"Does your son know him?"
"That he don't. For I asked Cain why he told the boy to speak such a falsehood seeing there was no need. But Cain said he'd told no one to say as he was coming, and that he intended to see me Friday and not Saturday, as that lying boy spoke."
Here Inspector Garrit rose, and begged that Miss Strode might be called, as she could tell something, bearing on the boy. Eva looked somewhat astonished, as she had not seen Butsey. However, she was sworn and duly gave her evidence.
"My father came home from South Africa over a week ago in the Dunoon Castle.. He wrote to me from Southampton saying he would be down. He then went to London and stopped there a week. He did not write from London, but sent two telegrams."
"Two telegrams," said the coroner. "One on Wednesday----"
"Yes," said the witness, "and one on Thursday night."
"But that's impossible. He was dead then, according to the medical evidence."
"That's what I cannot understand," said Eva, glancing at the Inspector. "I expected him on Thursday night at eight and had dinner ready for him. After waiting till after nine I was about to go to bed when a telegraph messenger arrived. He gave me the wire and said it arrived at four, and should have been sent then. It was from my father, saying he had postponed his departure till the next day, Friday. I thought it was all right and went to bed. About twelve I was awakened by the five knocks of my dream----"
"What do you mean by your dream, Miss Strode?"
Eva related her dream, which caused much excitement. "And the five knocks came. Four soft and one hard," she went on. "I sprang out of bed, and ran into the passage. Mrs. Merry met me with the news that my father had been brought home dead. Then I attended to the body, while Mrs. Merry told Jackson, who went to see Mr. Wasp."