“She said she had a prejudice against the Greys, through something she’d heard; and she said some friends of hers had recommended Mr. Carlton. But, I’ve had it upon my mind, all along, that it was the cabrioily did it.”
“What it was what did it?” exclaimed the coroner, while the jury raised their faces.
“The cabrioily. She got me to describe about the Mr. Greys to her, what they were like; and she got me to describe about Mr. Carlton, what he was like; and I did, sir, meaning no harm. I said that the Mr. Greys were pleasant gentlemen who contented themselves with a gig; and that Mr. Carlton was pleasant too, but grand, and had set up his cabrioily. I think that did it, sir, the cabrioily; I think she couldn’t resist choosing Mr. Carlton, after that.”
There was a coughing and choking in the room, and the coroner’s clerk shook as he took down the evidence. The witness called words after her own fashion of pronunciation, and the stress she laid upon the “oil” in cabrioily was something new; indeed the word, altogether, was now, in her lips—“cab-ri-oil-y.”
“She wrote a note to Mr. Carlton,” proceeded the witness, “and I got it taken to his house. And when the messenger came back with the news that he was away, she cried.”
“Cried!” echoed the coroner.
“Yes, sir, She said the note she had sent to Mr. Carlton engaged him, and she could not afford to pay two doctors. But we told her that if Mr. Grey attended for Mr. Carlton, she would only have to pay one. And that, or something else, seemed to reconcile her, for she let Mr. Stephen Grey be fetched, after all; and when it was over, she said how glad she was to have had him, and what a pleasant man he was. The oddest part of it all is, that she had no money.”
“How do you know she had none?”
“Because, sir, none has been found, and them police gentlemen is keen at searching; nothing escapes ’em. She had the best part of a sovereign in her purse—nineteen and sixpence, they say, but no more. So, how she looked to pay her expenses, her doctor and her nurse, and me—and Mother Pepperfly a boarding with me at the lady’s request, and she don’t eat a trifle—she best knew, and I say that it does look odd.”
“You regaled Mrs. Pepperfly with gin,” spoke up one of the jury, relaxing from the majesty of his office. “Was that to be charged, or was it a spontaneous treat?”
“Oh, dear, good gentlemen, don’t pray throw it in my teeth,” sobbed the widow. “I did happen to have a drop of the vulgar stuff in the house; which it must have been some I got for the workmen when I moved into it, three years ago, and have stopped ever since on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard, in a cracked bottle. I couldn’t touch a drop of gin myself without heaving, gentlemen; my inside would turn against it.”
Perhaps Mrs. Gould’s eyes likewise turned against it, for they were cast up with the fervour of her assertion till nothing but the whites were visible.
“Ahem!” interrupted the coroner, “you are on your oath;” and Mrs. Gould’s eyes came down with a start at the words, and her mouth with them.
“Leastways unless I feel ill,” she interjected.
“This is wasting time, ma'am,” said the coroner; “we must hasten on. Can you account for the poison getting into the composing draught sent in by Mr. Grey? Did it get into it after it came into your house?”
The witness was considerably astonished at the question; considerably flustered.
“Why, you don’t think I’d go and put it in!” she uttered, subsiding into another fit of sobs.
“I ask you,” said the coroner, “as a matter of form, whether there was any one likely to do such a thing; any one of whom you can entertain a suspicion?”
“Of course, gentlemen, if you mean to accuse me and Mrs. Pepperfly of poisoning her by prussic acid, the sooner you do it the better,” howled the widow. “We never touched the bottle,. As the Greys’ boy brought it, so it was given to her. And there was nobody else to touch it—although Mr. Carlton as good as accused us of having got a whiskered man in the house on the sly!”
The coroner pricked up his ears, “When was that?”
“The night of the death, sir. He was there when the draught came, was Mr. Carlton, and when I heard him coming down the stairs to leave, I ran out of the kitchen to open the door for him. ‘Is there a man up-stairs?’ asked he. ‘A man, sir,’ I answered. ‘No, sir; what sort of a man?’ ‘I thought I saw one hiding on the landing,’ said he, ‘a man with whiskers,’ ‘No, sir,’ says I, indignant, ‘we don’t want no man in this hose.’ ‘It was my fancy, no doubt,’ answered he; ‘I thought I’d just mention it, lest any blackguard should have got in.’ But now, gentlemen,” continued the widow, wrathfully, “I just ask you, was there ever such an insinuation put to two respectable females? I bear out Mother Pepperfly, and Mother Pepperfly can bear out me, that we had no man in the house, and didn’t want one; we’d