On the whole, Pauline was not a satisfactory witness. She told, in most straightforward way, of leaving the breakfast table to go to her aunt’s room and of finding there the dead body. She told clearly all the circumstances of the upset tray, the spilled powder and the eccentric garb of Miss Carrington herself. But questions as to her opinion of these facts brought little response.
“You left Miss Carrington at half-past twelve?” asked Coroner Scofield.
“Not so late, I think,” returned Pauline; “probably at quarter or twenty minutes past twelve,—I am not sure.”
“How was she then dressed?”
“In the gown she had worn during the evening.”
“And her jewels?”
“When I left my aunt, she was wearing her pearls and the other jewelry she had worn with her evening dress. Some brooches and rings and bracelets.”
“But not so much as she had on when you discovered her in the morning?”
“Not nearly so much.”
“How do you account for this?”