Mrs. Provana's French maid was the first witness at the coroner's inquest. The first question she had to answer was as to when she had last seen Mr. Provana alive; and the same question was put to all succeeding witnesses. The answer in each case was the same. Neither any member of the household, nor the confidential clerk from the City, had seen the deceased after he left London on his journey to New York. It was Louison Dupuis, Mrs. Provana's maid, who had discovered the dead man lying on the floor of his dressing-room, close against the door of communication with her mistress's bedroom. Hers had been the first foot on the principal staircase that morning. No other servant was licensed to tread those stairs in the routine of their servitude. The rooms they slept in, and the stairs by which they went up and down, were at the back of the house, remote from the principal staircase.

Mademoiselle Louison looked scared, and trembled a little as she told her dreadful story. It was her duty to carry Madame her tea at seven o'clock. Madame desired to be called at that hour, even when she had come home from a party after midnight. The witness stated that the still-room maid had the tray ready for her at ten minutes to seven, and that she went up the staircase of service with it to the second floor, and through the palier outside Madame's room, and thence through the open doorway of Monsieur's cabinet de toilette. She saw a figure lying with the face downward. She had reason to believe that Monsieur Provana was in America. Nothing had been said in the household of his expected return: yet she knew at the first glance that the man lying there was her master. He was a man of imposing figure, not easily mistaken. The horror of it had unnerved her, and she had rushed down the great staircase to the hall, where two of the footmen were opening windows and arranging the furniture. She told them what she had seen, and one of them went to fetch Mr. Sedgewick, the butler.

Her evidence was given in a semi-hysterical and somewhat disjointed manner, with occasional use of French words for familiar things; but the coroner had been patient with her—as an important witness, being the first who had cognisance that murder had been done in the night silence.

Alfred Sedgewick, the butler, was a very different witness—self-possessed and ready, eager to express his opinion, and having to be held with a tight hand.

He described, with studious particularity, how on leaving his room on that morning, having just finished dressing, and having been kept waiting for his shaving water, he had run against Ma'mselle, who was rushing along the passage in a frantic manner, pale as death, and with eyes starting out of her head. A young person who was apt to excite herself about trifles, and who on this occasion seemed absolutely demented.

On hearing Ma'mselle's statement, given in so distracted a manner that only a person of superior intelligence could find out what she meant, he had immediately sent one of the footmen to the police office, to fetch a capable officer. It was no case for the first constable called in from the street.

He, Sedgewick, had then gone upstairs with another of the men, and had found the dead body lying, as Ma'mselle had stated, against the door of communication with Mrs. Provana's bedroom. The face was hidden, but he had not an instant's doubt as to the dead man's identity, for, apart from the commanding figure, the left hand was visible, on which the witness observed an old Italian ring that his master always wore. He had touched the hand, and found it was the hand of death; yet, in the circumstances, he had considered it his duty to telephone for the doctor. The room in which the body lay was used by his master as a dressing-room; but it was also used by him as a study, and there was a large office desk in front of one of the windows, at which Mr. Provana sometimes sat writing late into the night. There was also a safe in which his master was supposed to keep important papers, and possibly cash. It was not a large safe, but it was of exceptional strength, and of the most modern and costly make. This safe was open when the police took possession of the room, after the removal of the body under the doctor's superintendence. There were no signs of disorder in the room, except that the pistol case on the desk was open, and both pistols were lying on the floor, one near the hand of the deceased, the other near the desk. The safe had not been forced open. The key was in the door, one of three small keys on a steel ring engraved with Signor Provana's name and address. His master always carried these keys in one of his pockets.

"When was Madame Provana informed of her husband's death?"

"Not until half-past eight o'clock, when Lady Okehampton came. Mrs. Manby, the housekeeper, went in a cab to Berkeley Square to tell her ladyship what had happened, and Lady Okehampton came to the house in the cab with Mrs. Manby."

"Had not Mrs. Provana been awakened by the sounds of voices and footsteps on the landing?"

"No. Everything had been done with the utmost quiet. There had been no talking above a whisper. His mistress had been at the ball at Fulham Park, and had not come home till three o'clock, and she was still sleeping when Lady Okehampton went into her room."

The doctor was the next witness.

