‘Perhaps, Mr. Grigg, you——’
‘Certainly,’ said Grigg. Grigg always talked to the ladies. ‘Mrs. Turvey. Madam, under the provisions of the will, you receive a legacy of five hundred pounds. Old servant. Very proper, and all the rest of it. Go on, Mr. Limpet.’
‘Exactly. Mrs. Turvey, therefore you also are interested in proving the death of our late client.’
Mrs. Turvey said ‘Thank you,’ and dropped a curtsey, and wondered whether she ought to shake hands with Grigg and Limpet or not.
‘Now,’ continued Mr. Limpet, ‘everything would be satisfactory, but for the extraordinary statement of—Mr. Grigg, perhaps you——’
‘Certainly,’ said Grigg. ‘You see, madam, you and your daughter——’
‘Niece,’ said Mrs. Turvey, rising and curtseying.
‘Same thing. You and your niece saw a ghost. Law doesn’t acknowledge ghosts. Either you saw Mr. Egerton, not at the bottom of the deep blue sea, but at his own front door, which is a different place altogether. Very, Eh? You did, you know, or you didn’t. Eh? Which?’
Mrs. Turvey rose and curtseyed to the assembly.
‘Which, if it’s the last words I ever speak, gentlemen, I see Mr. Egerton’s ghost that night a-standing at the door, all white and looking dreadful. My niece see it first, and she screams and I comes up, and I shudders now to think of it. I’ll take my happydavid of it, sir, as I’m a Christian woman; and so’ll Topsy: won’t you, dear?’