“Later ... later,” De Medici whispered to himself. A warm enervation was sweeping him. “My love makes a stranger out of me,” he went on. “Ah, Francesca mia. Cruel and beautiful Francesca....”
He sat smiling furtively as the figure of Florence Ballau lowered itself gracefully into the witness chair. His eyes, narrowed and inscrutable, followed the vibrant line of her body.
“We will not detain you long,” the coroner began, affecting a heavily cavalierly manner. “But it is necessary for the purposes of this record to learn from you again the story of your finding your father’s body. Do you wish to testify?”
The young woman nodded once, answering in a soft contralto, “Yes.”
The examination proceeded.
Q. “You were engaged, at the time of your father’s death, to marry Mr. Julien De Medici, were you not?”
A. “Yes.”
Q. “And the party your father was giving was in the nature of a formal announcement of the engagement, I take it?”
A. “Yes.”
Q “When did you last see your father alive?”