“Had he been robbed?” asked the chief of the constable.
“No sir; the watch and chain, valuable ones evidently, were intact, also the money in his pockets.”
“Now,” said the chief, turning to the woman, “what do you know about it?”
She told her tale in a broken voice.
Deceased had lodged with her for some years. His name was Goldberg, a retired City man and well-to-do. Always of an evening he went out before retiring to rest, and took a short walk up and down the road, rarely being absent more than ten minutes.
This evening he had gone out as usual. She was in the front bedroom upstairs, closing the window and about to pull down the blind, when she heard a stifled cry from the street, and looking out saw two men struggling on the pavement just before the garden gate.
She could not tell in the least what the men were like, for the light was very indistinct.
She ran downstairs. Her husband was out, and she had no one in the house with her.
She put the hall door on the chain and, opening it as far as possible with the chain on, she peeped through the opening.
She saw a dark form on the pavement beyond the garden gate. It did not move.