"Yes; but that was before I came into this part of the country. Well, sister, what of that?"
"Nothing. You can go; I want to look round here for a time.
"I go, sister," he said, significantly. He held out the viper. "Will you take the sap, my gorgeous Gentile lady?"
"Ugh! No." She recoiled with a shriek from the wriggling reptile. "Take the nasty thing away!"
He stared and thrust it again into his bosom.
"Ho!" he said. "You are a queer Gentile, you--like a man for boldness; yet you fear a sap! Oh, rare." And he slapped his knee with a chuckle.
"Go away," repeated Ruth. "Go to Hollyoaks and get some food."
"Duvel!" he cried, quickly. "I'm for the road. My hunger is great. Farewell, sister, I shall see you again," and he swung off with a hacking cough tearing him, and smiling his careless smile.
His tall form passed into the sunlight and vanished round a curve of the road. Ruth watched him till he was out of sight, then took her cane and began poking about the rubbish under the window where, as Geoffrey surmised, the murderer had stood watching his intended victim. On bending down to examine the ground more carefully, she saw something glittering dimly. Almost without thinking she picked it up, and found to her surprise and joy that it was an oval piece of gold with a champagne bottle enamelled thereon with exquisite art. On the other side was a catch which proved that the oval had formed part of a cuff-link. Holding it in her small pink palm, Ruth looked now on this treasure with the greatest delight.
"This was dropped by the murderer," she said to herself. "It was torn from his shirt cuff as he struck the blow, or there might have been a quick struggle. Fancying my finding it after all these years! The rain from the eaves has laid it bare. Ah! then the assassin was a gentleman. Well, I ought to be satisfied with my day's work, but I shall come again. What good fortune to have found this the very first time."