“Does that mean that it wasn’t there, or that you did not notice it?”
“It may have been there. Indeed, I suppose it must have been, but I did not see it.”
“You formed no idea as to how he had died?”
“I formed no ideas of any sort. I think I was too frightened and upset.”
“Thank you, Miss Lepley,” the coroner said. “You have given your evidence very clearly.”
“I am sorry I could not remember about the hatpin,” she replied.
“Oh, well, I have no doubt we shall trace it in time. And now we will have Mrs. Halfleet, the housekeeper.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE STORY OF A QUARREL
The inquest, as far as it had gone, afforded no leading at all. We had not even learned how the poison had been administered, for though there had been some suggestion of possible juggling with the whisky bottle and glass, there had been nothing definite. But it was the hatpin that puzzled me most. One might regard it as certain, at all events, that Sir Philip Clevedon, even if he had voluntarily taken the poison, had not thereafter stabbed himself. One could only suppose that it was the murderer’s effort to make absolutely sure that his work was complete. Without the hatpin it might have been odds in favour of suicide.
Mrs. Halfleet, the housekeeper, was a tall woman, something past middle-age, with black hair lightly streaked with grey, and dark eyes of a peculiarly penetrating quality. I wondered for a moment if or where I had seen her before, and then I realised that it was her likeness to her niece that had impressed me. She was very alert, both mentally and physically, answered the questions in full and without hesitation, and yet with a curious air of detachment as if, after all, it were no particular business of hers. She described events already dealt with here, and generally corroborated the evidence that had gone before.