“Yes,” said Douglas Thorne, as quietly and unemphatically as he had said no.
The prosecutor took a quick step forward. “You say you heard something? What did you hear?”
“I heard a woman scream.”
“Nothing else?”
“Yes, a second or so afterward I heard a man laugh.”
“A man laugh?” the prosecutor’s voice was rough with incredulity. “What kind of a laugh?”
“I don’t know how to characterize it,” said Mr. Thorne simply. “It was an ordinary enough laugh, in a rather deep masculine voice. It didn’t strike me as in any way extraordinary.”
“It didn’t strike you as extraordinary to hear a woman scream and a man laugh in a deserted place at that hour of the night?”
“No, frankly, it didn’t. My first reaction was that the caretaker and his wife had returned from their vacation earlier than we had expected them; or if not, that possibly some of the young people from the village were indulging in some romantic trespassing—that’s not unknown, I may state.”
“You heard no words? No voices?”