“Of course, as you have been told, you are not obliged to say anything now; but the more information you can give the better chance there may be of detecting your brother-in-law’s murderer.”
“Well, I don’t mind, I’m sure. It was a bad day when he married my sister. He killed her—not at once, so that he might have been hung for it, but by a course of regular brutality and starvation. I hated the man!” she said, with a quick access of passion, which however she suppressed at once.
“And yet you let him stay in your house?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was afraid of him; and he used to come just when he pleased, and practically take possession of the house. I couldn’t keep him away; and he drove away my other lodgers.” She suddenly fired up again. “Wasn’t that enough to make anybody desperate? Can you wonder at anything?”
She quieted again by a quick effort, and Hewitt and the inspector exchanged glances.
“Let me see, he was captain of the sailing ship Egret, wasn’t he?” Hewitt asked. “Lost in the Pacific a year or more ago?”
“Yes.”
“If I remember the story of the loss aright, he and one native hand—a Kanaka boy—were the only survivors?”
“Yes, they were the only two. He was the only one that came back to England.”
“Just so. And there were rumours, I believe, that after all he wasn’t altogether a loser by that wreck? Mind, I only say there were rumours; there may have been nothing in them.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Beckle replied, “I know all about that. They said the ship had been east away purposely, for the sake of the insurance. But there was no truth in that, else why did the underwriters pay? And besides, from what I know privately, it couldn’t have been. Abel Pullin was a reckless scoundrel enough, I know, but he would have taken good care to be paid well for any villainy of that sort.”
“Yes, of course. But it was suggested that he was.”
“No, nothing of the sort. He came here, as usual, as soon as he got home, and until he got another ship he hadn’t a penny. I had to keep him, so I know. And he was sober almost all the time from want of money. Do you mean to say, if the common talk were true, that he would have remained like that without getting money of the owners, his accomplices, and at least making them give him another ship? Not he. I know him too well.”
“Yes, no doubt. He was now just back from his next voyage after that, I take it?”
“Yes, in the Iolanthe brig. A smaller ship than he has been used to, and belonging to different owners.”
“Had he much money this time?”
“No. He had bought himself a gold watch and chain abroad, and he had a ring and a few pounds in money, and sonic instruments, that was all, I think, in addition to his clothes.”
“Well, they’ve all been stolen now,” the inspector said. “Have you missed anything yourself?”
“No.”
“Nor the other lodgers, so far as you know?”
“No, neither of them.”
“Very well, Mrs. Beckle. We’ll have a word or two with the servant now, and then I’ll get you to come over the house with us.”
Sarah Taffs was the servant’s name. She seemed to have got over her agitation, and was now sullen and uncommunicative. She would say nothing. “You said I needn’t say nothin’ if I didn’t want to, and I won’t.” That was all she would say, and she repeated it again and again. Once, however, in reply to a question as to Foster, she flashed out angrily, “If it’s Mr. Foster you’re after you won’t find ‘im. ‘E’s a gentleman, ‘e is, and I ain’t goin’ to tell you nothin’.” But that was all.
Then Mrs. Beckle showed the inspector, the surgeon and Hewitt over the house. Everything was in perfect order on the ground floor and on the stairs. The stairs, it appeared, had been swept before the discovery was made. Nevertheless Hewitt and the inspector scrutinised them narrowly. The top floor consisted of two small rooms only, used as bedrooms by Mrs. Beckle and Sarah Taffs respectively. Nothing was missing, and everything was in order there.
The one floor between contained the dead man’s room, Miss Walker’s and Foster’s. Miss Walker’s room they had already seen, and now they turned into Foster’s.
The place seemed to betray careless habits on the part of its tenant, and was everywhere in slovenly confusion. The bed-clothes were flung anyhow on the floor, and a chair was overturned. Hewitt looked round the room and remarked that there seemed to be no clothes hanging about, as might have been expected.
II.
“No,” Mrs. Beckle replied; “he has taken to keeping them all in his boxes lately.”
“How many boxes has he?” asked the inspector.
“Only these two?”
“That is all.”
The inspector stooped and tried the lids.
“Both locked,” he said. “I think we’ll take the liberty of a peep into these boxes.”
He produced a bunch of keys and tried them all, but none fitted. Then Hewitt felt about inside the locks very carefully with a match, and then taking a button-hook from his pocket, after a little careful “humouring” work, turned both the locks, one after another, and lifted the lids.
Mrs. Beckle uttered an exclamation of dismay, and the inspector looked at her rather quizzically. The boxes contained nothing but bricks.
“Ah,” said the inspector, “I’ve seen that sort of suits o’ clothes before. People have ‘em who don’t pay hotel bills and such-like. You’re a very good pick-lock, by the way, Mr. Hewitt. I never saw anything quicker and neater.”
“But I know he had a lot of clothes,” Mrs. Beckle protested. “I’ve seen them.”
“Very likely—very likely indeed,” the inspector answered. “But they’re gone now, and Mr. Foster’s gone with ‘em.”
“But—but the girl didn’t say he had any bundles with him when he went out?”
“No, she didn’t; and she didn’t say he hadn’t, did she? She won’t say anything about him, and she says she won’t, plump. Even supposing he hadn’t got them with him this morning that signifies nothing. The clothes are gone, and anybody intending a job of that sort”—the inspector jerked his thumb significantly towards the skipper’s room—“would get his things away quietly first so as to have no difficulty about getting away himself afterwards. No; the thing’s pretty plain now, I think; and I’m afraid Mr. Foster’s a pretty bad lot. Anyway I shouldn’t like to be in his shoes.”
“Nor I,” Hewitt assented. “Evidence of that sort isn’t easy to get over.”
“Come, Mrs. Beckle,” the inspector said, “do you mind coming into the front room with us? The body’s covered over with a rug.”
The landlady disliked going, it was plain to see, but presently she pulled herself together and followed the men. She peeped once distrustfully round the door to where the body lay and then resolutely turned her back on it.
“His watch and chain are gone and whatever else he had in his pockets,” the inspector said. “I think you said he had a ring?”
“Yes, one—a thick gold one.”