“I don't think you quite mean that, Florence,” he said; “you and I knew your uncle too well to say such things.”
But the girl made no reply, and her beautiful mouth took on a hard line.
“It is not an impossible conjecture,” said Philip Crawford thoughtfully. “If the bag does not belong to Florence, what more probable than that it was left by its feminine owner? The same lady might have worn or carried yellow roses.”
Perhaps it was because of my own desire to help her that these other men had joined their efforts to mine to ease the way as much as possible.
The coroner looked a little uncomfortable, for he began to note the tide of sympathy turning toward the troubled girl.
“Yellow roses do not necessarily imply a lady visitor,” he said, rather more kindly. “A man in evening dress might have worn one.”
To his evident surprise, as well as to my own, this remark, intended to be soothing, had quite the opposite effect.
“That is not at all probable,” said Miss Lloyd quite angrily. “Mr. Porter was in the office last evening; if he was wearing a yellow rose at the time, let him say so.”
“I was not,” said Mr. Porter quietly, but looking amazed at the sudden outburst of the girl.
“Of course you weren't!” Miss Lloyd went on, still in the same excited way. “Men don't wear roses nowadays, except perhaps at a ball; and, anyway, the gold bag surely implies that a woman was there!”