"I knocked at the door. He opened it himself. He complained of his asthma, said there was no servant in the house, and that Mrs. Davenport had gone to bed. He asked me to go into the dining-room, which I found as has been described, and we sat and chatted for some time in a most agreeable manner. We talked of indifferent things. Of course we spoke of Mrs. Davenport. He said, in talking of her, that although theirs had not been a love-match, they had got on wonderfully well together, and that he was quite happy, and he believed she was contented. He asked how long I purposed staying in London, and I said only a few days. Then he invited me to call on Mrs. Davenport and himself when they were in better trim----"
"What--what is that you say?" shouted Mr. Edward Davenport, starting to his feet and gesticulating wildly. "It's perjury--wilful and corrupt perjury!"
It was with the greatest difficulty Bertram Spencer could prevail upon his client to resume his seat and keep silent. After a while Blake was allowed to continue his evidence:
"I promised to come the next evening but one, and he said that would suit them admirably. Then he smiled and said he was sure this was not merely a visit of ceremony, and that he supposed I would allow him to be of any use I chose. I told him he was quite right, that I had no money, and that two hundred pounds would be of the greatest service to me at that moment. He said he had not so much by him, but that he would give me a hundred now and another hundred when I called the next day but one. 'That will be,' said he, 'the 19th of February.' He added that he'd make a memorandum of it, and he did so in the pocket-book which has been produced here by the police. After that nothing passed but 'Good-nights' on both sides, and then I went away, closing the front door after me."
Here reference was made to the pocket-book, but no such entry as that described could be found. There was no such entry in the book.
Then, having cautioned the witness again, the coroner said two leaves of the book had been torn out, one of which had been found. On the leaf found appeared words of the gravest import. They were:
"Pretended death. Blake gone. He emptied chloroform over me--held me down. Can't stir. Dying."
Could witness give any explanation of this?
"No; I can give no explanation of that writing. It is perfectly untrue. When I left the presence of the man now dead he seemed to be in as good health as his asthma would allow. My only way of accounting for what followed is that, after my leaving, he administered some chloroform to himself. This disturbed his reason, and he suffered from a return of the old delusion he had suffered in Florence----"
"And of which you are the only living person who knows, or ever did know, anything?"