"Oh, you know who did ought to be there, do you? This is news, this is. Perhaps you'll mention that party's name. Only let me warn you, Elizabeth Wilson, to be careful what you say, or you may find yourself in worse trouble than you quite like."
"I'll be careful what I say, I don't need you to tell me, William Granger! And I'll tell you who ought to be in Winchester Gaol instead of Jim Baker--why, that there proud, stuck-up young peacock over at Exham Park, that there Miss Arnott!"
"Liz! I've told you already not to be more silly than you can help. What do you know about Miss Arnott?"
"What do I know about Miss Arnott? I'll soon tell you what I know about your fine Miss Arnott. Sarah Ann, tell your uncle what you know about that there Miss Arnott."
Then the tale was unfolded--by Wilson the housemaid--by degrees, with many repetitions, in somewhat garbled form; still, the essential truth, so far as she knew it, was there.
She told how, that eventful Saturday, the young mistress had been out in the woods, as she put it, "till goodness only knows what hours of the night." How, the next morning, the key of the wardrobe drawer was lost; how, after many days, she, Wilson, had found it in the hem of her own skirt, how she had tried the lock, "just to see if it really was the key," of what the drawer contained--the stained clothing, the bloody knife. She narrated, with dramatic force, how first Evans and then Miss Arnott had come upon the scene, how the knife and the camisole had been wrested from her, how she herself had been ejected from the house.
When she had finished Mr Nunn looked up from the pocket-book in which he had been making copious notes of the words as they came from her lips.
"What you've said, Sarah Ann Wilson, you've said of your own free will?"
"Of course I have. Haven't I come here on purpose?"
"And you're prepared to repeat your statement in a court of law, and swear to its truth?"