“Think again,” I said earnestly. “You are not on your oath. Are you certain of what you saw? Remember that you are bringing a charge of murder against a fellow creature, a young woman who has done you no wrong, who, you admit yourself, was your step-father’s innocent victim.”
“I didn’t say that. I said she hated him. She can’t be innocent if she poisoned him.”
“If she poisoned him,” I repeated with emphasis. “You have heard that she was more than a hundred miles away, according to the police evidence. But the same evidence shows that you were there, and you have told us as much.”
“What?” The girl almost leaped from her seat “Are you suggesting that I had anything to do with it?”
I glanced at my chief for permission to go on. He was lying back on his chair, his timepiece twisting between his fingers, apparently listening with the detachment of an impartial judge.
“You compel me to point out to you the situation you are in, Miss Neobard,” I continued. “A death has taken place, the police have inquired into it, and they have found cause for suspicion against certain persons. Lady Violet Bredwardine was one of those persons; you were another. Her innocence has now been proved. Yours only rests on your own assertion—or rather it may rest, because so far you haven’t actually asserted it. Therefore, you have the strongest possible motive for trying to throw suspicion on someone else; and you have been doing so all along. Now at last you have made a direct charge, and backed it up by stating what you say you saw through a curtain. I ask you again if you are certain of what you say, and I ask you to be careful.”
Sarah Neobard’s face underwent a succession of changes while she listened, from amazement to wrath and from wrath to abject fear. Tarleton put the crown on her discomfiture.
“Although we are not policemen, and this is not a formal charge, Dr. Cassilis is right to caution you,” he said firmly. “I shall feel at liberty to report whatever you say to the police.”
The tables were completely turned. The triumphant accuser found herself all at once standing in the dock. She gave us both a long deep look of despairing hatred and dread. Then, with lips tightly closed, she got up and walked out of the room and out of the house.
My chief gratified me with a nod and smile of approval.