Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/49

Rh, her face was paining her that awful; and oh, sir"

"There, there," interrupted the coroner, "I am not accusing Hannah of anything. I only asked you what she did after she reached your room. She went downstairs, you say. How long after you went up?"

"Troth, sir, I could n’t tell; but Molly says"

"Never mind what Molly says. You did n’t see her go down?"

"No, sir."

"Nor see her come back?"

"No, sir."

"Nor see her this morning?"

"No, sir; how could I when she’s gone?"

"But you did see, last night, that she seemed to be suffering with toothache?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well; now tell me how and when you first became acquainted with the fact of Mr. Leavenworth’s death."

But her replies to this question, while over-garrulous, contained but little information; and seeing this, the coroner was on the point of dismissing her, when the little juror, remembering an admission she had made, of having seen Miss Eleanore Leavenworth coming out of the library door a few minutes after Mr. Leavenworth’s body had been carried into the next room, asked if her mistress had anything in her hand at the time.

"I don’t know, sir. Faith!" she suddenly exclaimed, "I believe she did have a piece of paper. I recollect, now, seeing her put it in her pocket."

The next witness was Molly, the upstairs girl.

Molly O’Flanagan, as she called herself, was a rosy-cheeked, black-haired, pert girl of about eighteen, who