“Oh, Mr. Coroner,” exclaimed McGorry, turning almost as red as his hair in his excitement; “shure and you wouldn’t mix Miss Derwent up in this! Lord, she ain’t used to such scenes; she’d faint, and then her mother would never forgive me!”
“Every one, Miss Derwent included, must view the corpse,” he replied, sternly.
“Oh, sor, but——”
“Silence!” thundered the Coroner; “the law must be obeyed.”
So the manager went reluctantly out to give the desired order. On his return, the Coroner resumed:
“Who is Miss Derwent?”
“Why Miss May Derwent,” exclaimed McGorry; “she’s just Miss May Derwent.” So it was the fashionable beauty I had been watching so far into the night. Strange, and stranger!
“Miss May Derwent,” McGorry continued, taking pity on our ignorance, “is the only daughter of Mrs. Mortimer Derwent. She arrived here unexpectedly on Tuesday. She had missed her train, she said, and came here to pass the night.”
“Did she come alone?”
“Yis, sor.”