“Yes, sir, that was the man.”
The coach stopped in a narrow and dirty street. Then they all got out and walked for some little distance down the paved court until the inspector at last turned into an alleyway.
The alley opened into another paved court, and here Gilderman found himself in the midst of the sights and smells of which Santley Foord had spoken. There were two or three rather dilapidated houses looking down upon the court. They were shabby, squalid-looking piles, and overhead, from house to house, were stretched clothes-lines, with clothes hanging out to dry, motionless in the dull, heavy air. The court was paved with cobble-stones, and here and there water had settled in stagnant puddles. There were a couple of ash-barrels standing by one of the houses, piled high with ashes and scraps of refuse.
The inspector led the way directly to one of the houses. He put his hand upon the knob of the door and turned it very softly. Then he opened it and entered with Gilderman and Foord at his heels.
Gilderman found himself in a dark, narrow entryway. The walls of the entry had that peculiar, greasy look that seems always to belong to houses of the poorer sort, and there was everywhere a rank and pervading smell. As the inspector closed the door, another door at the farther end of the entry opened and a stout woman, unmistakably Jewish in appearance, stood framed in the space of light behind. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, with a sharp, rasping voice: “What do you want? What are you doing here?”
The inspector walked directly along the passageway towards her. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “It’s Inspector Dolan.”
“What’s the matter now?” said the woman. “I ’ain’t been doing no harm.”
“There’s nothing the matter at all, only these two gentlemen here want to go up-stairs to see your friends on the third floor.”
“There ain’t nobody up on the third floor,” said the woman, sullenly; “they ’ain’t been here for a couple of days.”
The inspector laughed. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “We’ll go up and look for ourselves. Just you stay down here. And don’t you go kicking up a row,” he added, turning suddenly stern in his demeanor.