Paul might have been mistaken, but Mrs. Krill certainly seemed relieved. Yet if she had anything to conceal in connection with "The Red Pig," why should she have mentioned the name.
"It is not a first-class hotel," she went on smoothly, and again with her false smile. "We had only farm laborers and such like as customers. But the custom was good, and we did very well. Then my husband took to drink."
"In that respect he must have changed," said Paul, quickly, "for all the time I knew him—six months it was—I never saw him the worse for drink, and I certainly never heard from those who would be likely to know that he indulged in alcohol to excess. All the same," added Paul, with an after-thought of his conversation with Sylvia in the Embankment garden, "I fancied, from his pale face and shaking hands, and a tightness of the skin, that he might drink."
"Exactly. He did. He drank brandy in large quantities, and, strange to say, he never got drunk."
"What do you mean exactly?" asked Beecot, curiously.
"Well," said Mrs. Krill, biting the top of her fan and looking over it, "Lemuel—I'll call him by the old name—never grew red in the face, and even after years of drinking he never showed any signs of intemperance. Certainly his hands would shake at times, but I never noticed particularly the tightness of the skin you talk of."
"A certain shiny look," explained Paul.
"Quite so. I never noticed it. But he never got drunk so as to lose his head or his balance," went on Mrs. Krill; "but he became a demon."
"A demon?"
"Yes," said the woman, emphatically, "as a rule he was a timid, nervous, little man, like a frightened rabbit, and would not harm a fly. But drink, as you know, changes a nature to the contrary of what it actually is."