The police-sergeant came back in company with a man in plain clothes, and these two made a careful examination of the premises together, the result of which inspection went to show that it would have been extremely difficult for any one to enter the house from the back. The front door was left on the latch all night, and had been for the last eleven years, and no harm had ever come of it, Mrs. Evitt declared, plaintively. It was a Chubb lock, and she didn’t believe there was another like it in all London.
The two men went into every room in the house, disturbed Mr. Desrolles in a comfortable slumber, and surveyed his bedchamber with eyes which took in every detail. There was very little for them to see: a tent bedstead draped with flabby faded chintz, a rickety washstand, a small chest of drawers with a looking-glass on the top, and three odd chairs, picked up at humble auctions.
After inspecting Mr. Desrolles’ rooms and overhauling his limited wardrobe, they looked in upon Mrs. Rawber, and roused that talented woman’s ire by opening all her drawers and cupboards, and peering curiously into the same, whereby they beheld more mysteries of theatrical attire than ought to be seen by the public eye.
‘You don’t suppose I did it, I hope?’ protested Mrs. Rawber, in her grandest tragedy voice.
‘No, ma’am, but we’re obliged to do our duty,’ answered the police officer. ‘It’s only a form.’
‘It’s a very disagreeable form,’ said Mrs. Rawber, ‘and if you tallow-grease my Lady Macbeth dresses, I shall expect you to make them good.’
The man in plain clothes committed himself to no opinion, nor did he enter upon any discussion as to the motive of a crime apparently so motiveless. He made his notes of the plain facts of the case, and went away with the sergeant.
‘What am I to do about laying her out?’ asked Mrs. Evitt of the doctor. ‘I wouldn’t lay a finger upon her for a hundred pounds.’
‘I’ll send round a nurse from the workhouse,’ said the doctor, after a moment’s thought. ‘They’re not easily scared.’
Half an hour later the workhouse nurse came, a tall, bony woman, who executed her horrible task in a business-like manner, which testified to the strength of her nerve and the variety of her experience.