"No, I do not."
"Some of your late cousin's former associates perhaps?" suggested Lady Flintshire, "Maria Annunziata," who sat close by.
"My dear, how can you suggest such a thing," retorted the other, "they are so common."
"Silence there!"
And once more the cackling geese were still.
CHAPTER XXV
THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE
The curtain went up on the first act of the play. It was not perhaps so interesting from the outset as the audience would have wished, and the fashionable portion thereof showed its impatience by sundry coughings and whisperings, which had to be peremptorily checked now and again by a loud:
"Silence, there!" and a threat to clear the court.
The medical officer was giving his testimony at great length as to the cause of death. Technical terms were used in plenty, and puzzled the elegant ladies who had come here to be amused. The jury listened attentively, and the coroner—himself a medical man—asked several very pertinent questions: