Lady Molly broke the news to her with infinite tact, but there it was! It was a terrific blow--wasn’t it?--to deal to a young wife--now a widow; and there was so little that a stranger could say in these circumstances. Even my dear lady’s gentle voice, her persuasive eloquence, her kindly words, sounded empty and conventional in the face of such appalling grief. 2 Of course, everyone expected that the inquest would reveal something of the murdered man’s inner life--would, in fact, allow the over-eager public to get a peep into Mr. Mark Culledon’s secret orchard, wherein walked a lady who wore abnormally large velvet hats, and who nourished in her heart one of those terrible grudges against a man which can only find satisfaction in crime. Equally, of course, the inquest revealed nothing that the public did not already know. The young widow was extremely reticent on the subject of her late husband’s life, and the servants had all been fresh arrivals when the young couple, just home from their honeymoon, organised their new household at Lorbury House. There was an old aunt of the deceased--a Mrs. Steinberg--who lived with the Culledons, but who at the present moment was very ill. Someone in the house--one of the younger servants, probably--very foolishly had told her every detail of the awful tragedy. With positively amazing strength, the invalid thereupon insisted on making a sworn statement, which she desired should be placed before the coroner’s jury. She wished to bear solemn testimony to the integrity of her late nephew, Mark Culledon, in case the personality of the mysterious woman in the big hat suggested to evilly disposed minds any thought of scandal. “Mark Culledon was the one nephew whom I loved,” she stated with solemn emphasis. “I have shown my love for him by bequeathing to him the large fortune which I inherited from the late Mr. Steinberg. Mark was the soul of honour, or I should have cut him out of my will as I did my other nephews and nieces. I was brought up in a Scotch home, and I hate all this modern fastness and smartness, which are only other words for what I call profligacy.” Needless to say, the old lady’s statement, solemn though it was, was of no use whatever for the elucidation of the mystery which surrounded the death of Mr. Mark Culledon. But as Mrs. Steinberg had talked of “other nephews,” whom she had cut out of her will in favour of the murdered man, the police directed inquiries in those various quarters.