The Marquis of Lechford had to answer questions as to his parental relations with his daughter.  How long had he been away in the country?  How long had the deceased been living in Lechford House practically alone?  How old was his daughter?  Had he given any order to the effect that nobody was to be on the roof of his house during an air-raid?  Had he given any orders at all as to conduct during an air-raid?  The Coroner sympathised deeply with his lordship’s position, and felt sure that his lordship understood that; but his lordship would also understand that the policy of heads of households in regard to air-raids had more than a domestic interest—­it had, one might say, a national interest; and the force of prominent example was one of the forces upon which the Government counted, and had the right to count, for help in the regulation of public conduct in these great crises of the most gigantic war that the world had ever seen.  “Now, as to the wire-netting,” had said the Coroner, leaving the subject of the force of example.  He had a perfect plan of the wire-netting in his mind.  He understood that the chimney-stack rose higher than the wire-netting, and that the wire-netting went round the chimney-stack at a distance of a foot or more, leaving room so that a person might climb up the perpendicular ladder.  If a person fell from the top of the chimney-stack it was a chance whether that person fell on the wire-netting, or through the space between the wire-netting and the chimney on to the roof itself.  The jury doubtless understood. (The jury, however, at that instant had been engaged in examining the bit of shrapnel which had been extracted from the brain of the only daughter of a Marquis.) The Coroner understood that the wire-netting did not extend over the whole of the house.  “It extends over all the main part of the house,” his lordship had replied.  “But not over the back part of the house?” His lordship agreed.  “The servants’ quarters, probably?” His lordship nodded.  The Coroner had said:  “The wire-netting does not extend over the servants’ quarters,” in a very even voice.  A faint hiss in court had been extinguished by the sharp glare of the Coroner’s eyes.  His lordship, a thin, antique figure, in a long cloak that none but himself would have ventured to wear, had stepped down, helpless.

There had been much signing of depositions.  The Coroner had spoken of The Hague Convention, mentioning one article by its number.  The jury as to the first three cases—­in which the victims had been killed by bombs—­had returned a verdict of wilful murder against the Kaiser.  The Coroner, suppressing the applause, had agreed heartily with the verdict.  He told the jury that the fourth case was different, and the jury returned a verdict of death from shrapnel.  They gave their sympathy to all the relatives, and added a rider about the inadvisability of running unnecessary risks, and the Coroner, once more agreeing heartily, had thereon made an effective little speech to a hushed, assenting audience.