The magistrate was not the only one who smiled at the form of this reply.
"What had Dick to do with your leaving your home? Tell us as much as you can?"
"Well, sir, Dick and me had gone partners to find father, and to find out who murdered Samuel Boyd. I was sure father didn't do it, though a lot of people was wicked enough to say so, and Dick was sure Mr. Reginald didn't do it, and I believed what Dick believed, so I was sure, too. Dick was the captain of the ship, and I was first mate. He gave me things to do, and I did 'em as well as I could. I found out that Dr. Vinsen wasn't Dr. Vinsen at all, but Ezra Lynn, a money-lender. I always knew he was no good--yes, I did, mother! And I caught the sham doctor talking to Mr. Rawdon, the ironmonger, the man that was on the jury, and I saw him go into his shop. Well, when I saw the notice posted up in Catchpole Square that Dick had gone away, I couldn't make it out, though I knew that Dick was doing the right thing--he always does, you know--but I didn't like to be left out of it. I went to Mrs. Inspector Robson, who's been I can't tell you how kind to me--and so has Mr. Inspector Robson and that poor young lady there--but she couldn't say where Dick was, and I was that worried you'd hardly believe. Wait a bit, please--there's that cough of mine coming back again." After a silence of a minute or so, except for the hollow, rasping sounds she made, she said, with an odd kind of pathetic resignation, "It's taking it out of me now because I wouldn't let it have its way when it wanted to. I didn't dare, you know. Well, I worried and worried, and last Monday night I had my dream again."
"What dream?"
"About father. I've had it I don't know how many times, and every time father's come crying out to me to save him and to look for him in Catchpole Square. When I woke up on Tuesday morning I kept on thinking and thinking about it, and then I heard that Dick was taken up for the murder, and I had him to save as well as father. He'd been caught coming out of the house, where he'd been watching since Friday, so I says to myself, 'What Dick can do I can do,' and I makes up my mind to watch as he'd done, on the chance of catching the murderers. Dick said they'd been there, you know, and if they come once they might come again, all the more now that Dick was out of the way. That's where I've been from Tuesday night up till now."
"How did you get into the house?"
"Didn't Dick tell you? It's through the next house, where you can push open the door at the bottom of the steps. Then you go down to the cellar, and there's some bricks in the wall that you can take out and put back again. That's the way you get into the cellar of Samuel Boyd's house. There's a trap door in the ceiling that you can reach by standing on a broken chair; you push it up and scramble through, and there you are in Samuel Boyd's kitchen. I showed it to Dick, and perhaps he made use of it when he didn't want anybody to know how he got in and out of Mr. Boyd's house. And you can put everything back that artful that it'd take a clever one to find it out. So there I was in the house, with a loaf of bread that I bought with some money Dick give me. The water was on, and with that and the bread there was no fear of my starving for a little while. Nobody come on Tuesday night, and I kept myself snug. And nobody come on Wednesday. But I wouldn't give it up as a bad job, and I kept on watching and listening all day yesterday. Well, I don't know how late in the night it was, but I think it must have been two or three in the morning, when I heard somebody talking to somebody else in the downstairs passage. They talked very soft, but I heard 'em, and then they crept upstairs, and I slips into my hiding place, and watches through a chink. For I says to myself, 'If they come anywhere they'll come into the office.'"
"Where was your hiding place?"
"You'd never guess. There's a large pianner in the office where father worked, and would you believe it, there's nothing inside it? It's hollow, and it stands against the wall of another little room at the side. Oh, it's artful, I can tell you! You go into that little room, and you push a sliding panel in the wall just at the back of the pianner, and you creep in. Then you push the sliding panel back, and there you are, shut up in a box like. And if there's a light in the office you can peep through a chink, and see all that's going on. I hadn't long to wait; the trouble was that my cough was tickling my throat, but I kept it down, though it almost choked me. If I hadn't you wouldn't have seen me here. The door opens, and two men come in, without a light. 'What's the good of that?' I thinks. But presently they strike a match and light a candle, and they keep it close to the ground. I knew why they did that--so that the light couldn't be seen through the window outside in the Square. What with their backs being to me I couldn't catch sight of their faces, but I kept my eye glued to the chink, waiting for my chance. And all at once I saw them."
"Did you know them?"