"Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope—you know her name?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?"
"Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!"
CHAPTER XI
PERSONS UNKNOWN
The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that it became a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest. The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiest of formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance until Ingham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itself ridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcastic woman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death, and not coming down again! Well!
As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even his instant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was struggling now against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack was sucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receive its due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of a smiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her," leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked out the rest for itself.
"Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. I said I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But she wasn't."