“The maid found the dead body of her mistress”
On her return from Bond Street, the maid had found her mistress alone—Lady Madeley having already left—and she described how her mistress had at once sent her out again to order a carriage from the livery stables, and to purchase flowers and gloves for that evening. When she returned a second time she had found the drawing-room empty, and the dead body of her mistress lying naked upon the bed.
In cross-examination the maid had denied having heard the least quarrelling between the sisters, and could not suggest any reason for her mistress having taken her own life.
Lady Madeley, obviously deeply affected by the tragic death of her sister, had corroborated the evidence given by the maid; and distinguished surgeons and analysts had deposed the death to have been due to prussic acid, and that the same poison could be traced in the wine remaining in the glass.
The coroner summed up, emphasising the evidence which had been given, and which, he remarked, pointed conclusively to suicide. Alluding to the fact that the body was unclothed, the coroner added that he thought the jury would find therein ample justification for coming to the conclusion that the mind of the deceased had become unhinged. With such plain evidence of fact before them he assumed the jury would have no difficulty in arriving at a verdict. If the evidence of the maid had stood alone, they might well have had reason for some hesitation and might have wished to probe further into the matter for a motive to account sufficiently for self-destruction. But the maid had been for some years in the employment of a family, members of which had testified to the exemplary character she bore, and her evidence was in every way corroborated not only by Lady Madeley, but also by witnesses from the library in Bond Street, the livery stables, and the other places to which she had been sent by her mistress. There could be, therefore, not the smallest suspicion attaching to the maid. As far as they were aware, the only other visitor Miss Alvarez had had that afternoon had been her sister, Lady Madeley. Now, the evidence of the maid had clearly established the fact that when she returned on the first occasion Lady Madeley had already gone, and the maid then saw her mistress alive and spoke to her. The only other alternative which remained was that during the second absence of the maid some unknown person had entered the flat and had administered the poison. That alternative could not be dismissed as an impossibility. Miss Alvarez was certainly alone in the flat at the time when this might have occurred, but there was much evidence which all tended to negative the likelihood of such an explanation being the correct one. For murder by an unknown person to be the explanation, motive, and a strong motive, became essential. Robbery was disproved by the fact that nothing whatever had been removed from the flat, not even the purse which was found lying on the table by the bedside; nor the money, some six or seven pounds, which still remained in the purse. That disposed of any hypothetical stranger calling, demanding money, being refused, and committing a murder. Besides this, there were no signs of any struggle. “Lady Madeley,” the coroner continued, “has told us of the intimate terms of affection upon which she and her sister had always lived; and Lady Madeley, out of her resulting knowledge, has assured us that there was nothing in her sister’s life, and no one amongst her sister’s acquaintances, that could provide or account for any sufficient motive for such a crime. Of course, it is common knowledge that Lady Madeley and Miss Alvarez were, until very recently, members of the theatrical profession; but the many letters to Miss Alvarez, which remained undestroyed in the flat, and which have all been carefully examined, the tone of those letters, and the evidence we have had from so many artistes of the high moral character both the sisters were known in the profession to have, altogether negative, and it gives me sincere pleasure even on this sad and melancholy occasion to say it, they emphatically negative any supposition that there was an illicit side to the life of Miss Alvarez to which we can turn in the hope of an explanation. There was no such side. Therefore, I think any idea of murder may be dismissed. Motive, of course, must always equally precede self-destruction, but there motive need not be that outside motive which must be looked for, and for which logical explanation must be found, where another person is concerned to compass the death of a victim. As I have already indicated, we have some actual evidence of a disordered mind, and such a mind would imagine and accept as real quite non-existent facts and weave those into a self-compelling motive. Every fact that has been given in evidence is perfectly compatible with suicide. There is no fact within our knowledge which conflicts with that supposition, there is no single detail that raises any suspicion to the contrary.”
Without hesitation the jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity,” a verdict with which the coroner remarked that he entirely concurred.
Ashley Tempest, then a romantic but rising young barrister, had been present at the inquest, holding a watching brief which had been sent him by the solicitors of Lord Madeley. He had been fascinated by the beauty of the dead woman whom several times he happened to have seen and greatly admired upon the stage. The little smile which still seemed to play upon the lips, the long dark eyelashes resting upon her cheeks, the profusion of long black hair, the delicately chiselled features bit themselves in upon his brain, and for days afterwards the face with its haunting beauty formed and reformed itself before his eyes, no matter upon what he might be engaged. The face threatened to become an obsession. The dead mask was eliminating his remembrance of the living woman, whereas he would have had it otherwise; and partly for that reason, but chiefly because it was the first cause célèbre in which he had been engaged, he purchased all the photographs he could obtain of the dead actress, and, sending them to a miniaturist, ordered a miniature to be painted from them, and hung it in his chambers.
As time passed slowly on, Tempest’s fascination decreased; but through all his busy life, amongst his multitudinous cases, weird and mysterious as so many of them were, he never forgot the strange story he had heard unfolded at the inquest upon the body of Dolores Alvarez. Many a night when, pushing books and papers on one side, he had lighted his final cigarette before turning into bed, the miniature would catch his eye, and, gazing again at the beautiful face, his thoughts would revert to the familiar story, and once again he would puzzle over the facts he knew, in a vain attempt to find a solution of the mystery. Why had she poisoned herself? As the succeeding years brought him fuller knowledge of men and of women, and of their motives, as case after case widened his experience, so time after time would he again place together the pieces of his puzzle, arranging and rearranging them as crime after crime passing through his hands revealed to him new motives, new characters, any one of which might prove to be analogous and afford him the clue he wanted. Suicide it seemed plain enough to him it must have been. He always remembered how closely he had followed at the time the reasoning of the coroner. He always felt convinced it was logical and conclusive, save in one little detail. Tempest had started his legal career with a certain fixed opinion concerning suicide which he never altered—never had reason to alter—an opinion that grew into conviction. Suicide of itself he held never was and never could be evidence of insanity. He maintained his conviction in argument on many occasions—at the Hardwicke—at the Union—in the courts. He carried his theory further, though not with equal certainty. But he laid it down as a proposition, yet to be disproved, that save in exceptional cases an insane person never commits suicide; and he confined those exceptional cases to cases of previously provable delusions of fact, which facts, if true, would have created a logical and sane motive sufficient to have resulted in the suicide of a sane individual. He maintained that the act of suicide was in itself a sane act, for which cause was required to be shown, and could always be shown if the facts in full were available.
Such was the theory upon which he always relied whenever in the course of his profession he was brought face to face with a necessity for the elucidation of a death. He never found his theory at fault. Tempted he often was at first sight to depart from it, but always in the end the case would prove but a renewed confirmation of its accuracy.
Yet what was the motive which had caused Dolores Alvarez to destroy herself? Why did she do it? Why? And ever would come that eternal Why? to which he could suggest no answer.