"'No, sir, I don't,' the girl replied.
"'And you did not happen to glance at the clock at the moment?'
"'No, sir,' she said, 'I did not switch on the light.'
"But having disposed of that point, Ida Griggs had yet another to make, and one that proved more dramatic than anything that had gone before.
"'While I was clearing away the dinner things,' she said, 'Mr. Reuben and Mrs. Aaron were sitting talking in the parlour. At half-past eight Mrs. Aaron rang for me to take up her hot water as she was going to dress. I took up the water for her and also for Mrs. Levison, as I always did. I was going to help Mrs. Levison to undress, but she said she was not going to bed yet as she had some accounts to go through. She kept me talking for a bit, then while I was with her there was a knock at the door and I heard Mr. Reuben asking if he might come in and say good-night. Mrs. Levison called out "good-night, my boy," but she would not let Mr. Reuben come in, and I heard him go downstairs again.
"'A quarter of an hour or so afterwards Mrs. Levison dismissed me and I heard her locking her door after me. I went downstairs on my way to the kitchen: Mrs. Aaron was in the parlour then, fully dressed and with her cloak on; and Mr. Reuben was there, too, talking to her. The door was wide open, and I saw them both and I heard Mrs. Aaron say quite spiteful like: "So she would not even see you, the old cat! She must have felt bad." And Mr. Reuben he laughed and said: "Oh well, she will have to get over it." Then they saw me and stopped talking, and soon afterwards Mr. Reuben went out to call a taxi, and we girls went up to bed.'
"'It is all a wicked lie!' here broke in a loud, high-pitched voice, and Mrs. Aaron, trembling with excitement, jumped to her feet. 'A lie, I say. The woman is spiteful, and wants to ruin me.'
"The coroner vainly demanded silence, and after a moment or two of confusion and of passionate resistance the lovely Rebecca was forcibly led out of the room. Her husband followed her, looking bigger and more meek and apologetic than ever before; and Ida Griggs was left to conclude her evidence in peace. She reaffirmed all that she had said and swore positively to the incident just as it had occurred in Mrs. Levison's room. Asked somewhat sharply by the coroner why she had said nothing about all this before, she replied that she did not wish to make mischief, but that truth was truth, and whoever murdered her poor mistress must swing for it, and that's all about it.
"Nor could any cross-examination upset her: she looked like a spiteful cat, but not like a woman who was lying.
"Reuben Levison had sat on, serene and jaunty, all the while that these damaging statements were being made against him. When he was recalled he contented himself with flatly denying Ida Griggs's story, and reiterating his own.