The stains on the marble had confirmed him in that opinion. Mme Quesnard, he thought, must have fallen, owing to an onslaught made upon her by the burglar; the marks round the old lady’s throat testified to this, although these were not the cause of death.

“After this there was a good deal of police evidence with regard to the subsequent movements of the unknown miscreant. He had undoubtedly broken open the drawer of the bureau in the adjoining boudoir, the door of communication between this and Mme Quesnard’s bedroom being always kept open, and it was presumed that he had made a considerable haul both in gold and notes. He had then locked the bedroom door on the inside and made good his escape through the window.

“Immediately beneath this window, the flower-bed, muddy with the recent rain, bore the imprint of having been hastily trampled upon; but all actual footmarks had been carefully obliterated. Beyond this, all round the house the garden paths are asphalted, and the burglar had evidently taken the precaution to keep to these asphalted paths, or else to cross the garden by the lawns.

“You must understand,” continued the man in the corner, after a slight pause, “that throughout all this preliminary evidence, everything went to prove that the crime had been committed by an inmate of the house or at any rate by someone well acquainted with its usages and its ménage. Alice Holt, whose room was immediately above that of Mme. Quesnard, and who was, therefore, most likely to hear the noise of the conflict and to run to her mistress’s assistance, had been first of all locked up in her room. It had, therefore, become quite evident that the miscreant had commenced operations from inside the house, and had entered Mme Quesnard’s room by the door, and not by the window, as had been at first supposed.

“But,” added the funny creature excitedly, “as the old lady had, according to evidence, locked her door that night, it became more and more clear, as the case progressed, that she must of her own accord have admitted the person who subsequently caused her tragic death. This was, of course, confirmed by the fact that she was partially dressed when she was subsequently found dead.

“Strangely enough, with the exception of Alice Holt, no one else had heard any noise during the night. But, as I remarked before, the walls of these old houses are very thick, and no one else slept on the ground floor.

“Another fact which in the early part of the inquest went to prove that the outrage was committed by someone familiar with the house, was that Ben, the watchdog, had not raised any alarm. His kennel was quite close to Mme Quesnard’s windows, and he had not even barked.

“I doubt if the law would take official cognizance of the dumb testimony of a dog; nevertheless, Ben’s evidence was in this case quite worthy of consideration.

“You may imagine how gradually, as these facts were unfolded, excitement grew to fever pitch, and when at last Alice Holt was called, everyone literally held their breath, eagerly waiting to hear what was coming.

“She is a tall, handsome-looking girl, with fine eyes and a rich voice. Dressed in deep black she certainly looked an imposing figure as she stood there, repeating the story of how she was awakened in the night by the sound of her mistress’ angry voice, of the noise and sudden silence, and also of her terror, when she found that she had been locked up in her room.

“But obviously the girl had more to tell, and was only waiting for the coroner’s direct question.

“‘Will you tell the jury the reason why you made such an extraordinary and unwarrantable accusation against Lady Barnsdale?’ he asked her at last, amid breathless silence in the crowded room.

“Everyone instinctively looked across the room to where Lord Barnsdale sat between his friend Sir Gilbert Culworth and his lawyer, Sir Arthur Inglewood, who had evidently come down from London in order to watch the case on his client’s behalf. Alice Holt, too, looked across at Lord Barnsdale for a moment. He seemed attentive and interested, but otherwise quite calm and impassive.

“I, who watched the girl, saw a look of pity cross her face as she gazed at him, and I think, when we bear in mind that the distinguished English gentleman and the poor paid companion had known each other years ago, when they were girl and boy together in old Mme Quesnard’s French home, we may make a pretty shrewd guess why Alice Holt hated the beautiful Lady Barnsdale.

“‘It was about six o’clock in the afternoon,’ she began at last, in the same quiet tone of voice. ‘I was sitting sewing in madame’s boudoir, when Lady Barnsdale came into the bedroom. She did not see me, I know, for she began at once talking volubly to madame about a serious loss she had just sustained at Bridge; several hundred pounds, she said.’

“‘Well?’ queried the coroner, for the girl had paused, almost as if she regretted what she had already said. She certainly threw an appealing look at Lord Barnsdale, who, however, seemed to take no notice of her.

“‘Well,’ she continued with sudden resolution, ‘madame was very angry at this; she declared that Lady Barnsdale deserved a severe lesson; her extravagances were a positive scandal. “Not a penny will I give you to pay your gambling debts,” said madame; “and, moreover, I shall make it my business to inform my nephew of your goings-on whilst he is absent.”

“‘Lady Barnsdale was in a wild state of excitement. She begged and implored madame to say nothing to Lord Barnsdale about it, and did her very best to try to induce her to help her out of her difficulties, just this once more. But madame was obdurate. Thereupon Lady Barnsdale turned on her like a fury, called her every opprobrious name under the sun, and finally flounced out of the room, banging the door behind her.

“‘Madame was very much upset after this,’ continued Alice Holt, ‘and I was not a bit astonished when directly after dinner she rang for me, and asked to be put to bed. It was then nine o’clock.

“‘That is the last I saw of poor madame alive.

“‘She was very excited then, and told me that she was quite frightened of Lady Barnsdale – a gambler, she said, was as likely as not to become a thief, if opportunity arose. I offered to sleep on the sofa in the next room, for the old lady seemed quite nervous, a thing I have never known her to be. But she was too proud to own to nervousness, and she dismissed me finally, saying that she would lock her door, for once: a thing she scarcely ever did.’

“It was a curious story, to say the least of it, which Alice Holt thus told to an excited public. Cross-examined by the coroner, she never departed from a single point of it, her calm and presence of mind being only equalled throughout this trying ordeal by that of Lord Barnsdale, who sat seemingly unmoved whilst these terrible insinuations were made against his wife.

“But there was more to come. Sir Gilbert Culworth had been called; in the interests of justice, and in accordance with his duty as a citizen, he was forced to stand up and, all unwillingly, to add another tiny link to the chain of evidence that implicated his friend’s wife in this most terrible crime.

“Right loyally he tried to shield her in every possible way, but cross-questioned by the coroner, harassed nearly out of his senses, he was forced to admit two facts – namely, that Lady Barnsdale had lost nearly £800 at Bridge the day before the murder, and that she had paid her debt to himself in full, on the following morning, in gold and notes.

“He had been forced, much against his will, to show the notes to the police; unfortunately for the justice of the case, however, the numbers of these could not be directly traceable as having been in Mme Quesnard’s possession at the time of her death. No diaries or books of accounts of any kind were found. Like most French people, she arranged all her money affairs herself, receiving her vast dividends in foreign money, and converting this into English notes and gold, as occasion demanded, at the nearest moneychanger’s that happened to be handy.

“She had, like a great many foreigners, a holy horror of banks. She would have mistrusted the Bank of England itself; as for solicitors, she held them in perfect abhorrence.