“Do you know the time this happened?”
“No, except that I seemed to have been asleep some hours. I thought nothing of it, and directly went to sleep again.”
“You didn’t look out of the window?”
“No, I didn’t rise from my bed.”
I thanked my lucky stars that he hadn’t! That he hadn’t seen Alma Remsen, in her canoe, some time after midnight!
But if the Coroner thought much about this bit of evidence he gave no sign of doing so, and the rest of the inquiries he put to Everett were of a stereotyped sort and led nowhere.
Then came Billy Dean. That cheerful young man was chipper as always and told all he had to tell in a clear and concise way.
“Did you hear any sound in the night as of a passing boat?” Hart asked him.
“No,” Dean declared, and his voice was steady and all would have been well but that the silly chap turned brick red from the roots of his hair to the top of his collar.
“Then,” said Hart, with a full intention of embarrassing him, “why are you blushing like a turkey cock?”