“No.”
“Around a corner?”
“Yes.”
“And at some distance?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Pierce's answers became more hesitating as she saw the drift of Mr. Monroe's questions. Clearly, she was trying to shield Florence, if necessary, at the expense of actual truthfulness.
“Then,” went on Mr. Monroe, inexorably, “I understand you to say that you think you would have heard Miss Lloyd, had she gone down-stairs, although your room is at a distance and around a corner and the hall and stairs are thickly carpeted. Unless you were listening especially, Mrs. Pierce, I think you would scarcely have heard her descend.”
“Well, as she didn't go down, of course I didn't hear her,” snapped Mrs. Pierce, with the feminine way of settling an argument by an unprovable statement.
Mr. Monroe began on another tack.
“When you went to Miss Lloyd's room,” he said, “was the maid, Elsa, there?”
“Miss Lloyd had just dismissed her for the night.”