“What was Miss Lloyd doing when you went to her room?”
“She was looking over some gowns that she proposed sending to the cleaner's.”
The coroner fairly jumped. He remembered the newspaper clipping of a cleaner's advertisement, which was even now in the gold bag before him. Though all the jurors had seen it, it had not been referred to in the presence of the women.
Recovering himself at once, he said quietly “Was not that rather work for Miss Lloyd's maid?”
“Oh, Elsa would pack and send them, of course,” said Mrs. Pierce carelessly. “Miss Lloyd was merely deciding which ones needed cleaning.”
“Do you know where they were to be sent?”
Mrs. Pierce looked a little surprised at this question.
“Miss Lloyd always sends her things to Carter & Brown's,” she said.
Now, Carter & Brown was the firm name on the advertisement, and it was evident at once that the coroner considered this a damaging admission.
He sat looking greatly troubled, but before he spoke again, Mr. Parmalee made an observation that decidedly raised that young man in my estimation.