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?'
'I didn't notice it at first. I stumbled over it. That's how I remember it being there.'
'Oh, indeed? You stumbled over it?'
'Yes. As a matter of fact I barked my shin on it.'
'Really? Is that so? Perhaps you would show me the place? I'm a medical man myself, you know, and . . .'
'Oh, but it's nothing.' Colin came round the table and solemnly pulled up his trouser leg; the coroner as solemnly examined the slight scar thus displayed.
'I see. Yes. Nothing very serious, as you say. Still, it's advisable always to treat a wound with proper care, however slight it may appear. Yes. This chair, then - how far would you estimate its distance from the gallows?'
'About twelve to fifteen feet.'
At last the coroner came out in the open. 'Was it too far, in your opinion, from the gallows, for Mrs. Stratton to have kicked it there when she - er - if she launched herself into eternity?'
'Yes.'
'Thank you, Mr. Nicolson. That is all. Eh, what's that? What? The doctors want . . . Yes, very well, very well. I'll take the medical evidence next. Dr. ... let me see, yes, Dr. Chalmers first, please.'
Colin sat down again, quite calmly, next to Roger.
'I suppose you know,' Roger whispered savagely, 'that you've hanged David Stratton - nothing more nor less than hanged him?'
The evidence of all three doctors was flawless. Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Mitchell both agreed that, death must have taken place very soon after Mrs. Stratton left the ballroom, perhaps within a few minutes, almost certainly not more than half an hour; Dr. Bryce had no doubt at all that the bruises on the body could have been caused, and he appeared to take it for granted that they had been caused, by the very violent Apache dance in which, he understood, Mrs. Stratton had indulged with Mr. Ronald Stratton. It was quite evident to Roger, listening moodily, that the three doctors had had a conference last night, at which the ideas he himself had been at pains to plant in the mind of Dr. Mitchell had borne unanimous fruit.
Lovely words and phrases, such as 'ego - mania,' 'alcoholic depression,' 'acute melancholia,' 'suicidal subject,' 'post - mortem staining,' filled the admiring courtroom.
Mrs. Stratton had been as mad as a hatter, and the doctors did not hesitate to say so. Unfortunately, however, they were equally firmly agreed that it would have been totally impossible to certify her or put her under restraint in any way except with her own consent. And mad though she had been, she had not been as mad as that. Not a single awkward note marred the excellent doctors' discourse.
But Roger found small solace in his foresight. Little good all that was now, when Williamson, Mrs. Lefroy, and Colin between them had taken his beautiful case for suicide and torn it into little shreds under his nose.
Well, he had done his best for David Stratton. The man had deserved a second chance, and Roger had given him one. Anything that happened now must be his own responsibility.
The coroner was mumbling something. '. . . one more witness, before we go on to the police evidence, with which I shall conclude this inquiry. Mrs. . . . yes, Mrs. Williamson, please.'
