“Take your time, Mrs. Starr,” he said. “We are well aware that testimony of this nature must be painful to you, but it is necessary and must be given. You opened the door and looked out. What did you see?”
“A man—or, rather, the shadow of a man outlined very dimly on the further wall of the hall.”
“What man?”
“I do not know, sir.”
She did; the woman was lying. No one ever looked as she did who was in doubt as to what she saw. But the Coroner intentionally or unintentionally blind to this very decided betrayal of her secret, still showed a disposition to help her.
“Was it so dark?”
“Yes, sir. The electrolier at the stair-head had been put out probably by him as he passed, for—”
It was a slip. I saw it in the way her face changed and her voice faltered as with one accord every eye in the assemblage before her turned quickly towards the chart.
I did not need to look. I know that hall by heart. The electrolier she spoke of was nearer the back than the front; to put it out in passing, meant that the person stopping to extinguish it was heading towards the rear end of the hall. In other words, Clarke or myself. As it was not myself—
But she must have thought it was, for when the Coroner, drawing the same conclusion, pressed her to describe the shadow and, annoyed at her vague replies, asked her point blank if it could be that of Clarke, she shook her head and finally acknowledged that it was much too slim.