Godfrey gave a little grunt, whether of surprise or satisfaction I could not tell.
"Why didn't you put her on the stand to-day, Lester?" he asked. "Afraid of upsetting her?"
"I wouldn't have stopped for that, if her evidence would have helped Swain. But it would only have put him deeper in the hole."
"In what way?"
"Well, in the first place, she says that as she and her father returned to the house, she heard footsteps behind them and thought it was Swain following them, because that would be a natural thing for him to do; and, in the second place, she saw that blood-stained handkerchief on the floor beside her father's chair when she came into the room and found him dead."
"So," said Godfrey slowly, "it couldn't have been dropped there by Swain when he stooped to pick her up."
"No; besides, we know perfectly well that it wasn't about his wrist when he came back over the wall. Goldberger knows it, too, and we'll be asked about it, next time."
"It might have been pushed up his sleeve—we weren't absolutely certain. But this new evidence settles it."
I assented miserably and Godfrey smoked on thoughtfully. But my cigar had lost some of its flavour.
"How did Miss Vaughan come to find the body?" he asked at last, and I told him the story as she had told it to me. He thought it over for some moments; then he leaned forward and laid his hand on my knee.