“Exactly what do you mean?”
Nina raised her eyebrows and pursed up her mouth before answering.
“If Miss Baird was calling upon friends and liked the tea cakes, she would open her bag and pour the cakes into it,” she explained. “If she was shopping downtown and grew weary, she would look about and if she saw a motor car belonging to any of her friends waiting at the curb, she would inform the chauffeur he was to take her home. And—” Mrs. Potter’s smile was most engaging, “Miss Baird always got her own way.”
“Until her death—” dryly. “It looked as if some one balked her there.”
“Yes—and who was that some one?” questioned Mrs. Potter sweetly.
Coroner Penfield concealed his annoyance under a pretense of hunting for a pencil among the papers on his table. While listening intently to the dialogue between Penfield and Mrs. Potter, Ted Rodgers had grown aware that Ben Potter was gnawing his nails. Rodgers loathed small noises. He was about to remonstrate when Potter leaned back and whispered in his ear:
“I always told you Nina was clever; bless her heart!”
Rodgers attempted no reply as he waited for Coroner Penfield’s next question.
“Did Miss Kitty Baird spend Sunday night at your apartment, Mrs. Potter?” asked Penfield.