The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

the landlady?”

      “No. I think she’s downstairs.”

      They went downstairs and found Mrs. Beckle in the back room, much agitated, though she was not the sort of woman one would expect to find greatly upset by anything. She was thin, hard and rigid, with the rigidity and sharpness that women acquire who have a long and lonely struggle with poverty. She had at first very little to say. Captain Pullin had lodged with her before. Last night he had been in all the evening and had gone to bed about half-past eleven, and by a quarter past everybody else had done so, and the house was fastened up for the night. The front door was fully bolted and barred, and it was found so in the morning. No stranger had been in the house for some days. The only person who had left before the discovery was Mr. Foster, and he went away when only the servant was up.

      This was unusual, as he usually took breakfast in the house. What had frightened the girl so much, she thought, was the fact that after the door had been burst open she peeped into the room, out of curiosity, and was so horrified at the sight that she ran out of the house. She had always been a hardworking girl, though of sullen habits.

      The inspector made more particular inquiries as to Mr. Foster, and after some little reluctance Mrs. Beckle gave her opinion that he was very short of money indeed. He had lost his ship sometime back through a neglect of duty, and he was not of altogether sober habits; he had consequently been unable to get another berth as yet. It was a fact, she admitted, that he owed her a considerable sum for rent, but he had enough clothes and nautical implements in his boxes to cover that and more.

      Hewitt had been watching Mrs. Beckle’s face very closely, and now suddenly asked, with pointed emphasis, “How long have you known Mr. Pullin?”

      Mrs. Beckle faltered and returned Hewitt’s steadfast gaze with a quick glance of suspicion. “Oh,” she said, “I have known him, on and off, for a long time.”

      “A connection by marriage, of course?” Hewitt’s hard gaze was still upon her.

      Mrs. Beckle looked from him to the inspector and back again, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Then she sat down and rested her head on her hand. “Well, I suppose I must say it, though I’ve kept it to myself till now,” she said resignedly. “He’s my brother-in-law.”

      “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