"Because, as I reached the door, I heard people talking inside the Parlour. So I went back."
CHAPTER XIV
WHOSE VOICES?
M eeking, who by long experience knew the value of dramatic effect in the examination of witnesses, took full advantage of Mrs. Mallett's strange and unexpected announcement. He paused, staring at her—he knew well enough that when he stared other folk would stare too. So for a full moment the situation rested—there stood Mrs. Mallett, resolute and unmoved, in the box, with every eye in the crowded court fixed full upon her, and Meeking still gazing at her intently—and, of set purpose, half-incredulously. There was something intentionally sceptical, cynical, in his tone when, at last, he spoke:
"Do you say—on oath—that you went, through the door between Dr. Wellesley's house and the Moot Hall, to the Mayor's Parlour—that evening?"
"To the door of the Mayor's Parlour," corrected Mrs. Mallett. "Yes. I do. I did!"
"Was the door closed?"
"The door was closed."