“Yes, of course.”
Something about her manner was disconcerting. At least, it bothered the already harassed Coroner.
I was watching Alma Remsen closely, and it seemed to me she purposely tried to put the Coroner in wrong. There was no overt act or word, but her little glance of surprise or her glimmer of a smile made him seem blundering and inept, and I decided she had such intentions.
This did not lower her in my estimation; indeed, I was fast reaching a point where nothing could disparage her to me. It was not alone her beauty, though she looked fair and sweet to-day, but I was bowled over by her air of courage and determination.
That she had something to conceal, I was positive.
I knew she had been at Pleasure Dome the night of her uncle’s death, I knew she denied it. Fatuously I told myself she had her own good reasons for telling a falsehood, and I preferred to believe she was shielding another rather than herself.
Hart was proceeding.
“Were you alone with him?”
Alma’s pretty brows contracted in her effort to recollect.
“Most of the time,” she said, with the air of humouring an over-inquisitive child. “Mr. Everett was in and out of the room, and Mr. Dean, too, I think.”