“I was out on the Dilly one night soon after you’d been round to my place, and I was with a girl called Janie Filson. ‘Oo-er,’ she said to me. ‘Did you see who that was passed?’ I looked round and saw this fellow Burns.”
“Barnes,” Michael corrected.
“Oh, well, Barnes. His name doesn’t matter, because it isn’t his own, anyway. ‘That’s Harry Meats,’ she said. And she called out after him. ‘Hulloa, Harry, where’s Cissie?’ He went as white as ... oh, he did go shocking white. He just turned to see who it was had called out after him, and then he slid up Swallow Street like a bit of paper. ‘Who’s Cissie?’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember Cissie Cummings?’ she said. ‘That fair girl who always wore a big purple hat and used to be in the Leicester Lounge and always carried a box of chocolates for swank?’ I did remember the girl when Janie spoke about her. Only I never knew her, see? ‘He wasn’t very pleased when you mentioned her,’ I said. ‘Didn’t he look awful?’ said Janie, and just then she got off with a fellow and I couldn’t ask her any more.”
“I don’t think that’s enough to make me very much afraid of Barnes,” Michael commented.
“Wait a minute, I haven’t finished yet. Don’t be in such a hurry. The other day I saw Janie Filson again. She’s been away to Italy—is there a place called Italy? Of course there is. Well, as I was saying, she’d been to Italy with her fellow who’s a commercial traveler and that’s why I hadn’t seen her. And Janie said to me, ‘Do you know what they’re saying?’ I said, ‘No, what?’ And she said, ‘Did you read nearly a year ago about a woman who was found murdered in the Euston Road? A gay woman it was,’ she said. So I said, ‘Lots of women is found murdered, my dear. I can’t remember every one I see the picture of.’ Well, anyone can’t, can they?” Daisy broke off to ask Michael in an injured voice. Then she resumed her tale. “When I was with that fellow Bert I used to read nothing else but murders all the time. Give anyone the rats, it would. ‘Lots of women, my dear,’ I said. And she said, ‘Well, there was one in particular who the police never found out the name of, because there wasn’t any clothing or nothing found.’ So I did remember about it, and she said, ‘Well, they’re saying now it was Cissie Cummings.’ And I said, ‘Well, what of it, if it was?’ And she said, ‘What of it?’ she said. ‘Well, if it was her,’ she said, ‘I know who done it.’ ‘Who done it?’ I asked—because, you see, I’d forgotten about this fellow Burns. ‘Why, Harry Meats,’ she said. ‘That fellow I saw on the Dilly the night when I was along with you.’”
“I don’t think you have enough evidence for the police,” Michael decided, with half a smile. Yet nevertheless a malaise chilled him, and he looked over his shoulder at the mob in the beer hall.
“—— the police!” Daisy exclaimed. “I don’t care about them when I’m positive certain of something. I tell you, I know that fellow Burns, or Meats, or whatever his name is, done it.”
“But what am I to do about it?” Michael asked.
“Well, you’ll get into trouble, that’s all,” Daisy prophesied. “You’d look very funny if he was pinched for murder while you was out walking with him. Ugh! It gives me the creeps. Order me a gin, there’s a good boy.”
Michael obtained for Daisy her drink, and sat waiting for Barnes to appear.