“Will you kindly state your business,” said the inspector, after an awful pause, during which he took no notice of the presence of Prudence, but went on writing stolidly.
Prudence told how a few days ago she had entrusted her sister to the care of a woman named Brown, and had paid her two sums of twenty and thirty pounds respectively. That now she found the woman had left the address given to her, that the house was shut up, and, having been told Mrs. Brown was under arrest, she had come to the station to make enquiries and to discover, if possible, the whereabouts of her sister. The narrative was told in broken words interrupted by many sighs and tears.
Inspector Smith had made a reputation in connection with baby farming cases, and he looked on this Plummer’s Cottages business as one of the worst transactions of the kind he had ever come across. Sal Brown he considered less guilty than the wicked and unnatural parents who had delivered over their offsprings to her. What he inwardly designated the “crocodile tears” of Prudence did not move him a whit, and he surveyed her with manifest disfavour. She might of course be a dupe, but he inclined to believe her a criminal.
“Do you say that the child in question is your sister?”
“Yes.”
“But did you not tell the constable just now that you were her mother?”
“Oh dear no! He misunderstood me. I only said I had come to enquire about a child.”
“But you must be aware that all the children found at the woman’s house were extremely young—infants in fact. None of them were over two years of age.”
“My sister is”—Prudence hesitated—“extremely young.”
“Well,” said the Inspector doubtfully, “of course I cannot compel you to speak the truth. They’ll do that elsewhere. The babies are mostly in a terrible way, starved, dirty, and diseased. We are trying to trace their parents, as several names and addresses were found in the possession of Brown, and you would probably have been subpœnæd to give evidence at her trial. Meantime the children have been taken to the workhouse.”