Beyond These VoicesBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Beyond These Voices
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Fiction
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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