Mrs. Provana's French maid was the first witness at the coroner's
inquest. The first question she had to answer was as to when she had
last seen Mr. Provana alive; and the same question was put to all
succeeding witnesses. The answer in each case was the same. Neither any
member of the household, nor the confidential clerk from the City, had
seen the deceased after he left London on his journey to New York. It
was Louison Dupuis, Mrs. Provana's maid, who had discovered the dead
man lying on the floor of his dressing-room, close against the door of
communication with her mistress's bedroom. Hers had been the first foot
on the principal staircase that morning. No other servant was licensed
to tread those stairs in the routine of their servitude. The rooms they
slept in, and the stairs by which they went up and down, were at the
back of the house, remote from the principal staircase.
Mademoiselle Louison looked scared, and trembled a little as she told
her dreadful story. It was her duty to carry Madame her tea at seven
o'clock. Madame desired to be called at that hour, even when she had
come home from a party after midnight. The witness stated that the
still-room maid had the tray ready for her at ten minutes to seven, and
that she went up the staircase of service with it to the second floor,
and through the _palier_ outside Madame's room, and thence through the
open doorway of Monsieur's _cabinet de toilette_. She saw a figure
lying with the face downward. She had reason to believe that Monsieur
Provana was in America. Nothing had been said in the household of his
expected return: yet she knew at the first glance that the man lying
there was her master. He was a man of imposing figure, not easily
mistaken. The horror of it had unnerved her, and she had rushed down
the great staircase to the hall, where two of the footmen were opening
windows and arranging the furniture. She told them what she had seen,
and one of them went to fetch Mr. Sedgewick, the butler.
Her evidence was given in a semi-hysterical and somewhat disjointed
manner, with occasional use of French words for familiar things; but
the coroner had been patient with her--as an important witness, being
the first who had cognisance that murder had been done in the night
silence.
Alfred Sedgewick, the butler, was a very different
witness--self-possessed and ready, eager to express his opinion, and
having to be held with a tight hand.
He described, with studious particularity, how on leaving his room
on that morning, having just finished dressing, and having been kept
waiting for his shaving water, he had run against Ma'mselle, who was
rushing along the passage in a frantic manner, pale as death, and with
eyes starting out of her head. A young person who was apt to excite
herself about trifles, and who on this occasion seemed absolutely
demented.
On hearing Ma'mselle's statement, given in so distracted a manner that
only a person of superior intelligence could find out what she meant,
he had immediately sent one of the footmen to the police office, to
fetch a capable officer. It was no case for the first constable called
in from the street.
He, Sedgewick, had then gone upstairs with another of the men, and had
found the dead body lying, as Ma'mselle had stated, against the door
of communication with Mrs. Provana's bedroom. The face was hidden,
but he had not an instant's doubt as to the dead man's identity, for,
apart from the commanding figure, the left hand was visible, on which
the witness observed an old Italian ring that his master always wore.
He had touched the hand, and found it was the hand of death; yet, in
the circumstances, he had considered it his duty to telephone for the
doctor. The room in which the body lay was used by his master as a
dressing-room; but it was also used by him as a study, and there was a
large office desk in front of one of the windows, at which Mr. Provana
sometimes sat writing late into the night. There was also a safe in
which his master was supposed to keep important papers, and possibly
cash. It was not a large safe, but it was of exceptional strength, and
of the most modern and costly make. This safe was open when the police
took possession of the room, after the removal of the body under the
doctor's superintendence. There were no signs of disorder in the room,
except that the pistol case on the desk was open, and both pistols were
lying on the floor, one near the hand of the deceased, the other near
the desk. The safe had not been forced open. The key was in the door,
one of three small keys on a steel ring engraved with Signor Provana's
name and address. His master always carried these keys in one of his
pockets.
"When was Madame Provana informed of her husband's death?"
"Not until half-past eight o'clock, when Lady Okehampton came. Mrs.
Manby, the housekeeper, went in a cab to Berkeley Square to tell her
ladyship what had happened, and Lady Okehampton came to the house in
the cab with Mrs. Manby."
"Had not Mrs. Provana been awakened by the sounds of voices and
footsteps on the landing?"
"No. Everything had been done with the utmost quiet. There had been no
talking above a whisper. His mistress had been at the ball at Fulham
Park, and had not come home till three o'clock, and she was still
sleeping when Lady Okehampton went into her room."
The doctor was the next witness.
The medical evidence did not take long. In answer to the coroner, the
doctor stated that he was in the habit of attending the household, and
had been summoned by telephone immediately on the discovery of the
tragedy. The body was lying facing the door between the two rooms, and
at no great distance from it. It was semi-prone on its left side, the
arms extended from the body, but flexed. A loaded pistol lay close to
the fingers of the right hand. Life was extinct. Blood had trickled
from a wound in the back of the head and formed a pool on the floor.
