“I hears a latchkey fumbling and I comes into the passage, and there was a gentleman such as you name.
“He said, ‘Mrs Stevens?’ and I says, ‘That’s my name, and who are you?’ He says, ‘Mr Kolbecker has lent me his latchkey and allows me the use of his room to-night.’ I says, ‘Oh!’ ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘and here’s a letter from him.’ He hands me a letter; it was from Mr Kolbecker, and it said to let the bearer use his room for the night as he was a friend. ‘All right,’ I says, ‘the sheets are aired; and what might your name be?’ He laughed when I said that, leastways, it wasn’t so much a laugh, it was more liker the noise a hen makes clucking, only not so loud. ‘Anthony,’ he says. ‘Anthony what?’ I asks him. ‘Mr John Anthony, that’s my name,’ he answers me, and I shows him up. He went at eight this morning and give the servant girl a shilling.”
“Have you the letter he brought?”
“No; he kept it.”
“How long has Mr Kolbecker been here?”
“Some six months, off and on, but for the last six weeks he has been up in Cumberland.”
“Ah!” said Freyberger, “in Cumberland! What is he, this Mr Kolbecker?”
“He’s an artist.”
“An artist?”
“Oh, he’s all right. He pays his way regular. Keeps on his room and sends me the money for it every fortnit regular.”