"And at the time when Lucy Towers shot her husband you were living at 25 Laburnum Grove?" "I was." "Could you tell us the date of the shooting?" "The fifth of July." "Were you actually in the house when the crime took place?" "I was not." The patness of the cockney woman's answers warned Ronnie that she must have been coached in her part. It seemed to him, listening to her every carefully-pronounced syllable, that a purpose, a definite, a personal, and a premeditated purpose, underlay them. "For how long before the fifth of July had you been living at Laburnum Grove?" went on Brunton. "Two years." "Had you known Mr. and Mrs. Towers for some considerable time?" "I had. And Bob Fielding." "Confine yourself to answering my questions, please. For how long had you know William Towers and his wife?" "Eighteen months. Ever since they came to live at the Grove." The K.C. paused, and looked warningly at the jury before putting his next question. "Then can you tell us, of your own knowledge, whether, during those eighteen months, the accused was on good terms with her husband?" The woman--purposely as it appeared to Ronnie--hesitated; and Brunton, leaning forward, altered his formula. "Did they, as husband and wife, get on well with one another?" "Well, I shouldn't like to say they was on the best of terms." "Were they on bad terms?" "Yuss." The voice, hitherto so careful, lapsed into slum cockney. "Yuss. She was a bad wife to Bill, was Lucy. Never did nothing for him." At that his lordship made as though to put a question, and the examiner changed his line. "Now I want to ask you: have you ever heard the dead man complain about his wife?" "Not till Bob Fielding came to live at the Grove." "But after Robert Fielding came, he did complain about her?" "Yuss, often." "Can you tell us the sort of thing he used to say?" "Yuss. He said that he could never get nothing done because she was always muckin' about with Bob." With any other examiner except Brunton, the coarse phrase would have elicited laughter from the spectators. But Brunton was taking no chances. Quickly he carried on his witness's story. "You gathered then, I take it, that William Towers was not satisfied with his wife's behavior?" "Satisfied?" The black eyes under the feathered hat glinted. "Nah. He wasn't never satisfied, with 'er. Not after Bob Fielding came to the Grove." "Would you describe William Towers as jealous of Robert Fielding?" "Nah. Not jealous, but suspicious." "Suspicious, eh? Had he, to your knowledge, any reasons for that suspicion? Have you personally, for instance, ever seen any act on the part of the accused which might give rise to suspicion in her husband's mind?" "Well----" Again it seemed to Ronnie, weighing every inflection of the cockney voice, that both the hesitant monosyllable and the answer which followed it were premeditated. "Well, I've seen her going to 'is room often enough." "Whose room?" "Bob Fielding's."