‘Yes, he did; and sometimes I think as he had a reason for taking so much trouble. But that ain’t here nor there. He seed everything right and proper, and kept us all out of an awkward row. Ralph’s dead and buried, and Gurth had all his money, and a pretty pot of it there was, though you had all been robbing him and living on him for months. Ralph’s will left him everything, though it was rum it should, for they was never very great friends, was they?’
‘No,’ said Marston. ‘Go on.’
Marston was interested. Heckett’s words had set him thinking. He was beginning to have a faint clue to something which had always been a mystery to him.
‘Well, the next morning I was in the room trying to tidy up a bit and get things straight, when in comes Gertie, my gal. She looked ill and worried. It was early, and I didn’t think she’d be down—she slept in the upstairs room—or I should have locked the door.
‘“Father,” she sez, “was there a row last night?”
‘“Not partic’lar, my gal,” I sez, a-tryin’ to chuck the cloth over something on the floor.
‘“I thought I heard quarrelling and blows,” she sez. “I hope you didn’t let them blackguards rob Mr. Egerton again last night?”
‘“I can’t help what the fools as comes here does,” I sez. “This here ain’t a Sunday school, my gal, where they comes to sing hymns and say their catechiz.”
‘“I know that, wus luck,” she sez, a lookin’ at me straight in the face. “This here’s a den o’ thieves, father—that’s what it is; and it’s people like us as brings murder about.”
‘I didn’t feel comfortable when she began to talk like that, so I sez to her: