"Did any one go in?" the coroner asked.
"No, sir, not a soul--barring Alfred Jones and Miss Rye Alfred Jones came back after he first went out, saying that he had forgot something, and he went upstairs to fetch it. He wasn't there no time; and it was while he was up there that Mr. Greatorex came down and left. Soon after that, Miss Rye, she come in, and went upstairs, and was there ever so long."
"What do you call 'ever so long'?"
"Well, sir, I'm sure she was there a quarter of an hour," returned the witness, in a quick, positive sort of tone, as if the fact of Miss Rye's being there so long displeased her. "I ought to know; and me a-standing inside the doorsill, afraid to move off it for fear she should come out."
"Were you alone?"
"Well, yes, sir, I was. Mary, the housemaid at the big linendraper's next door but one, can bear me out that I was, for she was there all the time, talking to me."
Perhaps the coroner thought the answer savoured of Hibernianism, for something like a smile crossed his face.
"And you heard no sound whatever upstairs all the evening, Susan Marks? You saw no one, except the persons mentioned, go in or come out; no stranger?"
"I never heard no sound, and never saw no stranger at all," said the witness, earnestly. "I never even saw Godfrey Pitman leave. But I b'lieve he was away earlier."
The concluding assertion fell with some surprise on the room; there ensued a pause, and the coroner lifted his head sharply. Godfrey Pitman? Who was Godfrey Pitman?