Might he ask the witnesses some questions?
Certainly.

It was against the rule, but still he might do so.

Then he inquired exactly into the nature of the wound that had apparently caused death.

He asked for precise information as to the stone on which the head of the deceased was found lying.
It lay fifty yards to the south of the bridge.
Then he argued that as there was no wound on the dead man other than the fracture of the skull, it was plain that death had resulted from a fall.

How the deceased had come by that fall was now the question.