“Yes.”
“You have not seen him since?”
“No.”
“Well, from information in our hands, Mr Kolbecker went to live in Cumberland, took a cottage there under the name of Klein; he was murdered yesterday evening in a cottage on Blencarn Fell.”
“Murdered!” said the woman, staring open-mouthed at the detective.
“Yes, murdered, and the man who called here last night and slept in his room was, we believe, the man who murdered him.”
“Well, to be sure!” said the woman, sitting down on a chair, placing her hands upon her knees and staring at Freyberger.
She was restrained in her exclamation of astonishment because her vocabulary was limited, but her wonder was deep; it was also tinged with a not unpleasant feeling of excitement. Regret, perhaps, she had none.
Freyberger, in giving her the information, had departed from the ordinary rule of his trade, to say nothing.
It is rarely that you find a detective speaking of any point in the case he is investigating, except the point immediately at issue.