Liane, pale and nervous, neatly dressed in black, entered quietly, removed her right glove, and took the oath. Having given her name, the Coroner asked,-- "When did you last see the deceased, Miss Brooker?" "When she set out to go to the railway station," she answered, in a low faltering voice. "Have you any idea why she should have gone to Cross Lane? It was entirely out of her way home from Burghfield to Stratfield Mortimer, was it not?" "I cannot tell," Liane replied. "We went along that road on our cycles only on one occasion, and found it so rough that we agreed never to attempt it again." "I presume, Miss Brooker, that the deceased was your most intimate friend?" observed the Coroner. "She would therefore be likely to tell you if she had a lover. Were you aware of the existence of any such person?" "No," she replied, flushing slightly and glancing slowly around the hot, crowded room. "You had a visitor whose name your father has just given me upon this paper," observed the Coroner. "Was that visitor known to the deceased?" The eyes of the father and daughter met for a single instant as she glanced around upon the long lines of expectant countenances. "Oh, yes," she replied. "The gentleman who came unexpectedly to see us has been known to us all for fully five or six years." "And has always been very friendly towards the unfortunate girl?" "Always." "The only thing taken from the young lady appears to have been a diamond brooch. Do you know anything of it?" "Of what?" gasped Liane nervously, her face paling almost imperceptibly behind her black veil. "Of the brooch, of course." "I only know that she prized it very much, as it was a present from a gentleman she had met while on the Riviera eighteen months ago." "He was not her lover?" inquired the grave-faced man, without looking up from the sheet of blue foolscap whereon he was writing her statement. "Not exactly. I have no knowledge of her possessing any admirer." The Coroner at last paused and put down his quill. "And this miniature, which was discovered beside the body, have you ever before seen it in the possession of the deceased?" he asked, holding it up to her gaze. "No," she answered. "Never." The jury not desiring to ask any questions, Liane was then allowed to retire to a chair next her father, and the doctor was called. "Will you kindly tell us the result of the _post mortem_, Dr Lewis?" the Coroner requested, when the medical man had been sworn. At once the doctor explained in technical language the injuries he had discovered, and described the exact position in which he had found the body when he reached the spot. "And what, in your opinion, was the cause of death?" asked the Coroner in dry, business-like tones.