The Cotton Factory Times. — 1916-02-25 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

ENS. He returned to the Hotel after the departure of Lord Dalparres and narrowly escaped meeting Guy who he did not know. Ile sat stiffy and with exaggerated gravity at dinner, eating little and drinking much. lie saw that the table Lady Wendale and her niece usually occupied  wm not settled purpoce. liadv Wendsle, he noticed, was with Ena. She hoolll. protective air, le.. log over and talking from time to time to .Eta. Ent, Ilarford was very pale, but determsned, .d. no far as he could tell, collected. The jury returned tram viewing the body. and I the coroner opened the investigation. There I am at first nothing to mark it from a hundred other inquests. It proceeded in a more or less business-like war to elicit the meagre and eordid facts. The body aas identified by the landlady ' ae that of a lodger named John None. He had been there three days. He appeared to know no one but a fellow-lodger, a member of the pierrot troupe, named beslie Seymour. A doctor followed, with a professional aceo.t of the post-mortem he had made. It was all no horribly ueual, the dear, dull routine work of the court. Suddenly Dick Allendale listened more attentively. The doctor gave the medical tame of the poison rapidly and in a low voice, and added in clear explanation that it wan a vegetable pnieon. The jurymen added; they were not concerned with medical technicalities; and the two junior reportere looked relieNed. Allendale saw in it, however, the action of the police. Some unusual poieon had been uPed, and the police thought it well to keep its nature from the public in the hope that it might prove a clue. That was how he read it  After dinner he went out, walking with en. teems care- Some morbid working of his brain led him eventually to Bleawith Buildings. At that time his mode of progression, still marked with slow and impressive care, man occaaionally • little erratic. He stood for some time balanced against a doorway, regarding the bourn. Two or three peraone drifting down the little-frequented street stared at him curl. enely. His little short overooat one open. A man in evening dress WII6 not appropriately not in the drab, dingy surrounding. He did not notice them. He was busy speculating fantastically about the deed man. And examining, it seemed to him, with a preter-naturally luminous brain, the two-fold problem he could not thick. At length be grew conecions that one woman, a woman dressed in so all-enveloping black desk, • black bonnet, and & veil no thick and black as to act as a. mask, had passed him three or four times. She was tall and—it was rather diMeult to _judge with the disfiguring cloak— blamed to be stout. Certainly a middle-aged or elderly woman. Each time that she passed she regarded him curiously. It appeared to Dick Allendale that the woman was trying to make up her mind to epeak to him. It did not seem strange to him. Nothing seemed strange. The next time that she peered, slowly, keeping her head turned to him, hesitating a little in her walk, be raised his hat courteously and took • etep forward. She almost stopped, and then hurried quickly away. The woman in the landau with the onschman ! That wadi who she was undoubM. And she hal followed the "Melancholy Jester." And he bad seen the face of that Pierrot in the bonne opposite on the night of the murder.  - A coo-table told his story of being called in by I the landlady. The deeesieed was quite cold when he saw him. He had picked up an l envelope addreseed to Mice Ena Harford, Como politan Hotel, Harrogate. The envelope had opened. " am permitting some latitude," the coroner said pompously to the jury. "We are here to find the cause of death only, but you ehould j determine whether the death be one of suicide, or accidental, or—anything else." Mr. Leslie Seymour was then called. Dick Allendale stared. The man, strikingly handsome, was evidently labouring under some emotional stress. Allendale, watching, eaw that no sign of recognition passed between him and Ena. " Your name?" "I am called Leslie Seymour." The anew, came in a low voice. " Is that your real risme?' "I am known by that." " Have you any 'oilier?" "None ihat I know." "Come. come, you are trifling with the court. If you have no other name that is your name. Hooking had you known the deceased?" " Three days." " You had never eeen him before" "Never." "When diet you eee him last?" "I saw him last alive on the morning before the discovery." "Saw him alive?" the coroner asked. " Saw him alive?" the coroner asked. "The witness identified the body at the mortuary," explained the superintendent " The witness hue a peculiar way of giving evidence I" snapped the coroner. "Up to the  txtcKwt.xw2QoQma:N  gentlemen preeent bare corroborated M. Allen- ,"57,,Y,10W/353""5,1',7".3,"5,1,53.CG.CC114.6.0 dale's statement an to Miss Harford leaving and ',. returning to the hotel in his oompany. .1 ani ATIVES AND MAIDENS:' Eadubtto, svta,z, tlnzt.rrtlnyitgo,f Itp(Vlniongi: • 45 __..- ie tention of suggesting." ' ei After a brief summing up, the jury returned es r. an open verdict, stating that the deceased died 0 EACH FOR ALL, 0' from the effects of an irritant vegetable poison, ;5' AND ALL FOR IiACH. fi but whether self-administered or not there W 0.6 4., ineulficient evidence to establish. 12 ---.--- c e. (To be Continued.) 1 P By