“Please tell us under what circumstances you first saw the body.”
“Certainly.” Dr. Stanley settled himself a trifle more comfortably in his chair and turned a trifle toward the jury, who stared back gratefully into his friendly countenance. If Dr. Stanley had been explaining just how he reeled in the biggest trout of the season, he could not have looked more affably at ease. “I went out to the cottage with my friend Elias Dutton, the coroner, and two or three state troopers. Mr. Conroy had turned over the key to the cottage to us, and we found everything as he had described it to us.”
“Were there signs of a struggle?”
“You mean on the body?”
“Yes—scratches, bruises, torn or disarranged clothing?”
“No, there were no signs of any description of a struggle, save for the overturned table and the lamp.”
“Might that have happened when Mrs. Bellamy fell?”
“The table might very readily have been overturned at that time; it was toward Mrs. Bellamy’s head and almost on top of the body. The lamp, on the other hand, was practically at her feet.”
“Could it have rolled there as the table crashed?”
“Possibly, but it’s doubtful. The fragments of lamp chimney and shade were there, too, you see, some six feet away from the table.”