“As for Jemima Gadd, she remained absolutely impassive. Having given her evidence, she stepped aside automatically like a yellow waxen image, which had been wound up and had now run down. There was silence for a while. Pamela Pebmarsh, more dead than alive, was sipping a glass of brandy and water, which alone prevented her from falling in a dead faint. “Detective Inspector Robinson now stepped forward. All the spectators there could read on his face the consciousness that his evidence would be of the most supreme import. “‘I was telegraphed for from the Yard,’ he said, in reply to the coroner, ‘and came down here by the first train on the Thursday morning. Beyond the short medical examination the body had not been touched; as the constables know, we don’t like things interfered with in cases of this kind. When I went up to look at deceased, the first thing I saw was a piece of paper just under her right hand. Sergeant Evans had seen it before, and pointed it out to me. Deceased had a pen in her hand, and the ink-bottle was close by. This is the paper I found, sir.’ “And amidst a deadly silence, during which nothing could be heard but the scarcely-perceptible rustle of the paper, the inspector handed a small note across to the coroner. The latter glanced at it for a moment, and his face became very grave and solemn as he turned towards the jury. “‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ he said, ‘these are the contents of the paper which the inspector found under the hand of the deceased.’ “He paused once more before he began to read, whilst we all in that crowded court held our breath to listen: “‘_I am dying. My murderess is my niece, Pam_——’ “‘That is all, gentlemen,’ added the coroner, as he folded up the note. ‘Death overtook the unfortunate woman in the very act of writing down the name of her murderess.’ “Then there was a wild and agonised shriek of horror. Pamela Pebmarsh, with hair dishevelled and eyes in which the light of madness had begun to gleam, threw up her hands, and without a groan, fell down senseless upon the floor.” Chapter III “Yes,” said the man in the corner with a chuckle, “there was enough evidence there to hang twenty people, let alone that one fool of a girl who had run her neck so madly into a noose. I don’t suppose that any one left the court that day with the slightest doubt in their minds as to what the verdict would be; for the coroner had adjourned the inquest, much to the annoyance of the jury, who had fully made up their minds and had their verdict pat on the tips of their tongues: ‘Wilful murder against Pamela Pebmarsh.’ “But this was a case which to the last kept up its reputation for surprises. By the next morning rumour had got about that ‘the lady of the aristocracy’ referred to by Jemima Gadd, and who was supposed to have paid a regular pension to Miss Pebmarsh, was none other than Lady de Chavasse.