The Mystery of the Clasped Hands: A NovelBoothby, Guy
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The Mystery of the Clasped Hands: A Novel
Boothby, Guy
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
The next witness was the police-constable on the beat, who had been
called in by the landlord. He gave evidence as to the opening of the
door, and the discovery then made. He was followed by the doctor, who
had made the post-mortem examination, and who described the nature and
situation of the various wounds, and the conclusions he had drawn
therefrom. Then came the first sensation of the afternoon, when the
well-known artist, Godfrey Henderson, was called. In answer to the
various questions put to him, he deposed that he had known the deceased
for upward of a year; that he had employed her for the model of his
picture, “A Woman of the People,” and had always found her a quiet and
eminently respectable girl. He had been compelled to dismiss her, not
because he had any fault to find with her, but because he was going
abroad. This was not the last he had heard of her, for, while on the
Nile at Luxor, he had received a letter from her, informing him of her
address, in view of any future work he might have for her. At Naples he
had again met her, when he was on his way back to England, and had taken
her to the Opera in her mother’s company. On the night of the murder, he
had again met her in the Strand, quite by accident, when, finding that
she was in serious trouble, he had offered to help her. She would not
accept his assistance, however. Noticing that she was in a most unhappy
state, and not liking to leave her alone in the streets, he had called a
cab and escorted her to her abode in Burford Street. He did not enter
the building, however, but bade her good-bye in the street, after which
he returned to his hotel. He was unable to assign any motive for the
crime, and added that the only person he could have believed would have
committed it, was a man named Dardini, an Italian, who was in love with
the girl, and who had attempted his (the witness’s) life in Naples, on
the night of the visit to the Opera. Whether the man was in England he
was unable to say. Whether she had been in want of money at the time of
his last seeing her, he also was unable to say. She had declared that
she was in work, that was all he knew of the matter.
“On hearing that she was married, did you not inquire the name of her
husband?” asked the coroner.
“I did,” Godfrey replied, “but she refused to tell me.”
“Did not that strike you as being singular?”
“No,” Godfrey replied. “When she informed me that he was dead, I did not
press the matter.”
“You are quite sure, I suppose, that she was not married when you met
her at Naples?”
“I feel convinced that she was not; but I could not say so on my oath.”
“And when you opened the box, which you say was sent you at your country
residence, were you not shocked at the discovery you made?”
“Naturally I was!”
“And what conclusions did you come to?”
“I gathered from it that my old friend had been murdered.”
“What caused you to recognise her hands?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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