That a man should say “the girl” instead of “a girl,” and that he should be excited over finding the body of a girl unknown to him, were things that looked very suspicious to the law, and those in charge of the inquest had no hesitancy in showing the fact.
A few persons whose testimony was unimportant were called, and then came the doctors who had made the post-mortem examination. Nothing was discovered to indicate murder or suicide, nor, indeed, could they come to any definite conclusion as to the cause of death.
The coroner’s jury brought in an indefinite verdict, showing that they knew no more about the circumstances or cause of the girl’s death than they did at the beginning of the inquest. With this unsatisfactory conclusion the public was forced to rest content.
They did know that the girl had not been shot or stabbed, which was some satisfaction, at any rate.
Penelope persuaded her aunt and Richard to accompany her through the Morgue. She was deeply hurt at the way in which Dick had been treated. Still she wanted to look on the face of the fair young girl, the cause of all the worriment, before she was taken to her grave.
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Penelope’s aunt, as the keeper unbolted the door and waited, before he closed it, for them to enter the low room.
She tiptoed daintily over the stone floor—which, wet all over, had little streams formed in places flowing from different hose—holding her skirts up with one hand, and with the other hand held a perfumed handkerchief over her aristocratic nose. Penelope, with serious but calm face, kept close to the keeper, and Richard walked silently with the aunt.
“I thought the bodies lay on marble slabs,” said Penelope, glancing at the row of plain, unpainted rough boxes set close together on iron supports.
“They did in the old Morgue, but ever since we’ve been in this building we put them in the boxes. They keep better this way,” explained the keeper, delighted to show the sights of the Morgue to persons of social prominence.
“Do you know the history of all these dead?” asked Penelope, counting the fifty and odd coffins which came one after the other.