"Well, I'd just been talking to her, you see," said Mr. Williamson uneasily. "I mean, she'd just been talking to me."
"And what had been the nature of the conversation?"
"Why, she'd been talking about her soul," explained Mr. Williamson, his slight diffidence giving place to indignation. "Eh? Popping down double whiskies nineteen to the dozen, and talking about her soul, and whether it wouldn't be better to put her head in a gas oven and finish it all off, What? Well!"
Under cover of the resulting laughter Roger, who was sitting between Ronald Stratton and Colin, whispered to the latter:
"That was a good touch. He couldn't have done that better if we'd rehearsed him. Carried conviction."
"Let's hope he says his real lesson as well," Colin whispered back.
The coroner, quelling the laughter indulgently, questioned Mr. Williamson further about the conversation and gently underlined the undoubted fact that Mrs. Stratton had been contemplating suicide even before the scene in the ballroom.
"He's made up his mind all right," Ronald Stratton whispered happily to Roger. "I thought he had, last night."
Then at last came the series of questions which Roger had been awaiting.
"Now tell me, Mr. Williamson. When you went back to guard the roof after the body had been taken downstairs, did anyone join you up there?"
"Yes, that's right," said Mr. Williamson affably. "Mrs. Lefroy did."
"Yes. And what happened?"
"What happened? Well, I told her, you know, and showed her the gallows, and the end of the rope, and all that."
"Yes. And then?"
"Eh? Oh, she came over queer. Is that what you mean? She felt a bit faint, I suppose. Women do sometimes," explained Mr. Williamson with kindness.
"Yes. Quite understandable. And when Mrs. Lefroy felt faint?"
"Well, she pulled up a chair or something, and I wiped it for her with my handkerchief," said Mr. Williamson bravely.
"Yes. Why did you do that?"
"Because she asked me to. Hadn't any idea I oughtn't to have done it," mumbled Mr. Williamson contritely. "Very sorry, and all that."
"It didn't occur to you that it was the chair on which Mrs. Stratton might have stood?"
"No, I'm afraid it didn't. Eh? Never occurred to me, I'm afraid. No."
"Well, perhaps you mustn't be blamed very much for that, in the circumstances, though it's a safe rule not to touch anything at all in the vicinity of any sudden death."
"Eh? Oh, I see. No. Yes, I mean."
"In any case, where was this chair when you saw Mrs. Lefroy pick it up?"
"Where was it?" repeated Mr. Williamson vaguely. "Oh, somewhere in the middle of the roof, you know."
Roger did not alter his position. Only a slight tightening of the muscles all over his body evidenced the emotion that was filling him. He felt as if the eyes of everyone in court were staring at him, and not by look or movement must he give himself away.
Colin was less sensitive. In a voice which Roger shudderingly felt must be raucously audible all over the court, he whispered: "Ach, the madman! That's just torn it." Mr. Williamson, it seemed, had not learned his lesson after all.
Mrs. Lefroy and Celia were sitting together on the other side of the court. Celia had insisted that it would be unwise for Mrs. Lefroy and Ronald to sit together. Roger now cursed the decision, for he was unable to lean across Ronald and whisper new instructions. All he could do was to try frantically to catch Mrs. Lefroy's eye.
But Mrs. Lefroy's eye refused to be caught. She was looking intently at Mr. Williamson with an expression of nothing but intelligent interest. Roger could only hope desperately that the interest was intelligent enough. If Mrs. Lefroy did not contradict Mr. Williamson's ghastly blunder, and sustain her contradiction, then everything must be up with the case for suicide.
Roger hardly heard the few questions which remained for Mr. Williamson to answer, though he did notice in a dull way that the coroner not only refrained from any sort of comment regarding the position of the chair, but asked nothing more about it at all. Roger would much rather that he had probed. Silence was too ominous. It could only mean that the coroner had been primed on the point by the police, and the inquest would be adjourned after all. And yet the odd thing was, Roger now remembered, that the superintendent had not asked Mr. Williamson anything about the position of the chair either; all he had appeared to be concerned about yesterday in the ballroom was the wiping of it. The position, which was far the more important matter, had simply not been mentioned. What the devil were the police up to?
And yet Roger in all fairness could hardly blame Mr. Williamson. It had been impossible to impress on him yesterday that the chair had been lying under the gallows, except by inference and more or less casually. But Roger had mentioned it, even if casually, so many times that he was sure it had sunk in. Well, it had not sunk in. And now everything depended on Mrs. Lefroy. She at any rate would have the intelligence to realize what, after all, had only been hinted to her, too.
"Mrs. Lefroy," called a voice from somewhere. Roger held his breath.
The coroner looked at his notes. Superintendent Jamieson, who had a chair just behind him, came forward and whispered something in his ear. The coroner nodded.
"Yes. Now, Mrs. Lefroy, will you tell me what happened after Mr. Williamson had shown you where the body had been found?"
Mrs. Lefroy had given very brief confirmation of the main events of the evening, but not having spoken once during the whole party to Ena Stratton had been unable to help in more personal matters. "Yes, certainly," she said, in a calm, clear voice, and went on to perjure herself gallantly on behalf of her fiance's brother.
"It was a great shock to me, and I felt very upset. I felt faint and wanted to sit down. There was a chair lying on the roof near, and I picked it up. I was wearing white velvet gloves, and I saw that the chair had marked them. I thought it might be smuts, on the roof. I was wearing a white satin dress, so I asked Mr. Williamson to wipe the chair for me before I sat down on it, and he did so. I understand now that the chair shouldn't have been touched, but I didn't think of that at the time."
"Yes. You heard no doubt the remark I made to Mr. Williamson on that point. It might, in a different case, be very serious indeed, you know."
"Yes, I see that now," agreed Mrs. Lefroy contritely.
"And this chair that you picked up. It was lying on its side, then?"
"Yes, it was lying on its side, on the roof."
"Whereabouts on the roof?"
"I should think," said Mrs. Lefroy brightly, "somewhere about the middle of the roof."
'Oh, my heaven!' groaned Roger inwardly to his immortal soul and buried his head in his hands.
"If you're called," whispered Roger feverishly to Colin, "say the chair was under the gallows when you came up on the roof. Never mind about the explaining. Say that!"
"I will not," Colin whispered back. "And have us all landed for perjury and heaven knows what? No, I will not."
"Mr. Nicolson!" came the voice of doom.
"But your efforts at first aid elicited no response?"
"No, none."
"No. And then?"
"I went down to keep the women in the ball - room so that they shouldn't see the body as Mr. Stratton and Mr. Sheringham carried it downstairs."
"Yes, exactly. An admirable precaution. Now when you went up to the roof, Mr. Nicolson, did you notice a chair lying there?"
"Yes."
"Where was it?"
"It was about in a line between the gallows and the door onto the roof, but perhaps rather nearer the gallows than the door."
"I see. Did anything in particular cause you to look at it, or did you just casually notice it?"