"No, sir."
Sir Chichester looked a little blank. He cast about for another line of examination.
"You are aware, of course, Jenny, that your mistress was in the habit of taking drugs—chloroform especially."
"Never, sir," answered Jenny.
"You weren't aware of it?" exclaimed Sir Chichester.
"She never took them."
Harry Luttrell made a little movement. He stared in perplexity at Jenny Prask, who did not once remove her calm and respectful eyes from Sir Chichester Splay. She waited in absolute composure for the next question. But the question took a long time to formulate. Sir Chichester had framed no interrogatory in a sequence; whereas Jenny's answers were pat, as though, sitting by the bed whereon her dead mistress lay, she had thought out the questions which might be asked of her and got her answers ready. Sir Chichester began to get flurried. At every conjecture which he expressed, Jenny Prask slammed a door in his face.
"But you told me——" he cried, turning to Harry Luttrell and so broke off. "Are you speaking the truth, Jenny?"
Suddenly Jenny's composure broke up. The blood rushed into her face. She shouted violently:
"I swear it! If it was my last dying word, I do! Chloroform indeed!" She became sarcastic. "What an idea! Just fancy!"