“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?”