"Are you going back to the shop at once?" asked Mrs. Cross, after hurriedly setting down her groceries in the passage.
"Straight back, mum."
"Then run as quickly as ever you can, and tell Mr. Jollyman that I wish to see him immediately—immediately. Run! Don't lose a moment!"
Afraid to shut herself in with the sleeping fury, Mrs. Cross remained standing near the front door, which every now and then she opened to look for a policeman. The day was cold; she shivered, she felt weak, wretched, ready to sob in her squalid distress. Some twenty minutes passed, then, just as she opened the door to look about again, a rapid step sounded on the pavement, and there appeared her grocer.
"Oh, Mr. Jollyman!" she exclaimed. "What I have just gone through! That girl has gone raving mad—she has broken almost everything in the house, and tried to kill me with the poker. Oh, I am so glad you've come! Of course there's never a policeman when they're wanted. Do please come in."
Warburton did not at once understand who was meant by "that girl," but when Mrs. Cross threw open the sitting-room door, and exhibited her domestic prostrate in disgraceful slumber, the facts of the situation broke upon him. This was the girl so strongly recommended by Mrs. Hopper.
"But I thought she had been doing very well—"
"So she had, so she had, Mr. Jollyman—except for a few little things—though there was always something rather strange about her. It's only today that she broke out. She is mad, I assure you, raving mad!"
Another explanation suggested itself to Warburton.
"Don't you notice a suspicious odour?" he asked significantly.