The medical evidence did not take long. In answer to the coroner, the doctor stated that he was in the habit of attending the household, and had been summoned by telephone immediately on the discovery of the tragedy. The body was lying facing the door between the two rooms, and at no great distance from it. It was semi-prone on its left side, the arms extended from the body, but flexed. A loaded pistol lay close to the fingers of the right hand. Life was extinct. Blood had trickled from a wound in the back of the head and formed a pool on the floor. The direction of the trickle from wound to floor was vertical. There were no other blood-stains.

A further examination demonstrated that the wound was due to a bullet; that the bullet had entered the head horizontally and penetrated the brain. The bullet was found to fit a pistol lying in the room, recently discharged, evidently companion to the one already mentioned. Both fitted a case found on a table in front of the window.

The witness was of opinion,

1. That death was due to shock from bullet wound.

2. That death had been almost instantaneous, and had taken place within three hours of the time when the witness examined the body.

3. That the wound was not self-inflicted nor accidental; but that the shot had been deliberately fired and at no great distance. The person who fired the shot was probably somewhat taller than the deceased.

Upon this Sedgewick, the butler, was recalled, and there followed an exhaustive interrogation as to the arrangements on the ground floor of the house. A plan had been made of the doors and passages on this floor, the great double doors of ceremony opening into the hall, the tradesmen's door, and another door communicating with the stables, which were almost as spacious in that old London house as in a country mansion of some importance. At the back of the hall there was a wide stone corridor leading to the door opening on the stable-yard, and other passages to pantry, plate room, lamp room, and the menservants' bedrooms, which were all on the ground floor.

He valeted his master when he was at home, but he did not travel with him. Mr. Provana required very little personal attendance. He had always been aware that his master kept loaded pistols in the case on his desk. He understood that there was a large amount of valuable property in that room, where the deceased used often to sit writing late at night, with open windows in summer-time, when Mrs. Provana was at evening parties.

The pistols were in charge of the police on a table in court, old-fashioned duelling pistols, choice specimens of Italian workmanship.

The door at the end of the corridor was often used by Mr. Provana, and one of the keys on the ring before mentioned was the latch-key belonging to this door. He was in the habit of walking to the City, and he used this door every morning, passing the stables on his way. He was very fond of his horses, and he often went into the stables, or had the horses brought out, to look at them. The stable-yard opened into Chilton Street. This door, communicating with the well-guarded stable-yard, was fastened with a latch lock and heavy bolts; but the bolts were not often used, and Sedgewick said that it was by this door his master must have entered the house on the night of the murder, as the doors in Portland Place had been bolted and chained at ten minutes past three o'clock, after Mrs. Provana came home.

The coroner, with the plan of the rooms before him, pointed to that occupied by Sedgewick.

"Was it possible for a stranger to have entered the house after or before your master without your hearing the opening of the door or his footsteps in the passage?"

Sedgewick concluded that it was possible, since the thing must have happened. He was ordinarily a particularly light sleeper. Was there ever a servant who confessed to being anything else? He had been to a theatre that evening, and may have slept sounder than usual.

"Did none of the other men hear anything?"

John, footman, had heard the dog bark.

John was duly sworn, and stated that he had been awakened by hearing the dog, an Irish terrier, and he had sat up in bed and listened; but the dog had given only that one bark, by which he, John, concluded that the animal, which slept on a mat outside his room, had been dreaming. Interrogated as to time, he had heard the hall clock strike five not very long after the dog barked. It might be a quarter of an hour, or it might be half an hour.

On this followed the interrogation of stable servants, as to the gates opening into Chilton Street, the result of which showed that the stable gates had not been locked that morning. It was broad daylight when the grooms finished their work and turned in for a morning sleep. The last of the stable servants to retire had heard the clocks strike four as he went to his bedroom.

Mrs. Provana was there to answer all further questions concerning herself.

She stood up by the table, facing the coroner. She stood there, an exquisite figure, slender and erect, her countenance and her attitude sublime in composure, grace and refinement in every line.

The few of her friends who had found their way into the court, and who were standing discreetly in the background, Mr. Symeon, Mr. Amphlett and Lady Susan, Father Cyprian Hammond, Claude Rutherford, Eustace Lyon, the poet—these admired and wondered.

With no vestige of colour in cheek or lip, with eyes that had grown larger in the new horror of her life, yet unutterably calm, with not one passing tremor in the low voice, and with not one instant of hesitation, she answered the coroner's questions.

"At what time had she fallen asleep after her return from Fulham Park?"

"It must have been past four o'clock."

"Was your maid in attendance upon you when you went to bed?"

"No, I have never allowed my maid to sit up for me after a late party."

"Are you a heavy sleeper?"

