‘Not a soul as we see, my lord—I mean, yer worship—the beach was empty from hend to hend.’
‘And the cliffs?’
‘Didn’t see a soul on the cliffs neither, yer worship.’
‘You met no one on your way here? You are sure!’
‘Quite sure, your honour! ’Twould be all over the town if we had!’
‘Very well! You can sit down. Call Dr M‘Coll!’
The doctor, having been sworn, deposed that he had been called to the ‘Bottle and Spurs’ at about six o’clock on Saturday night, to see the deceased. She was then quite dead—had been dead for two or three hours. There was a large bruise on the temple caused by her striking against the rocks in her fall. That was of itself sufficient to have caused death, but the spine was broken and the neck. The body was also much bruised. There was no question but that the deceased had met her death by falling over the cliffs.
‘Now, Dr M‘Coll, I should like to put a few questions to you, if you please,’ said Mr Procter, looking his very sharpest. ‘Is it your opinion that the deceased must inevitably have fallen over the cliffs of her own accord? Might she not have been blown over, or pushed over, or thrown herself over by design?’
‘Certainly she might! It is impossible to say how she came to fall over, but she did fall over—that is beyond a question.’
‘Ah!’ said the coroner, with self-satisfaction, as if he had discovered a very knotty point. ‘Then you consider death was due—’