“What time was that?”
“That’d be about ’alf past one. Well, up I gets and creeps to the winder, and sure enough the snore come right up from the steps. Seems to me, too, I could see somethink layin’ there, all up and down the steps, just as if it ’ad been dropped by haccident like. My blood freezes. I slips into my thick dressin’ gown—no, it was my thin dressin’ gown—I always keeps two—one for winter and one for summer—and this spring bein’ so early like––”
“But in the end you got down stairs.”
“If I didn’t, miss, ’ow could I ’a’ found ’im? I ain’t one to be afryde of dynger, not even ’ere in New 326 York, where you can be robbed and murdered without ’ardly knowin’ it—and the police that slow about follerin’ up a clue––”
“And what happened when you’d opened the front door?”
“I didn’t open it at once, miss. I put my hear to the crack and listened. And there it was, a long kind of snore, like—only it wasn’t just what you’d call a snore. It was more like this.” He drew a deep, rasping, stertorous breath. “Awful, it was, miss, just like somebody in liquor. ‘It’s liquor,’ I says, and not wantin’ to be mixed up in no low company I wasn’t for openin’ the door at all––”
“But you did?”
“Not till I’d gone ’alf wye upstairs and down agyne. I’m like that. I often thinks I’ll not do a thing, and then I’ll sye to myself, ‘Now, perhaps I’d better, and so it was that time. ’E’s out, I says, and who knows but what ’e’s fell in a fynt like?’ So back I goes, and I peeps out a little bit—just my nose out, as you might sye, not knowin’ but what if there was low company––”
“When did you find out who it was?”
“I knowed the ’at, like. It was that ’at what ’e bought afore ’e bought the last one. No; I don’t know but what ’e’s bought two since ’e bought that one—a soft felt, and a cowboy what he never wore but once or twice because it wasn’t becomin’. You’ll ’ave noticed, miss, that ’e ’ad one o’ them fyces what don’t look well in nothink rakish—a real gentleman’s fyce ’e ’ad—and them cowboy ’ats––”