Roger looked up. He had not expected Mrs. Williamson to be called; she had played so small a part in the proceedings. What could they want her for? Just confirmatory evidence about the party, no doubt; though goodness knew they had had enough of that, one would have thought, already.
'I do not propose to ask you any questions about the earlier part of the evening, Mrs. Williamson. I think we are quite clear on that. I want you to tell the jury just one thing: Did you go up on Mr. Stratton's roof at a certain time that night?'
'Yes.'
Roger stiffened. 'My heavens!' he thought, appalled, 'she saw him do it!'
'What time was that?'
'Just after Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Mitchell had gone.'
Roger looked at Colin. 'What on earth . . .' he whispered. Colin shrugged his shoulders.
'Yes. That would be just about an hour after Mrs. Stratten had left the ballroom, would it not?'
'I think so, yes.'
'Yes. Did you go up for any particular reason?'
'No. I just wanted to get away from people for a bit. I wanted to be alone, in the night air.'
'Yes, yes. Of course. Very understandable. Now will you explain very carefully what you did on the roof, Mrs. Williamson, if you please?'
Roger and Colin again exchanged glances of surprise.
'I stood for a minute or two, enjoying the cool air; and then I climbed up the ladder onto the upper roof. I ...'
'Yes. Just one minute, please, Mrs. Williamson. I think I had better explain to you, gentlemen - we shall get it in evidence later, from Superintendent Jamieson, but I think I had better explain to you now that Mr. Stratton's roof is rather a peculiar one. Apart from the large flat portion with which we have been concerned so far, there is another and smaller flat part, formed by roofing in the space between two gables which run across the end of the large flat portion. There is a small flight of iron steps fixed close to the door out onto the roof, by which access to this upper part may be obtained; and it is that staircase to which the witness is referring. Yes, Mrs. Williamson?'
'I climbed up the staircase onto the upper roof and stood there for a moment or two, looking at the lights of London in the distance which I could just see from there. The night was so beautiful that I thought I would take a chair up there and sit for a few minutes, alone. I didn't wish to be disturbed, and I thought no one would be likely to find me up there. I went down the stairs again to get a chair, and saw one lying under the gallows. I picked it up and was on my way back to the staircase, when I heard my husband calling, so I put the chair down and went in again.'
'Yes. Do you remember where you put the chair down?'
'It must have been between the gallows and the iron staircase, but I don't remember exactly where.'
'The iron staircase being next to the door into the house. The point is, gentlemen, that we have to establish that the chair which we have heard from three witnesses was lying in the middle of the roof was actually the chair which Mrs. Williamson tells us she moved from underneath the gallows, and that explains why it was not in that position later. Yes, Mrs. Williamson? You say that you put the chair down. Did you put it down carefully, or did you drop it?'
'I put it down carelessly, and I heard it fall over behind me, but I didn't wait to pick it up.'
'Exactly. Now we know, from the medical evidence, that Mrs. Stratton must have been dead when you picked the chair up from close beside her. You did not realize that?'
'No,' said Mrs. Williamson, with an unfeigned shudder.
'You did not, in fact, know then that she was missing at all?'
'No.'
'You said that the chair was lying under the gallows. Can you amplify that at all? Was it under one beam of the gallows, for instance?'
'No. So far as I remember it was just about under the middle of the triangle.'
'In your opinion, could Mrs. Stratton have thrust it there, in the event of her having made use of it for the purpose of hanging herself?'
'Oh, yes; easily.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Williamson. That is all.'
Roger was clutching Colin's arm in a frenzied hold.
'Colin! Do you realize? It was suicide. She did do it, after all,' he whispered excitedly, under the hum which accompanied Mrs. Williamson back to her seat. 'We've had all our trouble for nothing.'
'I never did believe it was that poor wee David,' returned Colin stolidly.
The verdict never actually had been in question. The coroner's summing up was brief and kind. Missing an opportunity which would have brought joy to many of his tribe, he did not find it his duty to deliver a lecture to Ronald Stratton on the morbid compliment which that gentleman had thought fit to pay his distinguished guest, though he did feel bound to point out that the matter of suggestion on an unbalanced, impressionable mind could not be disregarded. Having got that off his chest, he proceeded to sum up the evidence in such a way as to indicate his own opinion quite unmistakably and suggest that, in such a simple case, any other opinion was impossible; as indeed, on the evidence that had been heard, it was. The mentality of the dead woman only underlined the obvious conclusion.
'After all, gentlemen,' the coroner concluded, 'all you have to do is to satisfy yourselves first as to whether Mrs. Stratton died from the effects of strangulation, and if so whether that was brought about entirely by her own unaided effort. If you are satisfied on those two points there is, practically speaking, only one verdict you can return.'
The jury returned it.
CHAPTER XV
LAST GLIMPSES
ROGER and Colin were walking back from Westerford to Sedge Park for lunch. There would have been room for them in the Williamsons' car, but after a short but fervent conversation outside the courtroom Roger had decided that he had a great deal of emotion to walk off. He had also decided that Colin should help him to walk it off.
'She told the police yesterday morning!' Roger was declaiming. 'Happened to go up on the roof to see what that husband of hers had been up to, and told the superintendent himself. But did she think of saying a word about it to me? Oh, dear, no.'
'Why the dickens should she?' Colin asked reasonably.
Roger, however, was in no mood for reason. 'Well, she might at least have mentioned it to Ronald, or somebody. 'Didn't think it was of the slightest importance!' My religious aunt!'
'Come now, Roger, don't take it to heart.'
'Yes, but think what terrible bloomers we might have made. It was only by the grace of heaven that I didn't speak up this morning and burst out with the chair being under the gallows all the time we were cutting the body down. I should certainly have said so if I'd been asked.'
'Then you'd have committed perjury,' Colin pointed out with equanimity.
'No, I shouldn't.'
'How's that?'
'Because I didn't take any oath - as you or anyone else could have seen if you'd been using your eyes. Nor, it may interest you to know, did Mrs. Lefroy.'
'Ach, don't quibble, man.'
'It isn't a quibble. Still, we needn't go into that now. The point is that if Lilian Williamson had only mentioned that one enormous fact, Ronald wouldn't have thought his brother a murderer, I should have been spared a great deal of unnecessary work, and many consciences would have been saved some nasty hard knocks.'
