Inspector Brunt stood by, gravely, and for the most part silently, watching and listening.
“That might imply,” he said, slowly, “that if she did see the assailant, it was some one she knew, and of whom she had no fear.”
Gray Haviland looked up suddenly. A deep red spread over his face and then, seeing himself narrowly watched by the detectives present, he set his lips firmly together and said no word.
Pauline turned white and trembled, but she too said nothing.
“Why is she sitting in this large easy chair?” went on the Coroner; “Is it not customary for ladies at their dressing tables to use a light side-chair?”
This showed decidedly astute perception, and the Inspector looked interestedly at the chair in question, which he had not especially noticed before.
Being tacitly appealed to by the Coroner’s inquiring eyes, Pauline replied: “It is true that my aunt usually sat at her dressing-table in a small chair,—that one, in fact,” and she pointed to a dainty chair of gilded cane. “I have no idea why she should choose the heavy, cushioned one.”
“It would seem,” the Coroner mused, “as if she might have sat down there to admire the effect of her belongings rather than to arrange her hair or toilette.”
Absorbedly, all present watched Coroner Scofield’s movements.
It was true, the quietly reposeful attitude of the still figure leaning back against the brocaded upholstery, and so evidently looking in the great gold-framed mirror, was that of one admiring or criticising her own appearance. Added to this, the fact of her bizarre costume and strange adornments, it seemed certain that Miss Carrington had come to her death while innocently happy in the feminine employment of dressing up in the elaborate finery that she loved.