They had to support the old woman between them while she put her trembling signature to the statement; and, when they released her, she sank moaning once more to the floor.
“Don’t tell him I done it, good deuced gentlemen; don’t set him on to me.”
“Now, look here, old lady,” said the detective, “if what we’re aiming at doing comes to pass, he won’t be in a position to be set on to anything but a galley bench. All you’ve got to do is to lie quiet and hold your mouth until you hear from us again; and then possibly, I say possibly, it may come to happen that you don’t hear from us at all.”
She looked up with a sudden relief of craft in her watery eyes.
“And my little settlement as I draw from his lawyers the deuce bless you, dears—it won’t be interfered with?—now say it won’t, dovies.”
“Come, Jannaway!” said Mr Shapter sharply.
She gathered herself together hurriedly, and got to her feet with a scrambling skip, and followed us protesting and entreating all down the passage. Finally, perceiving her prayers to be entirely disregarded, she slammed the door upon us with a screaming oath.
Outside, the detective pondered me, grating his chin.
“Well, sir,” he said, “that settles it. There’s no rope for his neck here. We’ll have to be satisfied with what Italy can give us in its place.”
“Whatever that may be, it must fall far short of his deserts,” said Mr Shapter. “A very pretty scoundrel, on my honour. Well, Mr Gaskett—as I must still call you I suppose” (he took my arm, and we all set off on our way back to his office)—“so far, I think we may say so, excellently good. Whether Italy will confirm our claim, or fail of its evidence, remains to be seen. It would be a pity, apart from our more personal interest, if it did fail, because any such conclusion must mean the escape of a scoundrel of a very choice pattern. But we will hope for the best.”