“How long did you take getting to bed first and last?”
Mr. Thipps thought it might have been half-an-hour.
“Did you visit the bathroom before turning in?”
“No.”
“And you heard nothing in the night?”
“No. I fell fast asleep. I was rather agitated, so I took a little dose to make me sleep, and what with being so tired and the milk and the dose, I just tumbled right off and didn’t wake till Gladys called me.”
Further questioning elicited little from Mr. Thipps. Yes, the bathroom window had been open when he went in in the morning, he was sure of that, and he had spoken very sharply to the girl about it. He was ready to answer any questions; he would be only too ’appy—happy to have this dreadful affair sifted to the bottom.
Gladys Horrocks stated that she had been in Mr. Thipps’s employment about three months. Her previous employers would speak to her character. It was her duty to make the round of the flat at night, when she had seen Mrs. Thipps to bed at ten. Yes, she remembered doing so on Monday evening. She had looked into all the rooms. Did she recollect shutting the bathroom window that night? Well, no, she couldn’t swear to it, not in particular, but when Mr. Thipps called her into the bathroom in the morning it certainly was open. She had not been into the bathroom before Mr. Thipps went in. Well, yes, it had happened that she had left that window open before, when anyone had been ’aving a bath in the evening and ’ad left the blind down. Mrs. Thipps ’ad ’ad a bath on Monday evening, Mondays was one of her regular bath nights. She was very much afraid she ’adn’t shut the window on Monday night, though she wished her ’ead ’ad been cut off afore she’d been so forgetful.
Here the witness burst into tears and was given some water, while the Coroner refreshed himself with a third lozenge.
Recovering, witness stated that she had certainly looked into all the rooms before going to bed. No, it was quite impossible for a body to be ’idden in the flat without her seeing of it. She ’ad been in the kitchen all evening, and there wasn’t ’ardly room to keep the best dinner service there, let alone a body. Old Mrs. Thipps sat in the drawing-room. Yes, she was sure she’d been into the dining-room. How? Because she put Mr. Thipps’s milk and sandwiches there ready for him. There had been nothing in there—that she could swear to. Nor yet in her own bedroom, nor in the ’all. Had she searched the bedroom cupboard and the box-room? Well, no, not to say searched; she wasn’t use to searchin’ people’s ’ouses for skelintons every night. So that a man might have concealed himself in the box-room or a wardrobe? She supposed he might.