Frank Danby

“ Keightley put in.
"Do be quiet. What do you want to know about poor Mornie?" she asked, turning from Keightley to Roger. "Is it really because you think it unjust he should lie under the stigma of lunacy that you are inquiring? It is so sweet of you, but what does it matter? He is quite dead."
"And even buried. Tell us all about it, Leda. I want Roger to go on with his painting."
"Can't you really paint?" she asked feelingly. But when Leda Jerman spoke with feeling there always seemed to be something artificial in her emphasis. "It would be dreadful if you could not paint because of Mornie. ”

“ David Devenish pleaded an engagement.
"Will she talk about Mornington Ransby? Will she tell me why he committed suicide?" Roger asked, looking up from his drawing.
"I shouldn't be surprised. She is not at all a reticent person. It depends how you handle her."
"Let me know if you hear anything sensational," David said lightly, as he went off, leaving the other two together.
"It won't be fit for the chaste columns of the Daily Grail," Keightley said when he had gone. "True stories have always to be emasculated for newspaper consumption," he explained. "The naked truth is an indecent thing." ”

“ CHAPTER III THE CASE OF MORNINGTON RANSBY "Suicide of a London barrister." "A London barrister shoots himself on Wimbledon Common." So ran the posters, but there was not sufficient interest taken in the case to fill the coroner's court at Wimbledon when the inquiry was opened.
The jury, having been sworn, filed into the mortuary to see the body. The walls were whitewashed, and the floor of stone. The body of Mornington Ransby lay uncoffined, and these twelve men, eleven of them perfunctorily, and one with seeing eyes, gazed at him as he lay. ”

“ Mornie behaved like an angel. He never said a word to papa about what he thought of Esmé, nor of what he intended to do, but he went down to Southampton with Tom Brandon and met Gordon on his way to the steamer. Tom told me no man had ever had such a thrashing before. Gordon Graem had to go to a hotel and send for a doctor. People came round and asked what it was all about. I think a policeman offered to take Mornie into custody, but Gordon had the sense not to charge him. ”

“ Mornie left her all his money; she is quite independent of papa now."
"And I suppose she will go to America by the first fast boat?" asked Keightley.
"Oh, no, no: of course not. You don't know Esmé; she is quite like she used to be again. I dined in Kensington Square last night. Sir Rupert Douran was there. Esmé was drooping her lids and looking angelic. You know we have no title in the family. Esmé reminded us of that when we sat together in the drawing-room afterwards. And there was a very contemptuous notice of Gordon's work in one of the evening papers. ”

“ He said if Esmé loved Gordon Graem she must go to him. He seemed to think papa was quite right in not wanting the blot of a divorce on our family escutcheon. You see, he really was kind and nice. I told him that all of us—Alma and Sylvia, as well as I—would be more than sisters to him, and that we were all quite as good-looking as Esmé, and rather cleverer. But he did not show any gratitude.
"He and Esmé had another interview, and yet another. Then he went down to his sister who lived in Wimbledon. It is really a place where people play tennis. But his sister actually does live there! ”

“ Don't forget we are all in society. Papa is so anxious that none of us should forget that."
Roger asked when it was that Mornington Ransby found his wife out.
"That is really the most important part of the story—the dramatic part. Esmé must have become the character she assumed, because when she fell in love, and falling in love was a habit with her, she did incredibly foolish things, like women in novels."
"For instance?"
"Mornie wanted Esmé's picture painted, and either Alma or Sylvia suggested Gordon Graem. Gordon Graem! I don't suppose you ever heard of him. ”

“ His creed is that any crime is to be condoned so long as it cannot be proved. His daughters understand him thoroughly, and profit by their knowledge."
David Devenish asked where these lovely and corrupt Jerman girls were to be met, but Roger Macphail was interested only in hearing about the one who had married Mornington Ransby.
"Ransby married the most beautiful of them all—Esmé. I can't take you to see her because I don't know where she is to be found at the moment. But Leda, the eldest sister, is an intimate friend of mine. ”

“ When Mornie went away papa sent telegrams to my brothers and talked in quotations about his grey hairs being brought in sorrow to the grave, and about King Lear. At the end of three days he managed to discover that Esmé had gone to Paris. He followed them and met Gordon Graem in the hall of the Grand Hotel. I did tell you that he had my brother Stacy with him, didn't I? Stacy spoke to Gordon and asked about Esmé. Papa was too agitated. Gordon, you know, was soft and sloppy, and he had always been very poor. ”

“ I remember noticing it because he had been married less than two years."
"Filed his petition!"
"He certainly started divorce proceedings against his wife."
"Sooner or later the Jermans are always divorced," Keightley interpolated complacently. "It is the way they were brought up. Old Mother Jerman, when you shake hands with her, presses yours, sighs, and says, 'But I must be faithful to my husband!' Before the eldest girl was sixteen, John Jerman used to lock her bedroom door from the outside and take the key whenever there was company in the house." ”

“ From the court he went to the Savoy for lunch, meeting there Keightley Wilbur, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, and who listened to his description of the inquiry at Wimbledon with interest.
"I am sure there was a story behind that verdict, if we had only been allowed to hear it."
"There is always a story behind a coroner's verdict," Keightley answered sententiously. ”

“ Take advantage of the gathering dusk and all extraneous circumstances. Come over and sit by me on the fender stool; let the firelight play on your peroxide head."
She, too, had dramatic instinct, and the situation appealed instinctively to her. ”

“ Next came the police evidence, and then that of the relatives.
Dr. Robert Hunt was the first witness from whom any evidence of importance was to be expected. It was from his house Mornington Ransby had gone forth to his death. ”