The effect of this sudden question was startling. Miss Morton seemed to be taken off her guard. She turned red, then paled to a sickly white. Once or twice she essayed to speak, but hesitated and did not do so.

“Come, come,” said the coroner, “that cannot be a difficult question to answer. When was your first intimation that you were a beneficiary by the terms of Miss Van Norman’s will?”

And now Miss Morton had recovered her bravado.

“When the will was read,” she said in cold, firm accents.

“No; you knew it before that. You learned it when you went to Miss Van Norman’s room and read some papers which were in her desk. You read from a small private memorandum book that she had bequeathed this place to you at her death.”

“Nothing of the sort,” returned the quick, snappy voice. “I knew it before that.”