"Oh, just around my own place; and for a moment I strolled over here because the Steps looked so beautiful in the moonlight." "You were alone?" "I was. I have no house guests at present, save the Count; and as my brother, who lives with me, is on a Western trip, I was alone, and I walked about to kill time until Count Charlier should return after his bridge game over here." "Did you walk near the house, while on the Garden Steps' estate?" asked Scofield, scenting a possible espionage of her titled visitor. "Oh, no!" and the witness bristled with indignation; "why should I! I was not really an acquaintance of Miss Carrington, merely a neighbor." "Beg pardon, ma'am, but I saw you on the conservatory verandah," said Haskins, in a deprecatory way. "That is not true, Mr. Coroner," said the lady, glancing scornfully at the butler. "I beg you will not accept a servant's statement in preference to mine!" "You are sure of this, Haskins?" said the Inspector gravely. "Yes, sir. Sure, sir." and the man looked doggedly certain, though a little scared. "And you deny it?" went on Scofield to Mrs. Frothingham. "I most certainly do! How absurd for me to be over here, and how more than absurd for me to deny it if I were!" This seemed sensible. Why should she deny it? And mightn't the butler be mistaken? Or deliberately falsifying? If there were collusion or criminal assistance by any of the servants, surely the word of all of them must be mistrusted unless proven. And, too, what could have brought Mrs. Frothingham to the verandah of a home where she was not an accepted guest? Or, could she have been spying on the Count? For it had slowly entered the Coroner's not very alert mind that perhaps the volatile widow had her own plans for the Count's future, and Miss Carrington did not figure in them. The manner of the witness bore out this theory. She was self-conscious and at times confused. She frequently looked at the Count and then quickly averted her gaze. She blushed and stammered when speaking his name or referring to him. In a word, she acted as a woman might act in regard to a man of whom she was jealous. And the situation bore it out. If Mrs. Frothingham had matrimonial designs on her distinguished guest, would she not naturally resent his visits to a rich neighbor? Mrs. Frothingham was not rich, and she may well have been afraid of Miss Carrington's charm of gold, which could cause many a man to overlook anything else that might be lacking. Coroner Scofield was getting more and more tangled in the mazes of this extraordinary case. He was practically at his wits' end. At last he blurted out: "It is impossible, it seems, to get a coherent, or even plausible story from a woman! Is there any man present, who knows any of the details of the happenings of Tuesday evening and night?" There was a moment's silence at this rather petulant speech, and then Stephen Illsley rose, and speaking very gravely, said: