"But why should she?" demanded the coroner, doubtfully.
"Ask me another," said Mrs. Sellars vulgarly, and with a shrug.
There was only one inference to be drawn from the absence of the weapon: Mrs. Pentreddle knew that she was in danger, and had therefore armed herself against a possible attempt being made on her life.
[CHAPTER V]
THE INQUEST CONTINUED
Until it came to the examination of Patricia, very little was learned from the depositions of the various witnesses summoned to give evidence. All that the boarders and the servants could say was that Mrs. Pentreddle, although not an extremely sociable person, had behaved herself quietly in every way. She had kept very much to herself, and had mentioned her business in coming to London to no one. And certainly she had never hinted in the slightest degree that she possessed an enemy who desired to take her life. All who dwelt beneath the hospitable roof of The Home of Art expressed themselves surprised at the death of the poor woman. There was nothing apparent on the surface of things, as one witness observed, to lead up to such a catastrophe. It was entirely unexpected and unforeseen.
Bunson, the butler, deposed that before leaving the house with his fellow-servants for the theatre, he had locked the three drawing-room windows. When the police examined the room afterwards, the middle one of these had been found unfastened and slightly open. It assuredly would not have been difficult for the assassin to have come along the iron balcony to that window and there have tapped for admittance. But Bunson swore positively that unless the deceased had opened the window, the man could not have entered. It was this witness who had found the body, and he stated that he had not touched it until it was seen by Inspector Harkness and his underlings. It was at this point, and in answer to the question of a juryman, that the inspector admitted the absence of the weapon with which the deceased had been killed. No stiletto had been found, either in the drawing-room or in any part of the house, so it was presumed that the criminal must have taken it away with him.
"I wonder that he did not place the stiletto in the hand of the dead woman, so that it might be supposed she had committed suicide," said a juryman.
"Probably he did not think that it would be proved that the deceased had taken the stiletto from her sister's room when the stage costumes were being displayed," suggested another juryman.
"We have not yet learned if the murder was committed with that weapon," was the coroner's remark. "Call George Colpster."