The coroner heard those low, distinct words, "I want to hear everything," and he noted how she stood there, watching and listening to the end of the inquiry, regardless of her aunt's endeavour to get her away from the spot.
A confidential clerk from Mr. Provana's office in Lombard Street was able to give an account of the safe in his principal's dressing-room, as he had often been in the room, occupied in examining documents with his employer, and in taking shorthand notes for letters to be written in Lombard Street. He had examined the contents of this safe after the murder. The door had been opened with Mr. Provana's private key, which he always carried about him. Certain securities were missing, but the valuables abstracted were of a much less amount than might have been taken by anyone acquainted with the nature of the papers the safe contained, and able to use his knowledge to advantage. Two parcels of foreign bonds were missing, the present value of which would be about six thousand pounds. The witness had an inventory of everything in this safe, and he had found all other parcels intact, although the contents of the drawers and shelves had been greatly disturbed, and the papers thrown about, as if by some person in haste.
"Would these bonds be easily convertible into cash?"
"They are bonds to bearer, and there would be no difficulty of disposing of them at their value."
The inquiry was adjourned. Vera was surrounded by her friends, Lady Okehampton, Lady Susan, Mr. Symeon, and Claude Rutherford. Even Eustace Lyon ventured to approach her.
"Forgive me for intruding at such a moment," he said, almost breathless with excitement. "I feel that I must speak. You were sublime! Symeon is right. You are spirit and not clay. It needs something more than flesh and blood to go through what you have endured to-day."
She looked at him with the same strained look in her eyes with which she had looked at the coroner; a look of surprise, as if, in the midst of a dream, she had been startled by a living voice.