Once outside, I retraced my steps, with a very sombre mind. I had an overpowering suspicion that there was only one legitimate Richard Gaskett after all. The other two had been resolved into one, and he with nothing but a “pint-pot” claim to the title. Well, so far so good, at least, for romance. Luck had brought me something.
I strolled down again by way of the posts and the rails and the busy old-air circus. Going for a short distance down the High Street beyond, I encountered a policeman and questioned him.
“White Square?” said he; and wheeling stolidly, signified the very passage by which he was standing.
I looked down the gully curiously. It went, on a basis of trampled filth, into an open space a hundred yards beyond, whence came a sound of quarrelling women and squalling children.
“O!” I said. “Do you happen to know if a Mrs Carey lives there?”
He conned me a moment, as if speculating on my possible purpose in asking; then hailed authoritatively an ancient inhabitant who was at that moment shuffling up the lane.
“You, Mullins! Anybody of the name of Carey living in the Square?”
Mr Mullins leered up, fondling his hands obsequiously. The privileges of this Alsatia, it was evident, ended at the passage mouth. He was an obscene-looking old rascal, with a face like a half-blind sheep, and the gaunt framework of once powerful shoulders.
“Carey is it, sir?” said he—“Carey, your honour? I remimber a lady of the name. Mither Carey we’d be afther callin’ her; but she’s gone long sin.”
“When gone?” demanded the officer.