Arrived where it made a sharp bend, she descended a little way on the side next the river, and there waited. Dan, on the look-out from his shed, spied her be-ribboned bonnet from afar, and went quietly and hastily under shelter of the river-wall toward where she stood. Coming below her on the tow-path, he climbed the bank, and brother and sister stood face to face; unashamed ruffianism looking shabby respectability in the eyes.
"Umph," growled Dan. "So 'ere y'are, my lady."
"Yes," the woman answered, "'ere I am; an' there you are—a nice respectable sort of party for a brother!"
"Ah, ain't I? If I was as respectable as my sister I might get a job up at the Hole in the Wall, mightn't I? 'Specially as I 'ear as there's a vacancy through somebody gettin' the sack over a cash-box!"
Mrs. Grimes glared and snapped. "I s'pose you got that from 'im," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the wharf. "Well, I ain't come 'ere to call names—I come about that same cash-box; at any rate I come about what's in it.... Dan, there's a pile o' bank notes in that box, that don't belong to Cap'en Nat Kemp no more'n they belong to you or me! Nor as much, p'raps, if you'll put up a good way o' gettin' at 'em!"
"You put up a way as wasn't a good un, seemin'ly," said Dan. "'Ow d'ye mean they don't belong to Kemp?"
"There was a murder at the Hole in the Wall; a week ago."
"Eh?" Dan's jaw shut with a snap, and his eye was full of sharp inquiry.
"A man was stabbed against the bar-parlour door, an' the one as did it got away over the river. One o' the two dropped a leather pocket-book full o' notes, an' the kid—Kemp's grandson—picked it up in the rush when nobody see it. I see it, though, afterward, when the row was over. I peeped from the stairs, an' I see Kemp open it an' take out notes—bunches of 'em—dozens!"
"Ah, you did, did ye?" Dan observed, staring hard at his sister. "Bunches o' bank notes—dozens. See a photo, too? Likeness of a woman an' a boy? 'Cos it was there."