"No." Miss Pembroke gave a slight shudder, which seemed to be not without its effect on the coroner.
"Why not?"
At this she looked extremely white and her lip quivered slightly, but with a sudden accession of extreme dignity she drew herself up proudly and answered:
"I saw no occasion to do so, and I deemed the proper thing was to send at once for our family physician."
Still the coroner eyed her in a peculiar way, I thought, as, without cessation, he continued to question her.
"When did you last see your uncle alive?"
"When he left the drawing-room last evening, to retire to his bedroom."
"Was he apparently as well as usual?"
"Quite so. His gout was troublesome, but he had no other ailment that I know of."
"At what hour was this?"
"About ten o'clock."
"Was your uncle in a bad temper when he left you?"
"He was."
"Especially so?"
"Yes."
"What was the reason?"
"He had been looking over the household accounts, and he accused me of extravagance."
"Did he often do this?"
"Invariably, upon looking over the bills."
"You always expected it, then?"
"Always," and Miss Pembroke's face showed an expression of resignation, that made it pathetic to look upon. What that poor little girl must have suffered from that parsimonious old man!
"Did your Uncle show anger with you for any other cause?"
Miss Pembroke hesitated. And then, though with a rising color in her pale face, she replied, "He did."
"I'm sorry, Miss Pembroke, to be unpleasantly inquisitive, but it is imperative that I should know the facts of the case. What was the reason of your uncle's anger, aside from the question of your household bills?"
"He was angry with me because I refused to become engaged to Mr. Leroy."
"Mr. Graham Leroy, your uncle's lawyer?"
"Yes, that is the man."
"Your uncle wished you to marry him?"
"He did."
"Mr. Leroy has asked you to become his wife?"
"He has."
The cold, even tones of the two speakers, and the quiet expressionless faces seemed to rob this strange conversation of all hint of personality. For myself, I felt a glad thrill that Janet Pembroke could speak thus dispassionately of the man with whom I had feared she was in love. And, yet, in love with him she might be, for as a lawyer, I knew much of the vagaries and contradictions of woman's perversity; and I realized that the mere fact of Miss Pembroke's excessive calm might mean only a hiding of excessive emotion.
Inexorably the Coroner went on.
"Did your uncle promise you a large sum of money if you would marry Mr. Leroy?"
Miss Pembroke flashed a reproachful glance at Charlotte, who had of course brought about this question, but she answered, in a steady voice: "It was not of the nature of a bargain, as your words seem to imply."
"But you had asked him for a large sum of money?"
"I had done so."
"You asked him last evening?"
"Yes."
"Knowing that he had a large sum of money in the house?"
"I——I was not sure that he had." It was the first time that the girl had stammered or hesitated in her speech, and though it told against her in the minds of the jurors, yet to me it only showed a giving way of her enforced calm.
"What did you want the money for?" said the Coroner, suddenly.
Miss Pembroke looked at him, and now, her eyes flashed like those of an accusing goddess. "You have no right to ask that!" she exclaimed, "and I refuse to tell."
"It certainly has no bearing on the case," said George Lawrence, and his haughty, disdainful tones seemed like a sneer at the way the Coroner was conducting matters.
Mr. Ross turned red, but he did not repeat his question. Instead, he took up a new line of query.
"Had your Uncle any enemies that you know of?"
"I do not know exactly what you mean by enemies," replied Miss Pembroke; "owing to his unfortunate disposition, my uncle had no friends, but I do not know of anyone whom I would consider an aggressive enemy.
"Your uncle went to his room, you say, at about ten o'clock?"
"Yes, that was his usual hour for retiring."
"And after you yourself retired, did you hear anything in the night—any noise, that might have seemed unusual?"
"N—n—no," came a hesitating answer, after a considerable pause. Surely, no one could doubt that this girl was not telling all she knew! The evidence that she gave was fairly forced from her; it came hesitatingly, and her statements were unconvincing. She needed help, she needed counsel; she was too young and inexperienced to cope with the situation in which she found herself. But though I judged her thus leniently, the Coroner did not, and speaking almost sharply, he said:
"Consider carefully, Miss Pembroke. Are you sure you heard no noise in the night?"
Her calm seemed to have returned. "In an apartment house," she said, "there are always unexplainable noises. It is impossible to tell whether they come from the halls, the other apartments or the elevator. But I heard no noise that I considered suspicious or of evil import. Nothing to indicate what,—what must have taken place." She shuddered and buried her face in her hands as if to shut out an awful, imaginary sight.
"Then when you last saw or heard your uncle he was leaving you in a fit of rage?"
"Yes."
When Janet said this her eyes filled with tears, and I could readily understand how it hurt the tender-hearted young girl to remember that her uncle's last words to her had been uttered in anger. This, however, did not seem to affect the coroner. He went steadily on, with his voice singularly lacking in inflections.
"What did you do after your uncle retired?"
"I sat in the drawing-room and read for an hour or so."
"And then?"
"Then I put out the lights and went to bed."
Janet seemed to think that this ended her examination, and started to return to her seat; but the coroner stopped her.
"Miss Pembroke," he said, "I must ask you a few more questions. Where was your servant?"
"She had gone to bed some time earlier—about nine o'clock, I should say."
"So that after your uncle left you you were alone?"
"Yes."
"And when you went to bed you put out the lights for the night?"
"Yes."
"You——" The coroner hesitated for the fraction of a second, and then cleared his throat and went on: "You put the night-chain on the front door?"
"Yes." Janet spoke as if the matter were of no importance.
"Then—pardon me, Miss Pembroke—but if you put the chain on last night, at eleven, and Charlotte took it off this morning, at eight, how was it possible for a marauder to enter, as the inspector tells me he finds all the windows fastened, except those which Charlotte says she opened herself this morning?"