Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/131

 furniture there. In the ground-floor room, a table, and four chairs of a simple and cheap description, brought there many years ago: a rough dresser, with glass doors behind which a tea-set, also simple and cheap, was kept; and in each of the other rooms, nothing more than a chair and a wooden bench; with the exception of the top room of all, which had, in addition to a chair, a desk such as school children use, and an old couch. Most of these things had been placed there by Mr. Forestier in his youth, so Barnard understood; but in his opinion there was no temptation to enter the Tower except for those who wished to see a fine view: unless it were for tramps; and as he had said, he had found no trace of occupation when he searched the rooms a few minutes after seeing the dead body of Lady Hereward.

Tom told how he had noticed her ladyship's gloves folded, or rather rolled neatly up together, lying on the table with her empty bead bag, and explained how in his opinion this proved that she had entered the room quietly, before dreaming of any cause for fear. But it was Doctor Unwin who had most to say about the appearance of Lady Hereward's body.

He deposed that, when he arrived at the Tower toward six o'clock, she had certainly been dead for some time, probably about two hours. The unfortunate lady had been fatally wounded in the throat, by a bullet undoubtedly fired from a revolver of small