An inquiry into the cause of being late (7)
I believe the answer is:
inquest
'an inquiry' is the definition.
(I know that inquest is a type of inquiry)
'into the cause of being late' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'into' could be 'in' and 'in' is present in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for inquest that I've seen before include "Post-mortem investigation" , "Coroner's jury" , "What-went-wrong investigation" , "Coroner's inquiry into cause of death" , "Process overseen by coroner" .)