“You saw or heard nothing beyond that which these other gentlemen have testified?”
“Nothing at all,” I answered.
“You have made no subsequent discoveries?”
Just for a moment I was silent, conjecturing what my answer should be. Was I to tell of the cryptogram I had found beside the body, and its theft during the night?
I couldn’t see how the least good would come of it. Indeed, if last night’s intruder was in the room, listening to my testimony, he would be very glad to know if I had discovered the theft. I had resolved to work out the case in my own way, employing the methods of a naturalist, and these agents of the law were not my allies.
“Nothing has come to my observation,” I told him simply.
If he had pressed the matter he might have got the admission out of me; but fortunately he turned to other subjects.
There was quite a little stir of interest throughout the circle when he began to question Edith. None of us will forget the picture of that golden head, graced by the sunlight slanting through the leaded panes of the window, the flushed, lovely face, the frank eyes and the girlish figure, lost in the big chair. She was in such contrast to the rest of us. Except for the housekeeper, buxom and fifty, she was the only white woman present; and she could have been the daughter of any one of the gray men in the circle.
She had gone to her room about ten, she said, and had read for perhaps an hour. Her room was just over the front hall. About eleven she went to bed, and the coroner’s questions brought out the interesting fact that seemingly she had been the last of the household—unless the murderer himself was to be included thus—to have seen Florey alive. Her bed stood just beside the front window, and just before she had retired she had seen him walking out toward the lagoon.
The whole circle, tired of the dull testimony of the past hour, leaned forward in rapt attention. “He was alone?” the coroner asked.