"I should like to see this girl," said Ellis, thoughtfully, "particularly as she may throw some light on the murder. From the description of old Ike, I believe the woman he drove to Pimlico was Janet Gordon. She must know something or she would not have been crying on that night, nor would she have given up her situation at the Merryman Music-Hall so suddenly."
"Perhaps you consider her guilty?"
"No. On the authority of those signs on the arm of the dead man, I believe Zirknitz killed him."
Ellis rose and stretched himself. "We have a terrible tangle to unravel, Harry," he said after a pause.
"I don't see why we need trouble ourselves to do it, Bob."
"I do. Mrs. Moxton must be proved guiltless."
Cass shook his head. "Even if she is innocent of the murder her past is shady," he said. "She is not the wife for you, Bob."
"When the crooked is made straight we shall see about that, Harry."
With this confident assertion Ellis retired to bed, but not to sleep. In spite of his love, he could not but see that Mrs. Moxton's reputation was in peril. So much as he had gleaned of her past from herself and other sources was, to say the least of it, shady. The people with whom she had associated were scarcely reputable. Her husband had been a dissolute scoundrel, and Zirknitz, the so-called brother, was an idle vagabond, devoid of self-respect and morals. Then the sister! Schwartz praised her, but Schwartz was not overclean himself in character, and the employment of the girl at a second-rate music-hall was not the style of thing to recommend her to respectable people. Then, again, Mrs. Moxton's conduct was shifty and underhand. She declined to tell the truth, yet from the surrounding circumstances it was plain that she knew it. Taking these things into consideration, many a man would have cut himself off root and branch from the widow; but some instinct told Ellis that she was not so evil as she appeared to be, and made him anxious to sift the matter to the bottom. Therefore he got up in the morning still bent upon dealing with Mrs. Moxton and her doubtful past. After all, she might prove in the end worthy of an honest man's love.
Shortly after breakfast Mrs. Basket waddled in with the announcement that Mrs. Moxton was at the door. Ellis was surprised. This was the first time she had come to his house since the terrible night of the murder, and their first meeting since her fainting at the name of Zirknitz. The doctor hailed this unexpected visit as a good omen. If she were guilty, she would scarcely take such a step; and it might be that, weary of fencing, she had come to confess the truth.