all! I
remembers that very perticulerly. I thought it queer, as it was
so cold--everybody as can wears some sort o' coat this weather!"

A juryman who had been looking at a strip of newspaper, and
apparently not attending at all to what the witness was saying, here
jumped up and put out his hand.

"Yes?" the coroner turned to him.

"I just want to say that this 'ere witness--if her name is Lizzie
Cole, began by saying The Avenger was wearing a coat--a big, heavy
coat. I've got it here, in this bit of paper."

"I never said so!" cried the woman passionately. "I was made to
say all those things by the young man what came to me from the
Evening Sun. Just put in what 'e liked in 'is paper, 'e did--not
what I said at all!"

At this there was some laughter, quickly suppressed.

"In future," said the coroner severely, addressing the juryman, who
had now sat down again, "you must ask any question you wish to ask
through your foreman, and please wait till I have concluded my
examination of the witness."

But this interruption, this--this accusation, had utterly upset
the witness. She began contradicting herself hopelessly. The man
she had seen hurrying by in the semi-darkness below was tall--no,
he was short. He was thin--no, he was a stoutish young man. And
as to whether he was carrying anything, there was quite an
acrimonious discussion.

Most positively, most confidently, the witness declared that she had
seen a newspaper parcel under his arm; it had bulged out at the back
--so she declared. But it was proved, very gently and firmly, that
she had said nothing of the kind to the gentleman from Scotland Yard
who had taken down her first account--in fact, to him she had
declared confidently that the man had carried nothing--nothing at
all; that she had seen his arms swinging up and down.

One fact--if fact it could be called--the coroner did elicit.
Lizzie Cole suddenly volunteered the statement that as he had passed
her window he had looked up at her. This was quite a new statement.

"He looked up at you?" repeated the coroner. "You said nothing of
that in your examination."

"I said nothink because I was scared--nigh scared to death!"

"If you could really see his countenance, for we know the night was
dark and foggy, will you please tell me what he was like?"

But the coroner was speaking casually, his hand straying over his
desk; not a creature in that court now believed the woman's story.

"Dark!" she ans