She had brought his clothes—dry, folded, and possibly wearable—back into her bedroom. She had found nothing in the pockets of the suit except some cigarette-card portraits of famous footballers, a charred pipe, three French sous, and a broken jack-knife. These articles, the raiment, and a pair of battered shoes which she had pushed under the bed and forgotten, seemed to be all that Joe had to show for more than twenty years of strenuous and dangerous life on earth—much less even than Elsie could show. The paucity of his possessions did not trouble her, and scarcely surprised her, for she knew that very many unmarried men, with no incentive to accumulate what they could immediately squander in personal use, had no more reserves than Joe; but the absence of the sacred "papers" disturbed her. Every man in her world could, when it came to the point, produce papers of some sort from somewhere—army-discharge, pension documents, testimonials, birth-certificate, etc., etc. Even the tramps who flitted in and out of Rowton House had their papers to which they rightly attached the greatest importance. No man in Elsie's world could get far along without papers, unless specially protected by heaven; and, sooner or later—generally sooner than later—heaven grew tired of protecting.
All day Elsie had been awaiting an opportunity to speak to Joe about his papers. The opportunity had now come. Mr. Earlforward could be left for an hour or so. Joe was apparently in less pain. The two bedrooms were tidied up. Both men had been fed. Joe had had more quinine. She could not sponge him again till the morrow. She herself had drunk two cups of tea, and eaten the last contents of the larder. She had lighted a new candle—the last candle—in the candlestick. She had brought coal and mended the fire. The next morning she would have a great deal to do and to arrange—getting money, marketing, seeing the doctor and Mrs. Belrose, discussing the funeral with Mr. Earlforward—terrible anxieties—but for the present she was free.
Joe made no answer. He seemed to be trying to frame sentences. She encouraged him with a repetition:
"Where's your papers? I can't find 'em nowhere. You haven't lost them, have ye?" Her brow contracted in apprehension.
"I sold 'em," said Joe, in his deep, vibrating and yet feeble voice. He looked away.
"Sold 'em, Joe? Ye never sold 'em!"
"Yes I have, I tell ye. I sold 'em yesterday morning."
"But, Joey——"
"I sold 'em yesterday morning to a man as came to meet a man as came out of Pentonville same time as me."
"Pentonville! Joe, d'ye mean ye've been to prison?" He nodded. "What a shame!" she exclaimed in protest, not at his having done anything wicked enough to send him to prison, but at the police having been wicked enough to send him to prison. She assumed instinctively and positively that he was an innocent victim of the ruthless blue men whom some people know only as pilots of perambulators across busy streets.