‘Gentlemen, I must beg you to clear the room,’ said the landlord at this juncture. ‘The coroner and jury are coming in to view the body.’
His wife, entering at the same time, hustled them all into another apartment, where they sat glaring at each other, until their time came to be called to appear and give evidence. The coroner, a Mr Procter, rather prided himself on his astuteness. He was for ever finding a mountain in a molehill, for he hoped to mount the magisterial chair some day, and his aim was to impress the public with his cleverness and ingenuity. The first witnesses called were the two boatmen Jackson and Barnes, who had found Jenny’s body lying at the bottom of the cliffs.
‘It was five o’clock or nigh upon it, please yer honour,’ commenced the spokesman, ‘as I and my mate here went to the lower beach to haul up our boats.’
‘What do you call the “lower beach”?’ snapped Mr Procter, who was a sandy-haired man, with a pimply face and red-rimmed eyes, ‘all the beach is lower than the cliffs.’
‘Yes, yer honour; but we calls the beach below Dragon’s Foot the lower beach, because so be, when the tide runs out—’
‘You are not here to tell us when the tide runs out, but to say how you discovered the body of the deceased Jane Emily Walcheren,’ said the coroner, consulting his papers.
‘Yes, yer worship. Well! as I and my mate here was a-haulin’ up the boats, I says to him, I says, “Bob,” I says, “what be that ’ere bundle of white,” I says, “under the cliff?” “Blowed if I know,” he says, “it looks like a sheet as has blowed over in drying,” he says.’
‘You are not here to tell the jury what your mate thought the body looked like. You are to tell us how you found it.’
‘Yes, sir. Well, sir, we thought it was a sheet, you see, but when we went to pick it up, we see it was a young woman. So we lifted her atween us and carries her to this ’ere ’ouse, and then my mate he fetches Dr M‘Coll. And that’s all, sir!’
‘Very good! Now, tell us, please, when you found the body was there no one about?’