"And Parker's body?" I inquired. "Has it been found?"
"Not as I've heard on, sir. But holloa, what's this?"
The constable and I had been strolling on together while talking, and on turning the corner of a small and evil-smelling street we saw a knot of people gathered outside a sweet shop.
"Now, then! What's all this? Stand aside there, will you?" he commanded, shouldering the crowd aside.
At the door a wretched hag, her lank grey hair falling in dishevelled wisps upon her shoulders, and the pores of her face so choked with dirt that the grime lay in lines along the wrinkles, was clawing at the air with one skinny hand and arm, alternately sobbing and screaming hysterically.
"Come, come, my good woman!" said the constable sharply. "Stop that noise, and tell me what it's all about."
Shaking her head, as if to convey that she was powerless to speak, the wretched creature clutched wildly at the door lintel, and then fell in a swoon almost at his feet.
"Who is the woman? And what's the trouble?" inquired the constable of the bystanders. "Do any of you know her?"
"Macintyre's her name," volunteered a respectable looking woman in the crowd. "She keeps the sweet shop inside, and lets her rooms as lodgings. I never heard anything against her. But I don't know what's the matter. She'd only just come out into the street before you came."
"She lives here, does she?" inquired the constable. "Stand aside there, and I'll have a look inside and see if anything's wrong."