ury would be, and so any one spoke, if he chose, and the coroner seemed
really glad when suggestions were offered him.

At this point Philip Crawford rose.

"It is impossible," he said, "not to see whither these questions are
tending. But you are on the wrong tack, Mr. Coroner. No matter how
evidence may seem to point toward Florence Lloyd's association with this
crime, it is only seeming. That gold bag might have been hers and it
might not. But if she says it isn't, why, then it isn't! Notwithstanding
the state of affairs between my brother and his niece, there is not
the shadow of a possibility that the young woman is implicated in
the slightest degree, and the sooner you leave her name out of
consideration, and turn your search into other channels, the sooner you
will find the real criminal."

It was not so much the words of Philip Crawford, as the sincere way in
which they were spoken, that impressed me. Surely he was right; surely
this beautiful girl was neither principal nor accessory in the awful
crime which, by a strange coincidence, gave to her her fortune and her
lover.

"Mr. Crawford's right," said Lemuel Porter. "If this jury allows itself
to be misled by a gold purse and two petals of a yellow rose, we are
unworthy to sit on this case. Why, Mr. Coroner, the long French windows
in the office were open, or, at least, unfastened all through the night.
We have that from the butler's testimony. He didn't lock them last
night; they were found unlocked this morning. Therefore, I hold that
an intruder, either man or woman, may have come in during the night,
accomplished the fatal deed, and departed without any one being the
wiser. That this intruder was a woman, is evidenced by the bag she left
behind her. For, as Mr. Crawford has said, if Miss Lloyd denies the
ownership of that bag, it is not hers."

After all, these declarations were proof, of a sort. If Mr. Porter and
Mr. Philip Crawford, who had known Florence Lloyd for years, spoke thus
positively of her innocence, it could not be doubted.

And then the voice of Parmalee again sounded in my ears.

"Of course Mr. Porter and Mr. Crawford would stand up for Miss Lloyd; it
would be strange if they didn't. And of course, Mrs. Pierce will do all
she can to divert suspicion. But the evidences are against her."

"They only seem to be," I corrected. "Until we prove the gold bag and
the yellow rose to be hers; there is no evidence against her at all."

"She al