The direction of the trickle from wound to floor was vertical. There
were no other blood-stains.
A further examination demonstrated that the wound was due to a bullet;
that the bullet had entered the head horizontally and penetrated the
brain. The bullet was found to fit a pistol lying in the room, recently
discharged, evidently companion to the one already mentioned. Both
fitted a case found on a table in front of the window.
The witness was of opinion,
1. That death was due to shock from bullet wound.
2. That death had been almost instantaneous, and had taken place within
three hours of the time when the witness examined the body.
3. That the wound was not self-inflicted nor accidental; but that the
shot had been deliberately fired and at no great distance. The person
who fired the shot was probably somewhat taller than the deceased.
Upon this Sedgewick, the butler, was recalled, and there followed an
exhaustive interrogation as to the arrangements on the ground floor
of the house. A plan had been made of the doors and passages on this
floor, the great double doors of ceremony opening into the hall, the
tradesmen's door, and another door communicating with the stables,
which were almost as spacious in that old London house as in a country
mansion of some importance. At the back of the hall there was a wide
stone corridor leading to the door opening on the stable-yard, and
other passages to pantry, plate room, lamp room, and the menservants'
bedrooms, which were all on the ground floor.
He valeted his master when he was at home, but he did not travel with
him. Mr. Provana required very little personal attendance. He had
always been aware that his master kept loaded pistols in the case on
his desk. He understood that there was a large amount of valuable
property in that room, where the deceased used often to sit writing
late at night, with open windows in summer-time, when Mrs. Provana was
at evening parties.
The pistols were in charge of the police on a table in court,
old-fashioned duelling pistols, choice specimens of Italian workmanship.
The door at the end of the corridor was often used by Mr. Provana,
and one of the keys on the ring before mentioned was the latch-key
belonging to this door. He was in the habit of walking to the City,
and he used this door every morning, passing the stables on his way.
He was very fond of his horses, and he often went into the stables, or
had the horses brought out, to look at them. The stable-yard opened
into Chilton Street. This door, communicating with the well-guarded
stable-yard, was fastened with a latch lock and heavy bolts; but the
bolts were not often used, and Sedgewick said that it was by this door
his master must have entered the house on the night of the murder, as
the doors in Portland Place had been bolted and chained at ten minutes
past three o'clock, after Mrs. Provana came home.
The coroner, with the plan of the rooms before him, pointed to that
occupied by Sedgewick.
"Was it possible for a stranger to have entered the house after or
before your master without your hearing the opening of the door or his
footsteps in the passage?"
Sedgewick concluded that it was possible, since the thing must have
happened. He was ordinarily a particularly light sleeper. Was there
ever a servant who confessed to being anything else? He had been to a
theatre that evening, and may have slept sounder than usual.
"Did none of the other men hear anything?"
John, footman, had heard the dog bark.
John was duly sworn, and stated that he had been awakened by hearing
the dog, an Irish terrier, and he had sat up in bed and listened; but
the dog had given only that one bark, by which he, John, concluded that
the animal, which slept on a mat outside his room, had been dreaming.
Interrogated as to time, he had heard the hall clock strike five not
very long after the dog barked. It might be a quarter of an hour, or it
might be half an hour.
On this followed the interrogation of stable servants, as to the gates
opening into Chilton Street, the result of which showed that the stable
gates had not been locked that morning. It was broad daylight when the
grooms finished their work and turned in for a morning sleep. The last
of the stable servants to retire had heard the clocks strike four as he
went to his bedroom.
Mrs. Provana was there to answer all further questions concerning
herself.
She stood up by the table, facing the coroner. She stood there, an
exquisite figure, slender and erect, her countenance and her attitude
sublime in composure, grace and refinement in every line.
The few of her friends who had found their way into the court, and who
were standing discreetly in the background, Mr. Symeon, Mr. Amphlett
and Lady Susan, Father Cyprian Hammond, Claude Rutherford, Eustace
Lyon, the poet--these admired and wondered.
With no vestige of colour in cheek or lip, with eyes that had grown
larger in the new horror of her life, yet unutterably calm, with not
one passing tremor in the low voice, and with not one instant of
hesitation, she answered the coroner's questions.
"At what time had she fallen asleep after her return from Fulham Park?"
"It must have been past four o'clock."
"Was your maid in attendance upon you when you went to bed?"
"No, I have never allowed my maid to sit up for me after a late party."
