Joyce looked at the part of the room in question. True, there were four or more small pieces of furniture that would have bothered one coming in without a light.
“That’s so!” she said, as if the idea were illuminating. “I must have come in just after or at the very moment that Blake lighted the electrics!”
“And found Miss Vernon already here?”
“Yes,” said Joyce.
“Miss Vernon, will you tell your story?” said Lamson, abruptly, turning from Joyce to the girl.
“Why—I——” Natalie fluttered like a frightened bird, and gazed piteously at the inquisitor. “I don’t know how.”
“Good work!” commented Bobsy Roberts, mentally. “Smart little girl to know how the baby act fetches ’em!”
But if Natalie Vernon’s air of helplessness was assumed, it was sufficiently well done to convince all who saw it.
“Poor little thing!” was in everybody’s mind as the rosebud face looked pleadingly at the Coroner. At that moment, if she had declared herself the guilty wretch, nobody would have believed her.
Lamson’s abruptness vanished, and he said, gently, “Just a simple description, Miss Vernon, of your presence in this room last night.”