Madame Coralie had risen, and with tightly-clasped hands watched the girl's every action. Her black eyes peering above the yashmak were less hard, and the red rims round them showed that she had been weeping. She had every reason to, for what had happened might ruin her trade.
"Is it Lady Branwin?" asked Lanton, softly, since Audrey did not speak.
"Yes," she replied, with a sigh, and apparently could scarcely stand. On seeing this, Ralph slipped his arm round her waist. "I won't give way," she added firmly, and withdrew from his support. "Yes, Mr. Inspector, this is my mother's body. I see from the black marks on her neck that she has been strangled. Who murdered her, and why?"
Madame Coralie replied. "Ah, my dear young lady," she said, in a choking voice, "that is what we wish to find out. It will ruin my business."
"I don't see that," said Lanton, quietly; "you have always conducted your business respectably."
"It's the first time that I have ever had the police in my house," murmured Madame Coralie, in despair. "But a murder!--oh, what lady will ever come and pass the night here for treatment, when she may be murdered? I wish I knew the villain who killed poor Lady Branwin"--Madame Coralie shook her fist in the air--"I should have him hanged."
"We'll hunt him down yet," said Lanton, confidentially.
"Do you think that the assassin is a man?" asked Ralph, putting the same question to the inspector as he had done to Badoura.
Lanton looked taken aback. "In the absence of all proof, I believe the assassin to be a man--unless Lady Branwin had a woman enemy."
"Mamma had no enemies at all," said Audrey, in a firm voice. "Madame, where were you when my mother was murdered?"