This new link in the chain of evidence, forming as it did an important clue to the exact time of Jem’s death, resulted in a little conversation between the coroner and the superintendent of police, and in the calling of Mrs. Mann as a witness.
“Your husband has told us, Mrs. Mann, that the deceased passed you on his way to the back door. And we have heard that he said he was going to have his pipe and his glass of beer. Now did you notice in which direction he went?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” answered Mrs. Mann, a nervous woman, who could not be persuaded to give her evidence except in a whisper.
“And did he go in the direction of the Blue Lion?”
“No, sir.”
There was another murmur, quickly suppressed.
“Which way did he go, then?”
“He went into the wash-house and had a wash, and then he went up to his room, which he went up by the wooden steps as is in the wash-house. And I watched him for fear he should leave his candle a-burnin’. Which he did, and so I goes up and puts it out, so as it shouldn’t burn to waste like.”
“And how long was he there?”
But to this the witness could not undertake to give a straight answer. “She couldn’t ’ardly say;” “she didn’t rightly know.” “It might be a ’alf-hour;” it might be more. She eventually admitted that it could scarcely be less.