Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series. Henry Wood

to-day, Johnny. I like to encourage my neighbouring tradespeople, and shall buy my new silk here. We have excellent shops not far off.”

      After a few intricate turnings and windings, the carriage stopped before a large linendraper’s, which stood amidst a colony of shops nearly a mile from Miss Deveen’s. George came round to open the door.

      “Now what will you do, Johnny?” said Miss Deveen. “I daresay I shall be half an hour in here, looking at silks and calico; and I won’t inflict that penalty on you. Shall the carriage take you for a short drive the while, or will you wait in it?—or walk about?”

      “I will wait in the street here,” I said, “and come in to you when I am tired. I like looking at shops.” And I do like it.

      The next shop to the linendraper’s was a carver and gilder’s: he had some good pictures displayed in his window; at any rate, they looked good to me: and there I took up my station to begin with.

      “How do you do, sir? Have you forgotten me?”

      The words came from a young man who stood at the next door, close to me, causing me to turn quickly to him from gazing at the pictures. No, I had not forgotten him. I knew him instantly. It was Owen, the milkman.

      After a few words had passed, I went inside. It was a large shop, well fitted up with cans and things pertaining to a milkman’s business. The window-board was prettily set off with moss, ferns, a bowl containing gold and silver fish, a miniature fountain, and a rush basket of fresh eggs. Over the door was his own name, Thomas Owen.

      “You are living here, Owen?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “But why have you left Saltwater?”

      “Because, Mr. Johnny, the place looked askance at me. People, in their own minds, set down that miserable affair at No. 7 to my credit. Once or twice I was hooted at by the street boys, asking what I had done with Jane Cross. My mother couldn’t stand that, and I couldn’t stand it, so we just sold our business at Saltwater, and bought this one here. And a good change it has been, in a pecuniary point of view: this is an excellent connection, and grows larger every day.”

      “I’m sure I am glad to hear it.”

      “At first, mother couldn’t bear London: she longed for the country air and the green fields: but she is reconciled to it now. Perhaps she’ll have an opportunity soon of going back to see her own old Welsh mountains, and of staying there if it pleases her.”

      “Then I should say you are going to be married, Owen.”

      He laughed and nodded. “You’ll wish me good luck, won’t you, sir? She’s the only daughter at the next door, the grocer’s.”

      “That I will. Have you discovered anymore of that mysterious business, Owen?”

      “At Saltwater? No, sir: not anything at all that could touch the matter itself. But I have heard a good bit that bears upon it.”

      “Do you still suspect that Matilda could tell if she chose?”

      “I suspect more than that, sir.”

      The man’s words were curiously significant. He had a bit of fern in his hand, and his fresh, open, intelligent face was bent downwards, as if he wanted to see what the leaf was made of.

      “I am not sure, sir. It is but suspicion at the best: but it’s an uncommonly strong one.”

      “Won’t you tell me what you mean? You may trust me.”

      “Yes, I am sure I may,” he said, promptly. “And I think I will tell you—though I have never breathed it to mortal yet. I think Matilda did it herself.”

      Backing away from the counter in my surprise, I upset an empty milk-can.

      “Matilda!” I exclaimed, picking up the can.

      “Mr. Johnny, with all my heart I believe it to have been so. I have believed it for some time now.”

      “But the girls were too friendly to harm one another. I remember you said so yourself, Owen.”

      “And I thought so then, sir. No suspicion of Matilda had occurred to me, but rather of the man I had seen there on the Wednesday. I think she must have done it in a sudden passion; not of deliberate purpose.”

      “But now, what are your reasons?”

      “I told you, sir, as I daresay you can recall to mind, that I should do what lay in my power to unravel the mystery—for it was not at all agreeable to have it laid at my door. I began, naturally, with tracing out the doings of that night as connected with No. 7. Poor Jane Cross had not been out of doors that night, and so far as I knew had spoken to no one save to me from the window; therefore of her there seemed nothing to be traced: but of Matilda there was. Inquiring here and there, I bit by bit got a few odds and ends of facts together. I traced out the exact time, almost to a minute, that I rang twice at the door-bell at No. 7, and was not answered; and the time that Matilda entered the Swan to get the supper beer. Pretty nearly half an hour had elapsed between the first time and the second.”

      “Half an hour!”

      “Not far short of it. Which proved that Matilda must have been indoors when I rang, though she denied it before the coroner, and it was taken for granted that I had rung during her absence to fetch the beer. And you knew, sir, that her absence did not exceed ten minutes. Now why did not Matilda answer my ring? Why did she not candidly say that she had heard the ring, but did not choose to answer it? Well, sir, that gave rise to the first faint doubt of her: and when I recalled and dwelt on her singular manner, it appeared to me that the doubt might pass into grave suspicion. Look at her superstitious horror of No. 7. She never would go into the house afterwards!”

      I nodded.

      “Two or three other little things struck me, all tending to strengthen my doubts, but perhaps they are hardly worth naming. Still, make the worst of it, it was only suspicion, not certainty, and I left Saltwater, holding my tongue.”

      “And is this all, Owen?”

      “Not quite, sir. Would you be so good as to step outside, and just look at the name over the grocer’s door?”

      I did so, and read Valentine. “John Valentine.” The same name as Matilda’s.

      “Yes, sir, it is,” Owen said, in answer to me. “After settling here we made acquaintance with the Valentines, and by-and-by learnt that they are cousins of Matilda’s. Fanny—my wife that is to be—has often talked to me about Matilda; they were together a good bit in early life; and by dint of mentally sifting what she said, and putting that and that together, I fancy I see daylight.”

      “Yes. Well?”

      “Matilda’s father married a Spanish woman. She was of a wild, ungovernable temper, subject to fits of frenzy; in one of which fits she died. Matilda has inherited this temper; she is liable to go into frenzies that can only be compared to insanity. Fanny has seen her in two only; they occur at rare intervals; and she tells me that she truly believes the girl is mad—mad, Mr. Johnny—during the few minutes that they last.”

      The history I had heard of her mad rage at Miss Deveen’s flashed over me. Temporarily insane they had thought her there.

      “I said to Fanny one day when we were talking of her,” resumed Owen, “that a person in that sort of uncontrollable passion, might commit any crime; a murder, or what not. ‘Yes,’ Fanny replied, ‘and not unlikely to do it, either: Matilda has more than once said that she should never die in her bed.’ Meaning–”

      “Meaning what?” I asked, for he came to a pause.

      “Well, sir, meaning, I suppose, that she might sometime lay violent hands upon herself, or upon another. I can’t help thinking that something must have put her into one of these rages with Jane Cross, and that she pushed or flung the poor girl over the stairs.”

      Looking back, rapidly recalling signs and tokens, I thought it might have been so. Owen interrupted me.

      “I shall come across her sometime, Mr.