“We’re well off, I suppose,” she replied, looking a bit nonplused. “Paul never really discussed money with me; he took care of that. I mean, on the boat, he tied the knots and spliced the wire and fixed the engine and navigated, and I did what I did at home—I kept house. I’m not a business executive or an entrepreneur or a stockbroker or a lady lawyer or a yachtswoman. I’m a housewife, and that was all I ever did. Paul made the money and invested it and, except for my clothes and the things in the house, he spent it; I hardly gave it a thought. We have a nice house, we drove nice cars, but the only really extravagant thing Paul ever bought was the boat, and I don’t even know what it cost.”

“I see,” Sir Winston said, as if he didn’t see at all. “You never give money a thought.”

“I think I see what you’re getting at,” she said. “You’re implying that I hit my husband over the head or stabbed him with a kitchen knife and dumped him overboard so I could have his money, right? Well, do you have any idea how big Paul was? He was as big as you!” She seemed to reconsider. “Well, almost as big.”

The jury tittered at this. Allison Manning was becoming very assertive now, and it worried Stone a little. He had instructed her not to argue with Sir Winston, not to lose her temper again.

“Well, Mrs. Manning,” Sir Winston continued, seeming to regroup, “let me ask you this: what were your husband’s toilet arrangements on the yacht?”

She looked at him as if he were a raving lunatic. “What?”

Sir Winston looked flustered for a moment. “Let me rephrase, please. When your husband was on deck, and he felt the need to relieve himself, how did he do it?”

“In the usual way,” she replied.

The jury began laughing, but a sharp look from the coroner subdued them.

“I mean, Mrs. Manning, did he go below and use the toilet, or like most men on a boat, did he just pass his water into the sea?”

“He stood on the stern of the boat, held onto the backstay with one hand, unzipped his fly with the other, and peed overboard.”

“Ah,” said Sir Winston, as if he had caught her in some monumental admission. “This large husband of yours made himself vulnerable for just a moment when he urinated. A small shove, even by a small woman, was all it would take, eh?”

She fixed him with a hard stare. “That speculation, Sir whatever-your-name-is, is not worthy of a reply.”