They went home together, and Brown spent the afternoon talking to Winny and Mrs. Chaplin about his girl, his Annie, whom he still spoke of as his "little un."
How much cause for thankfulness they would all have by and by that the afternoon was so spent, they did not know ab the time, but Mrs. Chaplin was glad when she heard him say that he should not go out again that night. He shared the tea with his new friends, and so did not leave the house or go near the docks, as more than one person besides Winny and her mother could prove.
They had no idea how important this would be then. But the next morning, a policeman came and arrested Brown on the charge of pushing Rutter into the dock. He had been heard to threaten his landlord at the court in the morning, and he was also known to work at the docks, and so, when Rutter was found drowned in one of the dock basins, suspicion at once pointed to Brown as the man who had done it, if it was not the result of accident.
The news of Rutter's death soon spread through the neighbourhood, and though Brown was looked upon as a rough sort of man, who would not be particular what he did in the way of giving a blow, still, in this case, it was clearly impossible that he could have pushed the man in, and they readily went with Mrs. Chaplin to give their evidence on Brown's behalf.
On hearing how he had spent the day, and that he could not possibly have been near the spot where the accident happened, Brown was discharged, and the police turned their attention in another direction. But although they could hear that Rutter had been cordially hated by those who worked under him, it was plain they could not all have had a hand in his death, and so at last it was concluded that he must have slipped in as he was hurrying to his work, having gone by the water-side in order to save a little time as he was already late.
This was the most reasonable conclusion that could be arrived at under the circumstances. But it would have been very different if Brown had not gone back with his neighbour Chaplin, for he had been heard by so many people to threaten to do for Rutter the first chance he had, and he would certainly have followed him to his work if he could.
The neighbourhood was all astir about Brown's arrest.
But no one seemed to think of poor Mrs. Rutter left alone in her grief, until Mrs. Chaplin got back from the court with Brown, when Winny met her with the question, "Have you been to see how poor Mrs. Rutter is?"
The popular indignation was so strong against the harsh landlord, that as yet no one seemed to think of the widow and lonely girl until Winny asked the question.
"I wonder whether she would like me to go and see her?" said Mrs. Chaplin, pausing in the act of taking off her bonnet. "She may not have made friends with her new neighbours, for she wasn't one to do that sort of thing, and she ain't got no relations near her, I know."