been about earlier in the evening some
one would almost certainly have seen him. That part of the world is alive
to a late hour during a Stock Exchange settlement. The offices consist of
a large outer room, which accommodates seven or eight clerks, and two
private rooms opening into one another, but opening into the outer office
only from the first room. This first room, which is the larger of the
two, the brothers Delverton occupied, Farrell having the smaller inner
room. From this there is a side door which gives on to a short passage
leading into Austin Friars. The partners used this side door constantly,
each of them having a key to the Yale lock, and we know from Mr.
Delverton that Farrell went out by the side door that afternoon.
Presumably he returned by it. Everything seemed to point to suicide, and
possibly had there been a shadow of a motive for Farrell taking his own
life, a verdict of suicide would have been returned. Apparently there was
no motive. His affairs were in perfect order, he was shortly to be