“Stopped what?” asked Nancy.
“The investigation the doctors would have made after death. Both of them were much put out at your forbidding it: for their own satisfaction they wished to ascertain particulars. I may tell you now that I thought you were wrong to interfere.”
“It was Captain Fennel,” said Nancy calmly.
“Captain Fennel!” echoed Mary Carimon. “Monsieur Dupuis told me that Captain Fennel wished for it as much as he and Monsieur Podevin.”
Captain Fennel’s wife shook her head. “They asked him about it before they left, after she died. He came to me, and I said, Oh, let them do what they would; it could not hurt her now she was dead. I was in such terrible distress, Mary, that I hardly knew or cared what I said. Then Edwin drew so dreadful a picture of what post-mortems are, and how barbarously her poor neck and arms would be cut and slashed, that I grew sick and frightened.”
“And so you stopped it—by reason of the picture he drew?”
“Yes. I came running down here to Monsieur Dupuis—Monsieur Podevin had gone—for Edwin said it must be my decision, not his, and his name had better not be mentioned; and I begged and prayed Monsieur Dupuis not to hold it. I think I startled him, good old man. I was almost out of my mind; quite wild with agitation; and he promised me it should be as I wished. That’s how it all was, Mary.”
Mary Carimon’s face wore a curious look. Then she rallied, speaking even lightly.
“Well, well; it could not have brought her back to life; and I repeat that we must remember she is better off. And now, Nancy, I want you to show me the pretty purse that Miss Perry has knitted for you, if you have it at hand.”