Ashburton.
12th October.
Dear Sir,
If you would come round some time that suits you I have something I could tell you that would maybe interest you. It’s better not wrote about.
Lizzie Johnston.
French had received too many communications of the kind to be hopeful that this one would result in anything valuable. However, he thought he ought to see the ex-parlourmaid and once again he made his way to her cottage.
“It’s my Alf,” she explained. “Alf Beer, they call him. We’re being married as soon as he gets another job.”
“He’s out of a job, then?”
“Yes, he was in the sales department in the works; a packer, he was. He left there six months ago.”
“How was that?” French asked, sympathetically.
“He wasn’t well and he stayed home a few mornings, and Mr. Berlyn had him up in his office and spoke to him something wicked. Well, Alf wouldn’t take that, not from no man living, so he said what relieved his feelings and Mr. Berlyn told him he could go.”
“And has he been doing nothing since?”
“Not steady, he hasn’t. Just jobbing, as you might say.”
“Hard lines, that is. You say he had something to tell me?”