"Mr. Stuart has been with us seven years. He is a bachelor. Mr. and Mrs.
Atkins have only been here since May; they are a newly-married couple,
I am told." And not a word of the mysterious pair I had seen in the
adjoining apartment! Was McGorry holding something back, or was he
really ignorant of their presence in the building?
"Are you sure, Mr. McGorry, that there is no one else in the house?" I
interrupted again.
"Yes, sor." Then a light broke over his face: "No, sor; you are quite
right" (I hadn't said anything). "Miss Derwent has been two nights here,
but she's off again this morning." Mr. Merritt here whispered something
to the Coroner, whereupon the latter turned to McGorry and said: "Please
see that no one leaves this building till I have seen them. I don't wish
them to be told that a murder has been committed, unless they have heard
it already, which is most probable. Just inform them that there has been
an accident, do you hear?"
"Oh, Mr. Coroner," exclaimed McGorry, turning almost as red as his hair
in his excitement; "shure and you wouldn't mix Miss Derwent up in this!
Lord, she ain't used to such scenes; she'd faint, and then her mother
would never forgive me!"
"Every one, Miss Derwent included, must view the corpse," he replied,
sternly.
"Oh, sor, but----"
"Silence!" thundered the Coroner; "the law must be obeyed."
So the manager went reluctantly out to give the desired order. On his
return, the Coroner resumed:
"Who is Miss Derwent?"
"Why Miss May Derwent," exclaimed McGorry; "she's just Miss May
Derwent." So it was the fashionable beauty I had been watching so far
into the night. Strange, and stranger!
"Miss May Derwent," McGorry continued, taking pity on our ignorance, "is
the only daughter of Mrs. Mortimer Derwent. She arrived here
unexpectedly on Tuesday. She had missed her train, she said, and came
here to pass the night."
"Did she come alone?"
"Yis, sor."
"Without even a maid?"
"Yis, sor."
"Surely that is an unusual thing for a rich young lady to do?"
"Yis, sor," replied McGorry, apologetically; "she has never done it
before. Maybe the maid was taken on by the train."
"Did Miss Derwent bring any luggage?"
"Nothing but a hand-bag, sor."
"And yet she stayed two nights! Do you know any reason for her staying
here so long?"
"No, sor, unless it was she had some shopping to do. A good many parcels
come for her yistidy afternoon."
"Have you a key to her apartment?"
"Yis, sor; when families goes away for the summer they leaves one key
with me and takes the other with them."
"Did you let Miss Derwent into her apartment, or did she have the key?"
"I let her in."
"Did anyone wait on the young lady while she was here?"
"What do you mean by that?" inquired McGorry, cautiously.
"Why, did anyone go into her place to get her meals and tidy up, etc?"
"No, sor, not that I know of."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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