"About this woman who gave the alarm," the barrister asked. "Have you seen her, constable?"
"No, sir; not since the body was found. Thinking it strange that she did not come back, I reported it at the station. She had given the name of Mary Smith and an address in Old Park. I was told to go round there, but no such person was known, and no one had heard of a child being lost. On my reporting this, inquiries were made all round the neighborhood; but no one had heard of such a woman, nor of a missing child."
"This is a very strange circumstance, sir, and it looks as if the whole story of the drowning child was a fabrication. The fact that the body of the child whose death we are considering was found close to the spot would certainly seem to point to the fact that some person or persons who were cognizant of the fact that this body was there were for some reasons anxious that it should be found, and so employed this woman to get the drags used at that point in order that the body might be brought to light."
"It is certainly a very strange business," the coroner said, "and I hope that the police will spare no efforts to discover this woman. However, as she is not before us, we must proceed with the case."
Then the officer of the court called out the name of Mary Summerford, and the nurse went into the witness box.
"I understand, Mary Sommerford, that you were nurse to Walter Rivington?"
"I was, sir."
"Will you tell the jury when you last saw him, and how it was that he was lost?"
She told the story as she had told it to Hilda on the day that he was missing.
"You have seen the clothes found on the body. Do you recognize them as those that he was wearing when you last saw him?"