"Yes." The response was so low as to be almost inaudible.
Caldew, who was the only person in the room with the deeper knowledge to divine the drift of these questions, realized with something of a shock that Merrington, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his absolute conclusion about the events of the last half-hour while he had wandered perplexedly in a cloud of suspicions. The mental jump had been too great for him, but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew waited eagerly for the next question. It was some time in coming, and when it did come it was not what Caldew expected. As though satisfied with the previous answers he had received, Merrington branched off on another track.
"How did you spend last night?" he asked abruptly.
"I do not understand you." There was the shadow of fear in the girl's dark eyes as she answered.
"I will put it more plainly then. How did you occupy the time between your arrival at the moat-house and bedtime?"
"I spent it with my mother in her rooms."
"Were you there all the time?"
It seemed to Caldew that the elder woman's attitude was that of a listener. Though she still kept her face buried in her hands, her frame slightly moved, as though she were listening to catch the reply.
"Yes." The word was spoken hurriedly, almost defiantly, but the girl's eyes wavered and fell under Merrington's direct glance.
"May I take it, then, that you were in your mother's room at the time Mrs. Heredith was murdered?"