“Or you hadn’t time to begin—was that it?”
“But you came up ever so long before. I left it all ready for you; we haven’t got a servant just now, you see, only a girl that comes in mornings,” Mrs. Cave interposed flustered, perplexed, and explanatory.
“Who was here talking to you, so that you forgot to eat your dinner?”
That question was blunt and sharp enough, and Mrs. Cave stared in incredulous astonishment and dismay from the inspector to Jessie.
“Come, answer me, missie!”
The girl looked up at that, and the wild fear in her eyes rendered his suspicion a certainty.
“There wasn’t anyone here,” she muttered.
“Then what’s this?” It was a half-smoked cigarette, that he picked up from a used plate at the other side of the table—the plate from which Mrs. Cave had eaten her pudding an hour before. “Do either of you ladies smoke Woodbines?”
“Smoke? I should think not!” cried Mrs. Cave. “Jessie, Jessie—oh, what does it all mean?”
The girl started to her feet, her eyes glaring, a spot of colour flashing into each pallid cheek.