"Do nobody else but you and Charles sleep downstairs?"
"Nobody, sir. I sleep in a small room off the kitchen, but Charles sleeps in one of the rooms in the passage which leads off the kitchen, the first room, not far from my own. But that'd been no help to me if I'd seen anything. I might have screamed the house down before Charles would have heard me, he being stone deaf."
"Quite true, Ann. And now is that all you have to tell me about the gas?"
The woman seemed to have some difficulty in replying, but finally she stammered out in an embarrassed voice, plucking at her apron the while:
"Yes, sir."
"Look at me, Ann, and tell me the truth. Come now, it will be better for everybody."
The countrywoman looked at the detective with whitening face, and there was something in his penetrating gaze that kept her frightened eyes fixed on his.
"Please, sir——"
"Yes, Ann, go on," prompted the detective encouragingly.
But the woman didn't go on; there crept into her face instead an obstinate look, her mouth closed tightly, and her hands ceased twitching.