"No, sir, not a soul--barring Alfred Jones and Miss Rye Alfred Jones came back after he first went out, saying that he had forgot something, and he went upstairs to fetch it. He wasn't there no time; and it was while he was up there that Mr. Greatorex came down and left. Soon after that, Miss Rye, she come in, and went upstairs, and was there ever so long." "What do you call 'ever so long'?" "Well, sir, I'm sure she was there a quarter of an hour," returned the witness, in a quick, positive sort of tone, as if the fact of Miss Rye's being there so long displeased her. "I ought to know; and me a-standing inside the doorsill, afraid to move off it for fear she should come out." "Were you alone?" "Well, yes, sir, I was. Mary, the housemaid at the big linendraper's next door but one, can bear me out that I was, for she was there all the time, talking to me." Perhaps the coroner thought the answer savoured of Hibernianism, for something like a smile crossed his face. "And you heard no sound whatever upstairs all the evening, Susan Marks? You saw no one, except the persons mentioned, go in or come out; no stranger?" "I never heard no sound, and never saw no stranger at all," said the witness, earnestly. "I never even saw Godfrey Pitman leave. But I b'lieve he was away earlier." The concluding assertion fell with some surprise on the room; there ensued a pause, and the coroner lifted his head sharply. Godfrey Pitman? Who was Godfrey Pitman? "Who is Godfrey Pitman, witness?" "It was the lodger at the top of the house, sir. He had the front bedroom there--and a fine dance it was to carry his meals up. Missis gave him the offer of eating them in the little room off the kitchen, but I suppose he was too proud to come down. Anyway, he _didn't_ come." "Is he lodging there now?" "Oh no, sir, he was only there a week and a day, and left on the Monday. He was a traveller in the spectacles line, he told me, passing through the town; which he likewise wore himself sometimes. Well, sir, I never see him go at all, and he didn't never give me a shilling for having waited on him and carried his trays up all them stairs." The girl had told apparently what she knew, and the coroner requested Mrs. Jones to come in again. He questioned her about the lodger. "It was a person of the name of Pitman," she answered, readily. "He was only passing through the town, and occupied the room for a week." "Who was he?" asked the coroner. "Did you know him?" "I didn't know him from Adam," answered Mrs. Jones, tartly; "I didn't know anything about him. I called him Alletha Rye's lodger, not mine, for it was she who picked him up. He may have told her all about himself, for aught I can say: she seemed to take a desperate fancy to him, and mended his travelling bag. He didn't tell me. Not but what he seemed a civil, respectable man." "When did he leave you, Mrs. Jones?"