Hudson leaned closer across the counter and lowered his voice.
"She was a big, handsome woman, this Mrs. Whittingham," he continued. "Very showy, dressy woman; fond of fine clothes and jewellery, and so on; sort of woman, you know, that would attract attention anywhere. And one of these women, too, that was evidently used to being waited on hand and foot—she took her money's worth out of the 'White Bear,' I can tell you! I did a deal for her, one way or another, and I'll say this for her: she was free enough with her money. If it so happened that she wanted things doing for her, she kept you fairly on the go till they were done, but she threw five-shilling pieces and half-crowns about as if they were farthings! She'd send you to take a sixpenny telegram and give you a couple of shillings for taking it. Well, now, as I say, I saw a deal of her, one way and another, getting cabs for her, and taking things up to her room, and doing this, that, and t'other. And it was with going up there one day sudden-like, with a telegram that had just come, that I found out something about her—something that, as I say, I could have told her by anywhere, even if she could have changed her face and put a wig on!"
"Aye—and what, now?" asked Hollis.
"This!" answered Hudson with a knowing look. "Maybe I'm a noticing sort of chap—anyhow, there was a thing I always noticed about Mrs. Whittingham. Wherever she was, and no matter how she was dressed, whether it was in her going-out things or her dinner finery, she always wore a band of black velvet round her right forearm, just above the wrist, where women wear bracelets. In fact, it was a sort of bracelet, a strip, as I say, of black velvet, happen about two inches wide, and on the front a cameo ornament, the size of a shilling, white stone or something of that sort, with one of these heathen figures carved on it. There were other folk about the place noticed that black velvet band, too—I tell you she was never seen without it; the chambermaids said she slept with it on. But on the occasion I'm telling you about, when I went up to her room with a telegram, I caught her without it. She opened her door to see who knocked—she was in a dressing-gown, going to change for dinner, I reckon, and she held out her right hand for what I'd brought her. The black velvet band wasn't on it, and for just a second like I saw what was on her arm!"
"Yes?" said Hollis. "Something—remarkable?"
"For a lady—aye!" replied Hudson, with a grim laugh. "Her arm was tattooed! Right round the place where she always wore this black velvet band there was a snake, red and green, and yellow, and blue, with its tail in its mouth!—wonderfully done, too; it had been no novice that had done that bit of work, I can tell you! Of course, I just saw it, and no more, but there was a strong electric light close by, and I did see it, and saw it plain and all. And that's a thing that that woman, whoever she may be, and wherever she's got to, can never rub off, nor scrub off!—she'll carry that to the day of her death."
The two listeners looked at each other.
"Odd!" remarked Hollis.
Hetherwick turned to the bar-keeper.
"Did she notice that you saw that her arm was tattooed?" he asked.