“Yes, certainly,” she responded, calmly.
There was a brief pause before Penfield again addressed her, and Kitty, her first nervous dread of facing the crowded court room a thing of the past, allowed her gaze to wander about the room. It was with a sharp stab of pain that she recognized more than one familiar face among the spectators. Could it be that men and women whom her aunt had counted among her friends and whom she had entertained in her limited way had come to the inquest from curiosity? Kitty shivered, the idea shocked her.
“Did you spend last Sunday at home, Miss Baird?” asked Penfield.
“No, not the entire day,” she replied. “I left there about three o’clock in the afternoon to go to my cousin, Mrs. Benjamin Potter, at whose apartment I was to spend the night.”
“Was it your custom to leave your aunt alone in the house at night?”
“Not a custom, certainly; but I did occasionally stay overnight with friends or with my cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, in Washington,” Kitty explained. “Aunt Susan was never afraid of being left alone in the house. And, of course, I was at my work all through the day.”
“And what is your work, Miss Baird?”
“I am employed as a social secretary by Mrs. Amos Parsons,” she replied, concisely. “I am with her from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon.”
“Only on week days?”
“Yes. I have Sunday to myself.”