Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/96

 the lawns, one with a sundial rising from a bed of roses, one with a marvellous cedar of Lebanon. But to-day the library was a dreadful room. In the middle was a long Tudor table, on either side of which were ranged chairs for the coroner, his clerk, the chief constable of the county, the deputy chief constable, a superintendent of police, an inspector from Scotland Yard and a detective inspector. A long row of seats for the fifteen jurors stretched in front of the window which looked out upon the Lebanon cedar; and before the fireplace was a table with chairs for eight members of the press. Near the corner was a chair for the witness while being examined.

The jury having been sworn, their foreman was elected and then, on the order of the coroner, the fifteen men went out to look at the dead body of Lady Hereward. When they filed back again into the library, their faces, grave enough before, were masks of solemnity. A light like anger smouldered in some men's eyes; for it would have been hard to find fifteen jurors in the neighbourhood of Riding St. Mary, none of whose families had received kindness from Sir Ian Hereward and his wife. Having gazed upon all that was mortal of the fair Lady Bountiful, the fifteen men realized fully that they were here, in this house which had been her home, to solve—if they could—the mystery of her death; in other words, to find the murderer and help the hangman to put a noose round his neck.