"Not usually; but I was very tired that night."

Eustace Lyon noticed that she spoke of "that night," the night before last, as if it had been ages ago. The fact appealed to his imagination as a poet. He remarked afterwards that it is only poets who perceive such subtle indications.

"Did you hear nothing between six and half-past eight o'clock?"

"Nothing."

A plan of the upper floor was lying in front of the coroner, and he was studying the position of the rooms.

"The room in which the shot was fired has a door communicating with your bedroom?"

"Yes."

"Was that door shut?"

"It is always shut."

"Shut, but not locked?"

"No, it was not locked."

The poet and Mr. Symeon looked at each other as she made this answer, with unalterable composure.

The coroner was an elderly man, a doctor—grave always, but especially so on this occasion, for this was an exceptional case, and appealed to him in an exceptional manner. The murder was even more mysterious than terrible; and he was at once touched and mystified by the unshaken composure of this young woman, who had been awakened from her morning sleep to be told that her husband had been murdered within a few yards of the room where she had been sleeping, full of happy dreams, perhaps, after the pleasant excitement of a dance.

Except for a strained look in the large grey eyes, there was nothing in her aspect to indicate the ordeal through which she had passed within the last two days.

"Isn't she simply wonderful?" murmured Susan Amphlett in the ear of Mr. Symeon, who was standing by her chair. "She has been like that ever since." There was no need to say since what. "I was with her all yesterday; but it was not a bit of use. She has turned to stone. Not a tear, not a cry; only that dreadful look in her eyes, as if she were seeing him murdered. It would have been a relief to hear her scream, or burst into a flood of tears."

"That kind of woman does neither," said Symeon. "She is a grand soul, not a bundle of nerves. She has force and courage; and she knows that death does not matter."

The coroner treated this witness with the utmost respect, but he did not spare her. A crime so extraordinary demanded a severe investigation, and searching questions had to be asked.

Had Mr. Provana a quarrel with anybody, either in his social or business relations? Did the witness know of any incident in her husband's life—in England or in Italy—which might suggest a motive for the crime?

The answer to both questions was a negative.

"But he might have had a secret enemy without your knowledge?"

"It is possible. He would not have told me anything that would have made me anxious or unhappy."

For the first time there was a faint tremor in her voice as she said this; and the poet whispered three words in Lady Susan's ear—"She loved him!"

Asked whether she expected her husband's return, she replied that she had received no cablegram naming the steamer by which he was to return. She had received letters and cablegrams, but none within the last six days before his death. Asked whether they were on good terms when he left England, she replied that there had never been a difference of any kind between them.

She refused to be seated during this ordeal, and stood facing her questioner till he had asked his last question; and when Lady Okehampton came to her, wanting to lead her away, she insisted upon remaining near the end of the table, where the witnesses came one after another to give their evidence.

The coroner heard those low, distinct words, "I want to hear everything," and he noted how she stood there, watching and listening to the end of the inquiry, regardless of her aunt's endeavour to get her away from the spot.

A confidential clerk from Mr. Provana's office in Lombard Street was able to give an account of the safe in his principal's dressing-room, as he had often been in the room, occupied in examining documents with his employer, and in taking shorthand notes for letters to be written in Lombard Street. He had examined the contents of this safe after the murder. The door had been opened with Mr. Provana's private key, which he always carried about him. Certain securities were missing, but the valuables abstracted were of a much less amount than might have been taken by anyone acquainted with the nature of the papers the safe contained, and able to use his knowledge to advantage. Two parcels of foreign bonds were missing, the present value of which would be about six thousand pounds. The witness had an inventory of everything in this safe, and he had found all other parcels intact, although the contents of the drawers and shelves had been greatly disturbed, and the papers thrown about, as if by some person in haste.

"Would these bonds be easily convertible into cash?"

"They are bonds to bearer, and there would be no difficulty of disposing of them at their value."

The inquiry was adjourned. Vera was surrounded by her friends, Lady Okehampton, Lady Susan, Mr. Symeon, and Claude Rutherford. Even Eustace Lyon ventured to approach her.

"Forgive me for intruding at such a moment," he said, almost breathless with excitement. "I feel that I must speak. You were sublime! Symeon is right. You are spirit and not clay. It needs something more than flesh and blood to go through what you have endured to-day."

She looked at him with the same strained look in her eyes with which she had looked at the coroner; a look of surprise, as if, in the midst of a dream, she had been startled by a living voice.