CHAPTER 24When Frank Abbott dropped in after supper that evening he was struck with the gravity of Miss Silver’s expression. He had come to tell her the result of the post-mortem on Miss Holiday. They sat in the dining-room, and she gave him her usual strict attention whilst her busy needles clicked and little Josephine’s legging lengthened.
“Well,” he began, “she was alive when she got that bump on the head, and she was alive when she went into the water, but no one is going to swear that she didn’t hit her head on the side of the well as she went down. It could have been that way, you know, though I’ll give you this—the police surgeon doesn’t think it was. He is inclined to believe that there may have been an earlier bruise.”
“Were there any signs of a struggle?”
He paused for a momen
