Beyond These Voices

by M. E. Braddon

So far the police had made no discoveries, and the daily Press was beginning to be angry with the Criminal Investigation Department; and to make uncivil comparisons between the home article and the same thing in France and Germany. In the meantime the newspapers found subject for occasional paragraphs, though they had no new facts to communicate. So long as the inquest went on, picturesque reporters found a spacious field for their pen in the descriptions of witnesses and spectators in the coroner's court; the spectators being mostly women of some fashion, and more or less famous in the world of art and letters. The stage, also, had been represented among that morbidly curious crowd; popular actresses coming to study the appearance and demeanour of the young widow, whose marble calm in the witness box had been written and talked about. But in spite of searching and patient inquiry, the murder in Portland Place remained an insoluble mystery, a standing reproach against Scotland Yard.

While the man in the street and the daily papers he battens upon were expatiating upon the supineness and incompetency of the Criminal Investigation Department, the chief of that department was not idle. Scotland Yard is not greatly in favour of the offering of rewards for the apprehension of criminals. Scotland Yard has an idea that such offers do more harm than good, and prefers to rely upon the intelligence of its officials; and on that spontaneous and disinterested help which is often afforded by outsiders.

But after the man in the street had expended much wonder and indignation upon the fact that no reward had as yet been offered by the murdered man's widow or family, the Disbrowes had taken upon themselves to arouse Vera to a proper sense of her position and responsibilities. Among Provana's friends and allies in the City—the great semi-oriental banking house of Messrs. Zeba and Zalmunna, with whom he had been closely associated, and other firms almost as distinguished—there was also a feeling that strong measures were required, and some wonderment that the widow had as yet done nothing.

Lady Okehampton, who had been in Portland Place nearly every day—although not always allowed to see her niece—took the matter in hand, as spokeswoman for the Disbrowes, and told Vera that she must offer a reward for the apprehension of her husband's murderer.

"It ought to have been done before how," she said, "but you have been so lost in grief, that I have been afraid to talk of poor Provana; however, as time goes on people must think it extraordinary that you can let things slide; especially after that splendid will which makes you the richest woman in London."

The splendid will, executed in the first year of her marriage, left Vera residuary legatee, after a long list of legacies, which although generous, did not absorb more than a sixth of Mario Provana's estate. If not actually the richest woman in London—a fact not easily to be ascertained—Vera was at least rich enough to support that reputation.

She gave a little moan of anguish when her aunt spoke of the will, and replied, with averted face, that her uncle was to do whatever he thought right.

Before darkness came down the police stations of London exhibited bills, offering a thousand pounds for information leading to the discovery of the murderer, and the man in the street was a little easier in his mind.

In the meantime Scotland Yard was pursuing its own course, and one of the most experienced and intelligent members of the force had the Provana affair in hand, and was actually established in Portland Place, where he was explained to the household as a picture-restorer, who had been engaged by Mr. Provana shortly before he left England, to examine and restore certain pictures among those somewhat depressing examples of the early Italian school which gave gloom to the too spacious dining-room.

It might seem strange that work of this kind, ordered by the dead man, should be carried out at such a time; but Mr. James Japp, of the Criminal Investigation Department, had a power of impersonation which rarely failed him in the most critical circumstances; and having assumed the role of artistic man-of-all-work, he omitted no detail that could impress and convince the house servants, among whom he hoped to put his hand upon the murderer. Plausible, friendly, and altogether an acquisition in that low-spirited household, Mr. Japp, alias Johnson, was soon upon terms of cordial friendship with butler and housekeeper, while he was genially patronising to the four stalwart footmen, and by no means stand-offish to the coachman and his underlings, who sometimes crept into the servants' hall in the gloaming to talk over the last paragraph upon the mystery in Portland Place. For them the mystery was meat and drink. They hung upon it with a morbid tenacity, never tired of re-stating the same facts, and going over the same arguments, and doing battle, each for his own solution of the ghastly problem. For these Mr. Johnson, artist and picture-restorer, was a godsend.