A Modern Madonna

by Caroline Abbot Stanley

At the coroner's inquest Margaret was the first one questioned.

When Victor De Jarnette breathed his last, Dr. Semple had taken her by the hand and led her, apparently almost stupefied, into Richard's room, there to await the summons to appear before the coroner, who was immediately notified of the death. When she came in she was entirely collected, though very pale. Her appearance indicated more horror at what had occurred than grief, which was but natural under the circumstances, as more than one man thought, recalling the past year.

When questioned, she stated that her husband had been with her through the afternoon, that he had left her home about four o'clock, and that she had come down to the office an hour or so later. She had gone directly to the door of the main office, and just before reaching it had heard the pistol shot. She ran through the front office into Mr. De Jarnette's private room, feeling sure that the sound had come from there. She had found him on the floor, and near him a revolver which she recognized as one that he had had in his possession for several years.

Here, suddenly recalling Mr. De Jarnette's peremptory command to her to put the pistol down, she hesitated, and looked at him. His face was averted.

She went on, saying nothing about having had the pistol in her hand, nor about its being one of a pair that her husband owned, though this fact came to her suddenly. She had not had time to question him, she said, nor even to go to him before Mr. De Jarnette came in.

Had she heard any sound at the other door?

No, she had heard nothing, or rather she had been so horror-stricken to come upon her husband in this condition that she had not noticed anything.

Richard De Jarnette stated that he had heard the shot while he was in his own room across the hall and had hurried at once to the outside door of his brother's room. Finding it locked he had run around through the main office and found things just as Mrs. De Jarnette had testified. The door was locked, but it was a night latch, he got up to show. One might have gone out that way.

"Without encountering you?" the coroner asked. And Mr. De Jarnette, hesitating, and weighing his words, thought it hardly probable, though possible.

Margaret interrupted timidly here to say that since he spoke of the door she recollected hearing something just as she came in that sounded like the closing of a door. Mr. De Jarnette turned toward her, and with his hard eyes upon her, Margaret faltered that perhaps it was the outer door of the lavatory. Investigation proved that that door was bolted on the inside.