"Do you lock your door?"
"No."
"But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?"
"Not unless something had happened; no."
"Could you pass her door without her hearing you?"
"I should suppose so. I never tried."
"So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that you returned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?"
"No," Christina breathed.
"Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but when and how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?"
"In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I could hear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so ill I did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, and I wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must be time, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bring up my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; and she said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something has happened.'"