LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER IX.THE CORONER'S INQUEST.
The rain was pouring down in torrents; nevertheless the street of South Wennock was alive with bustle, especially in the vicinity of the Red Lion Inn. It was Thursday, the day appointed for the inquest on the deceased Mrs. Crane.
The county coroner, whose residence was in the county town, was momentarily expected, and presently his gig dashed up, he and his clerk in it. It had been wished to hold the inquest on the Wednesday, but the coroner put it off to suit his own convenience. He was a lawyer; a short, stout man, with black hair and a jovial-looking face; and as he emerged from under the large gig umbrella, he shook hands with some of the bystanders, his acquaintances. The clerk followed with a blue bag.
The coroner popped into the bar, swallowed a glass of hot brandy-and-water, and then proceeded to the board-room to swear the jury. It was a long room, the club-room of the inn: a table covered with green baize ran down it, at which they seated themselves, and the coroner opened proceedings. Then they departed to Palace Street to view the body.
They went splashing through the rain and the mud, their umbrellas of little use, for the wind, remarkably high, kept turning them inside out. A genteel attendance escorted them: all the gentleman idlers in the place, all the curious tradespeople, the unwashed mob, and the street urchins. By the pertinacity with which these last dodged the jury's heels, it might be thought that they believed the august functionaries to be living curiosities from a travelling wild-beast show.
The necessary inspection over, they splashed back to the Red Lion, and the business began. We may glance at the evidence of two or three of the witnesses, but not at all, for it would only be a repetition of what is already known, and tire the reader. Difficulty the first was: What was the young lady's Christian name? Nobody could answer; her linen, it was said, was marked with a large C, the initial letter of the word Crane, but with nothing else. Some suggested that this was more probably the initial of her Christian name—Caroline or Charlotte—but it was impossible to say. Her boxes had been examined officially, the large trunk and the workbox; but no clue to whom she was, or what she was, was found; no scrap of paper indicated her previous abode, or why she came there.
Mrs. Fitch, the landlady of the Red Lion, told what she knew of the stranger's arrival by the omnibus, the previous Friday, and that she had recommended her to the lodgings in Palace Street. Mr. Stephen Grey testified to his being summoned to her on the same night, to the subsequent birth of the infant, and to her safe and healthy condition afterwards, up to seven o'clock on the Monday evening, at which hour he last saw her alive. Mr. John Grey and Mr. Brooklyn from Great Wennock, who had conjointly made the post-mortem examination, gave evidence of the cause of her death—poison, by prussic acid; and there were other points of evidence, technical or otherwise, not necessary to go into in detail.
There had been a question raised by the coroner as to whether Mr. Stephen Grey should give his evidence; that gentleman expressed himself anxious and willing to tender it; and at length the coroner decided to admit it, warning Mr. Stephen that he need not say anything to criminate himself, and that what he did say might possibly be used as evidence against him. Mr. Stephen smiled, and replied that all he had it in his power to say might be used against him if it could be. He spoke to the making up of the sleeping draught, to the ingredients of which it was composed. Frederick Grey, his son, testified that he had seen it made up, minutely describing what had been put into it, as his father had done, and to the sending the draught by Dick, the boy. Dick, who was the next witness, protested, with a very red and startled face, caused by finding himself before a coroner's court, that he had taken it safely and given it into the hands of Nurse Pepperfly.
"Call Nurse Pepperfly," said the coroner.
Nurse Pepperfly was called for in the adjoining room and escorted in, in rather a shaky state, not induced by the imbibing of strong waters—from such she had that morning kept herself free—but from the general agitation caused by the anticipated proceedings. She had attired herself in her best, of course; a short black stuff gown, the worse for stains and dirt, a scarlet woollen shawl, and a rusty black bonnet with a bow at the top. The wind, as she came along the street, had taken the shawl, the bonnet, and the grey hairs underneath, and played with them after its