"My help?" she echoed, facing round suddenly so that her back was to the light and her face comparatively in the shadow. "What can I tell you?"
"Mrs. Belswin," said Maxwell, gravely, "you were one of the last people who saw Sir Rupert alive."
"Yes, that is so," she answered without moving a muscle, "but I told all I knew at the inquest."
"I suppose you did; but can you think of nothing else?"
She looked at him with a piercing glance, as if trying to read his soul, but saw nothing that could make her think that he suspected her in any way of being connected with the murdered man.
"I told all I knew at the inquest," she repeated. "I had an interview with Sir Rupert about your marriage with Kaituna. He refused his consent, and I left the study. Kaituna had gone to bed with a bad headache, so I did not wish to make it worse by my ill news. Therefore I retired to rest at once, and knew nothing more until the next morning."
"You heard no pistol shot?"
"None."
"Strange!" said Maxwell, thoughtfully: "no one seems to have heard a pistol shot, and yet such an unusual thing must have attracted attention."
"You forget that Sir Rupert's study was some distance away from the sleeping apartments, and I think at the time he was killed every one was in bed."