'If anybody had observed you from outside while you were cutting the sandwiches, what would they have thought?'
'I suppose that I was preparing to have a picnic lunch.'
'They could not know, could they, that anyone was to share the lunch?'
'No. The idea of inviting the other two only came to me when I saw what a quantity of food I had.'
'So that if anyone had entered the house during your absence and placed morphine in one of those sandwiches, it would be you they were attempting to poison?'
'Well, yes, it would.'
'What happened when you had all arrived back at the house?'
'We went into the morning-room. I fetched the sandwiches and handed them to the other two.'
'Did you drink anything with them?'
'I drank water. There was beer on a table, but Nurse Hopkins and Mary preferred tea. Nurse Hopkins went into the pantry and made it. She brought it in on a tray and Mary poured it out.'
'Did you have any?'
'No.'
'But Mary Gerrard and Nurse Hopkins both drank tea?'
'Yes.'
'What happened next?'
'Nurse Hopkins went and turned the gas-ring off.'
'Leaving you alone with Mary Gerrard?'
'Yes.'
'What happened next?'
'After a few minutes I picked up the tray and the sandwich plate and carried them into the pantry. Nurse Hopkins was there, and we washed them together.'
'Did Nurse Hopkins have her cuffs off at the time?'
'Yes. She was washing the things, while I dried them.'
'Did you make a certain remark to her about a scratch on her wrist?'
'I asked her if she had pricked herself.'
'What did she reply?'
'She said, 'It was a thorn from the rose tree outside the lodge. I'll get it out presently.' '
'What was her manner at the time?'
'I think she was feeling the heat. She was perspiring and her face was a queer color.'
'What happened after that?'
'We went upstairs, and she helped me with my aunt's things.'
'What time was it when you went downstairs again?'
'It must have been an hour later.'
'Where was Mary Gerrard?'
'She was sitting in the morning-room. She was breathing very queerly and was in a coma. I rang up the doctor on Nurse Hopkins's instructions. He arrived just before she died.'
Sir Edwin squared his shoulders dramatically. 'Miss Carlisle, did you kill Mary Gerrard?' (That's your cue. Head up, eyes straight.)
'No!'
II
Sir Samuel Attenbury. A sick beating at one's heart. Now – now she was at the mercy of an enemy! No more gentleness, no more questions to which she knew the answers! But he began quite mildly.
'You were engaged to be married, you have told us, to Mr. Roderick Welman?'
'Yes.'
'You were fond of him?'
'Very fond.'
'I put it to you that you were deeply in love with Roderick Welman and that you were wildly jealous of his love for Mary Gerrard?'
'No.'
(Did it sound properly indignant, that 'no'?)
Sir Samuel said menacingly, 'I put it to you that you deliberately planned to put this girl out of the way, in the hope that Roderick Welman would return to you.'
'Certainly not.'
(Disdainful – a little weary. That was better.)
The questions went on. It was just like a dream – a bad dream – a nightmare… Question after question – horrible, hurting questions. Some of them she was prepared for, some took her unawares. Always trying to remember her part. Never once to let go, to say, 'Yes, I did hate her… Yes, I did want her dead… Yes, all the time I was cutting the sandwiches I was thinking of her dying…'
To remain calm and cool and answer as briefly and passionlessly as possible… Fighting… Fighting every inch of the way… Over now… The horrible man was sitting down. And the kindly, unctuous voice of Sir Edwin Bulmer was asking a few more questions. Easy, pleasant questions, designed to remove any bad impression she might have made under cross-examination. She was back again in the dock. Looking at the jury, wondering…
(Roddy. Roddy standing there, blinking a little, hating it all. Roddy – looking somehow – not quite real.)
(But nothing's real any more. Everything is whirling round in a devilish way. Black's white, and top is bottom and east is west… And I'm not Elinor Carlisle; I'm 'the accused.' And, whether they hang me or whether they let me go, nothing will ever be the same again. If there were just something – just one sane thing to hold to…)
(Peter Lord's face, perhaps, with its freckles and its extraordinary air of being just the same as usual…)
Where had Sir Edwin got to now?
'Will you tell us what was the state of Miss Carlisle's feelings toward you?'
Roddy answered in his precise voice, 'I should say she was deeply attached to me, but certainly not passionately in love with me.'
'You considered your engagement satisfactory?'
'Oh, quite. We had a good deal in common.'
'Will you tell the jury, Mr. Welman, exactly why that engagement was broken off?'
'Well, after Mrs. Welman died it pulled us up, I think, with a bit of a shock. I didn't like the idea of marrying a rich woman when I myself was penniless. Actually the engagement was dissolved by mutual consent. We were both rather relieved.'
'Now, will you tell us just what your relations were with Mary Gerrard?'
(Oh, Roddy, poor Roddy, how you must hate all this!)
'I thought her very lovely.'
'Were you in love with her?'
'Just a little.'
'When was the last time you saw her?'
'Let me see. It must have been the 5th or 6th of July.'
Sir Edwin said, a touch of steel in his voice, 'You saw her after that, I think.'
'No, I went abroad – to Venice and Dalmatia.'
'You returned to England – when?'
'When I received a telegram – let me see – on the 1st of August, it must have been.'
'But you were actually in England on July 27th, I think.'
'No.'
'Come, now, Mr. Welman. You are on oath, remember. Is it not a fact that your passport shows that you returned to England on July 25th and left it again on the night of the 27th?'
