“Will you be good enough to tell us if it contains to-day all the articles that it contained on the nineteenth of June, 1926?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t. Mrs. Ives gives away a lot of her things at the end of every season. We sent a big box off to a sick cousin she has in Arizona, and another to some young ladies in Delaware, and another to the——”
“Never mind about the things that you sent at the end of the season. Did you send anything at about the time of the murder—within a few weeks of it, say?”
The roses in Miss Roberts’s cheeks faded abruptly, and the candid eyes fled precipitately to the chair where Susan Ives sat, playing idly with the crystal clasp of her brown suède bag. At the warm, friendly, reassuring little smile that she found waiting for her, Miss Roberts apparently found heart of grace. “Yes, sir, we did,” she said steadily.
“On what date, please?”
“On the twentieth of June.”
The courtroom drew in its breath sharply—a little sigh for its lost ease—and moved forward the inch that separated suspense from polite attention.
“To whom was the package sent?”
“It was sent to the Salvation Army.”
“What was in it?”