“You let Guy Markenmore out of your house, yourself, at a quarter to twelve. Did you notice which way he went when he left?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I walked down the drive with him, to the entrance gate. He went along the main road, towards the village.”
“And, after that, you never saw him again?”
Mrs. Tretheroe shook her head, and for a moment those about her thought that she was about to burst into tears. But she suddenly controlled herself, and there was an almost defiant expression in her eyes as she answered the last question.
“I never saw him again—until I saw him yesterday dead—murdered!”
The Coroner drew back in his chair: clearly, he had got at what he particularly wanted to know: the glance that he gave the jurymen was obviously intended to remind them that they now knew that from half-past ten to a quarter to twelve o’clock of the night before his death Guy Markenmore had been with Mrs. Tretheroe, alone in her boudoir, unknown to any one. From the jury he turned to the men of law, sitting at the table beneath his raised desk.
The barrister who had been instructed by the police authorities slowly rose to his feet, and turned himself to the witness.
“I believe it is pretty well known, Mrs. Tretheroe,” he said in bland, half-apologetic tones, “that before your marriage to your late husband, you had a good many suitors.”
“Yes!” answered Mrs. Tretheroe readily. “At least—I don’t know what you mean by well known. But I had—certainly.”
“Mr. Guy Markenmore was one of them?”