Usually the lodgers did not encourage their landlady to talk, as her tongue, once set wagging, was difficult to stop. But on this occasion her speech was so significant of mystery that Ellis wheeled round his chair to face her, and the reporter on the sofa, with true journalistic instinct, was at once on the alert for news. Mrs. Basket, pleased with these tokens of interest, improved upon her speech.
"He has a wife!" said she, and closed her eyes with another shiver.
"Is that a remarkable circumstance?" asked Cass, drily.
"P'r'aps not, sir," replied Mrs. Basket, with great dignity. "But what that pore young thing suffers the butcher and the baker do know."
"Does Moxton ill-treat her?"
"'Eaven only knows what he do do, doctor. Nobody's ever seen her save the telegraph boy as called after dark, to be met with a carving-knife."
"A carving-knife! This is interesting. Who had the carving-knife, Mrs. Basket?"
"Mrs. Moxton, of course. She is young and pretty, I do assure you, gentlemen, yet she came on the child with a knife in her 'and like Lady Macbeth in the play."
"What was that for?"
Mrs. Basket wagged her head and the buttercups responded. "She told the boy as she thought he was robbers, and came out with the wepping to protect the silver. But it looks like loonatics to me."