"Could they have done so without your hearing them?"
"Was the car going to or coming from Newhaven?"
"Then it must have stopped at the foot of the long lane."
"Yes, sir; that's just about where I thought it was."
"Is there a path connecting Long Lane with the highroad?"
"What time was it when you heard the car? Now try and be very accurate."
"I wouldn't like to swear, sir, but I think it was between eleven and twelve."
"No, sir, 'e was fast asleep, but I wasn't feeling very well, so I had got up thinking I'd make myself a cup of tea, and just then I 'eard a car come whizzing along, and then there was a bang. Oh, says I, they've burst their wheel, that's what they've done, me knowing about cars. I know it takes a bit of mending, a wheel does, so I wasn't surprised when I 'eard no more of them for a time--and I 'ad just about forgotten all about them, so I had, when I 'ears them move off."
"Well, sir"--the woman fidgeted uneasily, "I thought--but I shouldn't like to swear to it--not on the Bible--but I fancied I 'eard a cry."
"What sort of a cry? Was it a man or a woman's?"
"I really couldn't say--and perhaps what I 'eard was not a cry at all----"
"Well, well--this is most important. A motor-car that is driven at half-past eleven at night to the foot of a lane which leads nowhere but to the castle grounds, and then returns in the direction it came from--very extraordinary--very. We must look into this," exclaimed the coroner.
Dr. Stuart-Smith to Mr. Peter Thompkins, Geralton Castle, Newhaven.
"Lady Wilmersley showed signs of returning consciousness at half-past five yesterday afternoon. I was at once sent for, but when I arrived she had fallen asleep. She woke again at nine o'clock and this time asked where she was. She spoke indistinctly and did not seem to comprehend what the nurse said to her. When I reached the patient, I found her sitting up in bed. Her pulse was irregular; her temperature, subnormal. I am glad to be able to assure you that Lady Wilmersley is at present perfectly rational. She is, however, suffering from hysterical amnesia complicated by aphasia, but I trust this is only a temporary affection. At first she hesitated over the simplest words, but before I left she could talk with tolerable fluency.