The verdict given,
with the doctor, the policeman, and two persons from the place
where she worked, for witnesses, was Accidental Death. The end of
the cravat was produced, and the coroner said that it was
certainly enough to suggest suspicion; but the jury, in the
absence of any positive evidence, held to the doctor's notion
that she had fainted and fallen down, and so got the blow on her
temple. They reproved the people where Mary worked for letting
her go home alone, without so much as a drop of brandy to support
her, after she had fallen into a swoon from exhaustion before
their eyes. The coroner added, on his own account, that he
thought the reproof was thoroughly deserved. After that, the
cravat-end was given back to me by my own desire, the police
saying that they could make no investigations with such a slight
clew to guide them. They may think so, and the coroner, and
doctor, and jury may
think so; but, in spite of all that has passed, I am now more
firmly persuaded than ever that there is some dreadful mystery in
connection with that blow on my poor lost Mary's temple which has
yet to be revealed, and which may come to be discovered through
this very fragment of a cravat that I found in her hand. I cannot
give any good reason for why I think so, but I know that if I had
been one of the jury at the inquest, nothing should have induced
me to consent to such a verdict as Accidental Death.
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