“Oh, no; I was about three hundred feet from the cottage at the time that I heard the scream.”
“You did not consider that that sound was the voice of a woman raised in mortal terror?”
“No,” said Douglas Thorne. “Naturally, if I had, I should have done something to investigate. I was somewhat startled when I first heard it, but the laugh following so promptly completely reassured me. A scream of terror, a scream of pain, a scream of surprise, a scream of more or less perfunctory protest—I doubt whether anyone could distinguish between them at three hundred feet. I certainly couldn’t.”
The prosecutor shook his head irritably; he seemed hardly to be listening to this lucid exposition. “You’re quite sure about the laugh—you heard it distinctly?”
“Oh, perfectly distinctly.”
“Could you see the cottage from where you stood at the time?”
“No; the bend in the road and the high shrubbery hide it completely until you are almost on top of it.”
“Then you don’t know whether it was lighted when you heard the scream?”
“No; I only know that it was dark when I reached it a moment or so later.”
“What did you do when you reached the cottage?”