stranger calling, demanding money, being refused, and committing a murder. Besides this, there were no signs of any struggle. “Lady Madeley,” the coroner continued, “has told us of the intimate terms of affection upon which she and her sister had always lived; and Lady Madeley, out of her resulting knowledge, has assured us that there was nothing in her sister’s life, and no one amongst her sister’s acquaintances, that could provide or account for any sufficient motive for such a crime. Of course, it is common knowledge that Lady Madeley and Miss Alvarez were, until very recently, members of the theatrical profession; but the many letters to Miss Alvarez, which[27] remained undestroyed in the flat, and which have all been carefully examined, the tone of those letters, and the evidence we have had from so many artistes of the high moral character both the sisters were known in the profession to have, altogether negative, and it gives me sincere pleasure even on this sad and melancholy occasion to say it, they emphatically negative any supposition that there was an illicit side to the life of Miss Alvarez to which we can turn in the hope of an explanation. There was no such side. Therefore, I think any idea of murder may be dismissed. Motive, of course, must always equally precede self-destruction, but there motive need not be that outside motive which must be looked for, and for which logical explanation must be found, where another person is concerned to compass the death of a victim. As I have already indicated, we have some actual evidence of a disordered mind,[28] and such a mind would imagine and accept as real quite non-existent facts and weave those into a self-compelling motive. Every fact that has been given in evidence is perfectly compatible with suicide. There is no fact within our knowledge which conflicts with that supposition, there is no single detail that raises any suspicion to the contrary.”

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

Without hesitation the jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity,” a verdict with which the coroner remarked that he entirely concurred.

Ashley Tempest, then a romantic but rising young barrister, had been present at the inquest, holding a watching brief which had been sent him by the solicitors of Lord Madeley. He had been fascinated by the beauty of the dead woman whom several times he happened to have seen and greatly admired upon the stage. The little smile which still seemed to play upon the lips,[29] the long dark 

 Prev. P 8/126 next