The Coroner now proceeded to cross-examine Vandeloup.

Q. You say you put the bottle containing this poison into your desk; how did Miss Marchurst obtain it?

A. Because she lived with me for some time, and had access to my private papers.

Q. Was she your wife?

A. No, my mistress (sensation in Court).

Q. Why did she leave you?

A. We had a difference of opinion about the question of marriage, so she left me.

Q. She wanted you to make reparation; in other words, to marry her?

A. Yes.

Q. And you refused?

A. Yes.

Q. It was on this occasion she produced the poison first?

A. Yes.  She told me she had taken it from my desk, and would poison herself if I did not marry her; she changed her mind, however, and went away.

Q. Did you know what became of her?

A. Yes; I heard she went on the stage with M. Wopples.

Q. Did she take the poison with her?

A. Yes.

Q. How do you know she took the poison with her?

A. Because next time I saw her it was still in her possession.

Q. That was at Mr Meddlechip’s ball?

A. Yes.

Q. On the night of the commission of the crime?

A. Yes.

Q. What made her take it to the ball?

A. Rather a difficult question to answer.  She heard rumours that I was to marry Mrs Villiers, and even though I denied it declined to believe me; she then produced the poison, and said she would take it.

Q. Where did this conversation take place?

A. In the conservatory.

Q. What did you do when she threatened to take the poison?

A. I tried to take it from her.

Q. Did you succeed?

A. No; she threw it out of the door.

Q. Then when she left Mr Meddlechip’s house to come home she had no poison with her?

A. I don’t think so.

Q. Did she pick the bottle up again after she threw it out?

A. No, because I went back to the ball-room with her; then I came out myself to look for the bottle, but it was gone.

Q. You have never seen it since.

A. No, it must have been picked up by someone who was ignorant of its contents.

Q. By your own showing, M. Vandeloup, Miss Marchurst had no poison with her when she left Mr Meddlechip’s house.  How, then, could she commit this crime?

A. She told me she still had some poison left; that she divided the contents of the bottle she had taken from my desk, and that she still had enough left at home to poison Mrs Villiers.

Q. Did she say she would poison Mrs Villiers?

A. Yes, sooner than see her married to me. (Sensation.)

Q. Do you believe she went away from you with the deliberate intention of committing the crime.

A. I do.

M. Vandeloup then left the box amid great excitement, and Kilsip was again examined.  He deposed that he had searched Miss Marchurst’s room, and found half a bottle of extract of hemlock.  The contents of the bottle had been analysed, and were found identical with the conia discovered in the stomach of the deceased.