“Then these papers of which so much has been said—what did they consist of?”
“There were the marriage certificates of my father’s first wife—and two sworn statements as to her death, two months after the birth of my sister Henriette; one by Dr. Rénaud, who was at the time a well-known medical man in Pondicherry, and the other by Roonah herself, who had held her dying sister in her arms. Dr. Rénaud is dead, and now Roonah has been murdered, and all the proofs have gone with her——”
Her voice broke in a passion of sobs, which, with manifest self-control, she quickly suppressed. In that crowded court you could have heard a pin drop, so great was the tension of intense excitement and attention.
“Then those papers remained in your maid’s possession? Why was that?” asked the coroner.
“I did not dare to carry the papers about with me,” said the witness, while a curious look of terror crept into her young face as she looked across at her aunt and sister. “Roonah would not part with them. She carried them in the lining of her dress, and at night they were all under her pillow. After her—her death, and when Dr. Walker had left, I thought it my duty to take possession of the papers which meant my whole future to me, and which I desired then to place in Mr. McKinley’s charge. But, though I carefully searched the bed and all the clothing by my poor Roonah’s side, I did not find the papers. They were gone.”
I won’t attempt to describe to you the sensation caused by the deposition of this witness. All eyes wandered from her pale young face to that of her sister, who sat almost opposite to her, shrugging her athletic shoulders and gazing at the pathetic young figure before her with callous and haughty indifference.
“Now, putting aside the question of the papers for the moment,” said the coroner, after a pause, “do you happen to know anything of your late servant’s private life? Had she an enemy, or perhaps a lover?”
“No,” replied the girl; “Roonah’s whole life was centred in me and in my claim. I had often begged her to place our papers in Mr. McKinley’s charge, but she would trust no one. I wish she had obeyed me,” here moaned the poor girl involuntarily, “and I should not have lost what means my whole future to me, and the being who loved me best in all the world would not have been so foully murdered.”
Of course, it was terrible to see this young girl thus instinctively, and surely unintentionally, proffering so awful an accusation against those who stood so near to her. That the whole case had become hopelessly involved and mysterious, nobody could deny. Can you imagine the mental picture formed in the mind of all present by the story, so pathetically told, of this girl who had come over to England in order to make good her claim which she felt to be just, and who, in one fell swoop, saw that claim rendered very difficult to prove through the dastardly murder of her principal witness?
That the claim was seriously jeopardised by the death of Roonah and the disappearance of the papers, was made very clear, mind you, through the statements of Mr. McKinley, the lawyer. He could not say very much, of course, and his statements could never have been taken as actual proof, because Roonah and Joan had never fully trusted him and had never actually placed the proofs of the claim in his hands. He certainly had seen the marriage certificate of Captain Duplessis’s first wife, and a copy of this, as he very properly stated, could easily be obtained. The woman seems to have died during the great cholera epidemic of 1881, when, owing to the great number of deaths which occurred, the deceit and concealment practised by the natives at Pondicherry, and the supineness of the French Government, death certificates were very casually and often incorrectly made out.