“You found this scrap in a crack in the flooring?”
“Yes.”
“Part of a label?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find the rest of that label?”
“No.”
“You did not find any glass tube or any bottle to which that label might have been affixed?”
“No.”
“What was the state of that scrap of paper when you found it? Was it clean or dirty?”
“It was quite fresh.”
“What do you mean, quite fresh?”
“There was surface dust on it from the flooring, but it was quite clean othe
rwise.”
“It could not have been there for any length of time?”
“No, it had found its way there quite recently.”
“You would say, then, that it had come there on the actual day you found it—not earlier?”
“Yes.”
With a grunt Sir Edwin sat down.
V
Nurse Hopkins in the box, her face red and self-righteous.
All the same, Elinor thought, Nurse Hopkins was not so frightening as Inspector Brill. It was the inhumanity of Inspector Brill that was so paralysing. He was so definitely part of a great machine. Nurse Hopkins had human passions, prejudices.
“Your name is Jessie Hopkins?”
“Yes.”
“You are a certificated District Nurse and you reside at Rose Cottage, Hunterbury?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you on the 28th of June last?”
“I was at Hunterbury Hall.”
“You had been sent for?”
“Yes. Mrs. Welman had had a stroke—the second. I went to assist Nurse O’Brien until a second nurse could be found.”
“Did you take a small attaché case with you?”