"Are you a heavy sleeper?"
"Not usually; but I was very tired that night."
Eustace Lyon noticed that she spoke of "that night," the night before
last, as if it had been ages ago. The fact appealed to his imagination
as a poet. He remarked afterwards that it is only poets who perceive
such subtle indications.
"Did you hear nothing between six and half-past eight o'clock?"
"Nothing."
A plan of the upper floor was lying in front of the coroner, and he was
studying the position of the rooms.
"The room in which the shot was fired has a door communicating with
your bedroom?"
"Yes."
"Was that door shut?"
"It is always shut."
"Shut, but not locked?"
"No, it was not locked."
The poet and Mr. Symeon looked at each other as she made this answer,
with unalterable composure.
The coroner was an elderly man, a doctor--grave always, but especially
so on this occasion, for this was an exceptional case, and appealed
to him in an exceptional manner. The murder was even more mysterious
than terrible; and he was at once touched and mystified by the unshaken
composure of this young woman, who had been awakened from her morning
sleep to be told that her husband had been murdered within a few yards
of the room where she had been sleeping, full of happy dreams, perhaps,
after the pleasant excitement of a dance.
Except for a strained look in the large grey eyes, there was nothing in
her aspect to indicate the ordeal through which she had passed within
the last two days.
"Isn't she simply wonderful?" murmured Susan Amphlett in the ear of
Mr. Symeon, who was standing by her chair. "She has been like that
ever since." There was no need to say since what. "I was with her all
yesterday; but it was not a bit of use. She has turned to stone. Not a
tear, not a cry; only that dreadful look in her eyes, as if she were
seeing him murdered. It would have been a relief to hear her scream, or
burst into a flood of tears."
"That kind of woman does neither," said Symeon. "She is a grand soul,
not a bundle of nerves. She has force and courage; and she knows that
death does not matter."
The coroner treated this witness with the utmost respect, but he
did not spare her. A crime so extraordinary demanded a severe
investigation, and searching questions had to be asked.
Had Mr. Provana a quarrel with anybody, either in his social or
business relations? Did the witness know of any incident in her
husband's life--in England or in Italy--which might suggest a motive
for the crime?
The answer to both questions was a negative.
"But he might have had a secret enemy without your knowledge?"
"It is possible. He would not have told me anything that would have
made me anxious or unhappy."
For the first time there was a faint tremor in her voice as she said
this; and the poet whispered three words in Lady Susan's ear--"She
loved him!"
Asked whether she expected her husband's return, she replied that she
had received no cablegram naming the steamer by which he was to return.
She had received letters and cablegrams, but none within the last six
days before his death. Asked whether they were on good terms when he
left England, she replied that there had never been a difference of any
kind between them.
She refused to be seated during this ordeal, and stood facing her
questioner till he had asked his last question; and when Lady
Okehampton came to her, wanting to lead her away, she insisted upon
remaining near the end of the table, where the witnesses came one
after another to give their evidence.
The coroner heard those low, distinct words, "I want to hear
everything," and he noted how she stood there, watching and listening
to the end of the inquiry, regardless of her aunt's endeavour to get
her away from the spot.
A confidential clerk from Mr. Provana's office in Lombard Street was
able to give an account of the safe in his principal's dressing-room,
as he had often been in the room, occupied in examining documents with
his employer, and in taking shorthand notes for letters to be written
in Lombard Street. He had examined the contents of this safe after the
murder. The door had been opened with Mr. Provana's private key, which
he always carried about him. Certain securities were missing, but the
valuables abstracted were of a much less amount than might have been
taken by anyone acquainted with the nature of the papers the safe
contained, and able to use his knowledge to advantage. Two parcels of
foreign bonds were missing, the present value of which would be about
six thousand pounds. The witness had an inventory of everything in this
safe, and he had found all other parcels intact, although the contents
of the drawers and shelves had been greatly disturbed, and the papers
thrown about, as if by some person in haste.
"Would these bonds be easily convertible into cash?"
"They are bonds to bearer, and there would be no difficulty of
disposing of them at their value."
The inquiry was adjourned. Vera was surrounded by her friends, Lady
Okehampton, Lady Susan, Mr. Symeon, and Claude Rutherford. Even Eustace
Lyon ventured to approach her.
"Forgive me for intruding at such a moment," he said, almost breathless
with excitement. "I feel that I must speak. You were sublime! Symeon is
right. You are spirit and not clay. It needs something more than flesh
and blood to go through what you have endured to-day."
She looked at him with the same strained look in her eyes with which
she had looked at the coroner; a look of surprise, as if, in the midst
of a dream, she had been startled by a living voice.