The pretty English voice, with its neat, clipped accent, fell pleasantly and reassuringly on the ears of the courtroom, which relaxed with unfeigned relief from the tensity into which her Gallic colleague had managed to plunge it during her tenure of the witness box.
“Did you see Mrs. Ives on the evening of the nineteenth?”
“Not after dinner—no, sir. I asked her before dinner if it would be quite all right for cook and me to go down to the village to church that night, and she said quite, and not to bother about getting home early, because she wouldn’t be needing me again. So after church we met two young gentlemen that we knew and went across to the drug store and had some ices, and sat talking a bit before we walked home, so that it was well on to eleven when we got in, and all the lights were out except the one in the kitchen, so I knew that Mrs. Ives was in bed.”
“What time did you leave the house for church, Miss Roberts?”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly swear to it, sir, but it must have been around half-past eight; because service was at nine, and it’s a good bit of a walk, and I do remember hurrying with dinner so that I could turn down the beds and be off.”
“Were you chambermaid in the household as well as seamstress-maid?”
“Oh, no, sir; only it was the chambermaid’s night off, you see, and then it was my place to do it.”
“I see. So on this night you turned down all the beds before eight-thirty?”
“Yes, sir—all but Miss Page’s, that is.”
“That wasn’t included in your duties?”