“Was he anything like this?”
“Here,” said Crossley, taking a photograph out of his pocket; “was he anything like this?”—[Page 259.]
“Why, yes, sir,” said Mrs. Larkins, turning pale, “that were ’im. I could not mistake him. Oh, sir, you swear you won’t get me into trouble for this. It seems as if I were telling you too much.”
“Not a bit of it. I swear that your name shall never come out in this matter. Now, here’s your twenty pounds. I believe you have told me all you know truthfully, and you can do no more.”
“Heaven bless you, sir,” called Mrs. Larkins after him when Crossley went away.
Before the indefatigable detective went to bed that night he wrote the following letter, which was addressed to Mrs. Adrian Rowton, Rowton Heights, near Pitstow, Yorkshire, and ran as follows:
“Madam,
“I have some painful news to impart to you in connection with the business which has occupied my attention for so many years. I wish to heaven your father were still alive so that I might break it to him instead of to you, but it being your express wish that the thing should go on to the bitter end, I have no help for it, but to summon you to town as quickly as possible. On receipt of this letter, which I calculate will reach you about noon to-morrow, will you take the next train from Pitstow to King’s Cross? I will meet you at King’s Cross and bring you straight here to my own house. I shall have something to communicate to you then which will fall as a blow on you, madam. I trust to your good sense, however, to keep up under these afflicting circumstances, and to remember the solemn promise you are under to your late father.
“I am, Madam,