“Who is this Mary Courtenay, who writes to him from Neneford?” inquired the coroner of the inspector.
“Well, sir,” the latter responded, “the writer herself is dead. She was found drowned a few days ago near her home under suspicious circumstances.”
Then the reporters commenced to realize that something extraordinary was underlying the inquiry.
“Ah!” remarked the coroner, one of the most acute officials of his class. “Then, in face of this, her letter seems to be more than curious. For aught we know the tragedy at Neneford may have been wilful murder; and we have now the suicide of the assassin?”
“That, sir, is the police theory,” replied the inspector.
“Police theory be hanged!” ejaculated Ambler, almost loud enough to be heard. “The police know nothing of the case, and will never learn anything. If the jury are content to accept such an explanation, and brand poor Lane as a murderer, they must be allowed to do so.”
I knew Jevons held coroners’ juries in the most supreme contempt; sometimes rather unreasonably so, I thought.
“Well,” the coroner said, “this is certainly remarkable evidence,” and he turned the dead woman’s letter over in his hand. “It is quite plain that the deceased approached the lady ostensibly to give her warning of some danger, but really to blackmail her; for what reason does not at present appear. He may have feared her threat to give information to the police; hence his crime, and subsequent suicide.”
“Listen!” exclaimed Jevons in my ear. “They are actually trying the dead man for a crime he could not possibly have committed! They’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, as usual. Why don’t they give a verdict of suicide and have done with it. We can’t afford to waste a whole day explaining theories to a set of uneducated gentlemen of the Whitechapel Road. The English law is utterly ridiculous where coroners’ juries are concerned.”
The coroner heard his whispering, and looked towards us severely.