“I don’t know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had done anything strange with them.”

“Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of this time?”

“Yes, yes. I couldn’t have forgotten it, if she had done that. I remember every move she made so well. She didn’t do that.”

Mr. Fox’s eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert, anxious for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a man’s life ought to be.

Satisfied, he put the question: “When, after telephoning, you returned to the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?”

“Yes, I could not help it.”

“Was it in the same condition as when you left—the pillows, I mean?”

“I—I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by it.”

“Can you say they had not been disturbed?”

“No. I can say nothing. But what does—”