"You have not answered my question, Miss Whitney," was Penfield's quick retort, and Kathleen flushed under the rebuke.
"Because I am aware that you are striving to make me incriminate Julie in Mr. Spencer's death," she began heatedly. "Instead, you and the police should make every effort to find Julie and protect her …"
"From what?"
"I don't know," hopelessly. "Julie has no friends in this city, no one whom she could turn to in trouble but me. I cannot understand her disappearance; I fear, greatly fear, foul play."
"Circumstantial evidence points to her having disappeared of her own volition, Miss Whitney, to escape being charged with a heinous crime."
"Pardon me, her disappearance is the only scrap of evidence which leads you to think she might possibly have murdered a man whom she knew by sight," retorted Kathleen.
"Was it your habit to supply Julie with money?" questioned the coroner.
"Yes, which she sent to France as her mite toward the war fund," answered Kathleen heatedly. "I am confident Julie had nothing whatever to do with the death of Mr. Spencer."
"Can you tell us who did, Miss Whitney?" asked Penfield, and he saw the terror which crept into her handsome eyes.
"I cannot," she answered with unsteady lips. "I never awoke that night."