"'Ow should I know?" retorted Mother Guttersnipe, sullenly. "I didn't kill 'er, did I? It were the brandy she drank; she was allays drinkin', cuss her."
"Do you remember the night she died?"
"No, I don't," answered the beldame, frankly. "I were drunk—blind, bloomin', blazin' drunk—s'elp me."
"You're always drunk," said Kilsip.
"What if I am?" snarled the woman, seizing her bottle. "You don't pay fur it. Yes, I'm drunk. I'm allays drunk. I was drunk last night, an' the night before, an' I'm a-goin' to git drunk to-night"—with an impressive look at the bottle—"an' to-morrow night, an' I'll keep it up till I'm rottin' in the grave."
Calton shuddered, so full of hatred and suppressed malignity was her voice, but the detective merely shrugged his shoulders.
"More fool you," he said, briefly. "Come now, on the night the 'Queen,' as you call her, died, there was a gentleman came to see her?"
"So she said," retorted Mother Guttersnipe; "but, lor, I dunno anythin', I were drunk."
"Who said—the 'Queen?'"
"No, my gran'darter, Sal. The 'Queen,' sent 'er to fetch the toff to see 'er cut 'er lucky. Wanted 'im to look at 'is work, I s'pose, cuss 'im; and Sal prigged some paper from my box," she shrieked, indignantly; "prigged it w'en I were too drunk to stop 'er?"