"You say that Mr. Bellingham could not have left the house because you were watching all the time. Where were you while you were watching?"
"I was in the kitchen. I could see the front gate from the kitchen window."
"You say that you laid the table for two. Where did you lay it?"
"Could you see the front gate from the dining-room?"
"No, but I could see the study door. The study is opposite the dining-room."
"Do you have to come upstairs to get from the kitchen to the dining-room?"
"Then, might not Mr. Bellingham have left the house while you were coming up the stairs?"
"I suggest that Mr. Bellingham left the house quietly while you were on the stairs?"
"Because I should have seen him if he had."
"But I mean when you were on the stairs."
"He was in the study when I was on the stairs."
"Because I showed him in there and he hadn't come out."
Mr. Loram paused and took a deep breath, and his lordship flattened his eyelids.
"Is there a side gate to the premises?" the barrister resumed wearily.
"Yes. It opens into a narrow lane at the side of the house."
"And there is a French window in the study, is there not?"
"Yes. It opens on to the small grass plot opposite the side gate."
"The window and the gate both have catches on the [Transcriber's note: possibly missing words: 'inside. Could it'] have been possible for Mr. Bellingham to let himself out into the lane?"
"The window and gate both have catches on the inside. He could have got out that way, but, of course he didn't."
"Well, no gentleman would go creeping out the back way like a thief."
"Did you look to see if the French window was shut and fastened after you missed Mr. Bellingham?"
"I looked at it when we shut the house up for the night. It was then shut and fastened on the inside."
"That gate was shut and latched. You have to slam the gate to make the latch fasten, so no one could have gone out of the gate without being heard."
Here the examination-in-chief ended, and Mr. Loram sat down with an audible sigh of relief. Miss Dobbs was about to step down from the witness-box when Mr. Heath rose to cross-examine.
"Did you see Mr. Bellingham in a good light?" he asked.
"Pretty good. It was dark outside, but the hall-lamp was alight."
"Kindly look at this"--here a small object was passed across to the witness. "It is a trinket that Mr. Bellingham is stated to have carried suspended from his watch-guard. Can you remember if he was wearing it in that manner when he came to the house?"