“Yes. Just answer the question, please. Never mind the rest. Were you——”
“I’ll thank you to let me be after telling the truth,” said Mrs. Shea, raising her voice to an unexpected volume. “It’s the truth I swore to tell and the truth I’m after telling. The decentest and the——”
“Yes, undoubtedly,” said Mr. Lambert hastily. “But what I wanted to know was whether you were in court at the time that Miss Cordier was testifying?”
“I was there. It will be a long day before I forget that day, and you may well say so.”
“Had you seen her before?”
“Had I seen her before?” inquired Mrs. Shea with a loud and melodramatic laugh. “Every day of my life for close on three months, mincing around with her eyes on the ground and her nose in the air as fine as you please, more shame to her.”
“Did you know her as Miss Cordier?”
“I did not.”
“Under what name did you know her?”
“Under the name she gave me and every other living soul in the place—the name of Mrs. Adolph Platz, that ought to have burned the skin off her tongue to use it.”