"That'll do. I'm sick of the very name of Wedmore. They've had their own interests to serve, whatever they've done, depend upon it. And if he comes fooling round here again, I'll treat him as you—"
Dudley broke in sharply, stopping her as her voice was growing loud and her gestures threatening. After a short pause, during which she watched him as keenly as ever, he asked, in a hoarse whisper:
"What did you do with—him? Did anybody help you—any of your friends here? Or did you—"
Mrs. Higgs cut him short with an ugly laugh. At the mention of the dead man her face had changed, and a strange gleam of mingled cunning and ferocity came into her small, light eyes.
"Come and see—come and see," mumbled she, as she took up the candlestick from the table and shuffled across the room to the door which opened into the disused shop.
Dudley hesitated a moment; indeed, he glanced at the door by which he stood as if he felt inclined to make his escape without further delay. But Mrs. Higgs, slow as she seemed, turned quickly enough to divine his purpose.
"No," said she, sharply, "not that way. This!"
Seizing him by the arm, she thrust a key into the lock of the door with her other hand, and half led, half pushed him into the dark front room.
Dudley was seized with a nervous tremor when he found himself inside the room. By the light of the candle the woman held, he could see at a glance into every corner of the bare, squalid apartment—could see the stains on the dirty walls, the cracks and defects in the dilapidated ceiling, even the thick clusters of cobwebs that hung in the corners. Having taken in all these details in a very rapid survey, he looked down at the floor, at the very center of the bare, grimy boards, with a fixed stare of horror which the old woman, by passing the candle rapidly backward and forward before his eyes, tried vainly to divert.
Even she, however, seemed to be impressed by the hideous memory the room called up in her, for she spoke, not in her usual gruffly indifferent tones, but in a husky whisper.