The Gold Bag Part 15

"Did Miss Lloyd express no interest as to whether he had changed his will or not?"

"Miss Lloyd didn't mention the will, or her engagement, to me at all. We talked entirely of other matters."

"Was Miss Lloyd in her usual mood or spirits?"

"She seemed a little quiet, but not at all what you might call worried."

"Was not this strange when she was fully expecting to be deprived of her entire fortune?"

"It was not strange for Miss Lloyd. She rarely talks of her own affairs.

We spent an evening similar in all respects to our usual evening when we do not have guests."

"And you both went upstairs at ten. Was that unusually early for you?"

"Well, unless we have guests, we often go at ten or half-past ten."

"And did you see Miss Lloyd again that night?"

"Yes; about half an hour later, I went to her room for a book I wanted."

"Miss Lloyd had not retired?"

"No; she asked me to sit down for awhile and chat."

"Did you do so?"

"Only for a few moments. I was interested in the book I had come for, and I wanted to take it away to my own room to read."

"And Miss Lloyd, then, did not seem dispirited or in any way in an unusual mood?"

"Not that I noticed. I wasn't quizzing her or looking into her eyes to see what her thoughts were, for it didn't occur to me to do so. I knew her uncle had dealt her a severe blow, but as she didn't open the subject, of course I couldn't discuss it with her. But I did think perhaps she wanted to be by herself to consider the matter, and that was one reason why I didn't stay and chat as she had asked me to."

"Perhaps she really wanted to discuss the matter with you."

"Perhaps she did; but in that case she should have said so. Florence knows well enough that I am always ready to discuss or sympathize with her in any matter, but I never obtrude my opinions. So as she said nothing to lead me to think she wanted to talk to me especially, I said good-night to her."

VIII. FURTHER INQUIRY

"Did you happen to notice, Mrs. Pierce, whether Miss Lloyd was wearing a yellow rose when you saw her in her room?"

Mrs. Pierce hesitated. She looked decidedly embarra.s.sed, and seemed disinclined to answer. But she might have known that to hesitate and show embarra.s.sment was almost equivalent to an affirmative answer to the coroner's question. At last she replied,

"I don't know; I didn't notice."

This might have been a true statement, but I think no one in the room believed it. The coroner tried again.

"Try to think, Mrs. Pierce. It is important that we should know if Miss Lloyd was wearing a yellow rose."

"Yes," flared out Mrs. Pierce angrily, "so that you can prove she went down to her uncle's office later and dropped a piece of her rose there!

But I tell you I don't remember whether she was wearing a rose or not, and it wouldn't matter if she had on forty roses! If Florence Lloyd says she didn't go down-stairs, she didn't."

"I think we all believe in Miss Lloyd's veracity," said Mr. Monroe, "but it is necessary to discover where those rose petals in the library came from. You saw the flowers in her room, Mrs. Pierce?"

"Yes, I believe I did. But I paid no attention to them, as Florence nearly always has flowers in her room."

"Would you have heard Miss Lloyd if she had gone down-stairs after you left her?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Pierce, doubtfully.

"Is your room next to hers?"

"No, not next."

"Is it on the same corridor?"

"No."

"Around a corner?"

"Yes."

"And at some distance?"

"Yes." Mrs. Pierce's answers became more hesitating as she saw the drift of Mr. Monroe's questions. Clearly, she was trying to shield Florence, if necessary, at the expense of actual truthfulness.

"Then," went on Mr. Monroe, inexorably, "I understand you to say that you think you would have heard Miss Lloyd, had she gone down-stairs, although your room is at a distance and around a corner and the hall and stairs are thickly carpeted. Unless you were listening especially, Mrs.

Pierce, I think you would scarcely have heard her descend."

"Well, as she didn't go down, of course I didn't hear her," snapped Mrs.

Pierce, with the feminine way of settling an argument by an unprovable statement.

Mr. Monroe began on another tack.

"When you went to Miss Lloyd's room," he said, "was the maid, Elsa, there?"

"Miss Lloyd had just dismissed her for the night."

"What was Miss Lloyd doing when you went to her room?"

"She was looking over some gowns that she proposed sending to the cleaner's."

The coroner fairly jumped. He remembered the newspaper clipping of a cleaner's advertis.e.m.e.nt, which was even now in the gold bag before him.

Though all the jurors had seen it, it had not been referred to in the presence of the women.

Recovering himself at once, he said quietly "Was not that rather work for Miss Lloyd's maid?"