The door was still open, and Mrs. Vence stood upon the threshold. From her first words it was very evident that she had overheard the order. "Do you think Sergeant Purse will stop the bicycle at Redleigh?" she asked, feverishly, and laid a trembling old hand on the policeman's arm.
"I can't say. Don't seem to me as a likely thing to happen in this fog, to say nothing of the fact that this criminal mayn't go through Redleigh. I suppose the man who escaped is the criminal?"
"If sticking knives in folks' hearts is murder, he is," retorted Mrs. Vence, in a tart way, "any you oughter go after him at once."
"I ought to see the body at once," was the gruff reply. "'Taint much good my going on a wild goose chase in this fog. Don't you tell me my dooty, ma'am, for I know it; none better. And be careful what you say. as anything you do say will be used as evidence against you."
"Against me?" cried the housekeeper, shrilly. "Me is as innercent as an unborn babe. Well I never," and she looked furious enough to claw the ruddy face of the gigantic constable.
Mrs. Vence was a small and stout woman, with a brown, withered face seamed with innumerable wrinkles. She had abundant white hair, unbrushed and tangled, which added to her witchlike aspect as she peered indignantly at Jervis through horn rimmed spectacles. A stuff dress of faded blue, a dingy knitted shawl of red wool tightened over rounded shoulders, and a pair of ragged slippers formed her attire, so that she looked a perfect fright, maliciously observant, and aggressively disagreeable. The constable paused for a single moment to wonder why a gentleman should engage such a dirty and disreputable female as a housekeeper.
"You haven't touched it?" queried the policeman, examining the body of the dead man.
"Me?" Mrs. Vence began to thrill again. "Why, I haven't had time to touch it, and I wouldn't have touched it if I had had time. I just came in with a tray and let it fall when I saw him bending over my poor master as he'd killed. I dropped myself and dropped the tray when I fainted, more or less, but not quite. I heard as in a dream," exclaimed the housekeeper, dramatically, "the postman's knock. He waited for a minute until a second knock came, and then ran out of the house for dear life."
"By him you mean the criminal. I s'pose?" said Jervis, stolidly. "Why didn't you stop him?"
"How could I, drat you?" demanded Mrs. Vence, in querulous tones. "I wasn't myself altogether, being in a faint, and yet not in one, as you might say. Why, I gathered myself together us soon as I could and tottered to the door. Then, seeing the post in the hall, I knowed as I'd got a friend, and shoved him out to catch the rascal, drat him, and drat you asking me why I didn't."