‘Do you think she kept anything back?’
‘Not intentionally perhaps, but there is always something untold; some small detail, which to your mind might mean nothing, but which might mean a great deal to me. Please let me know directly I can see your landlady.’
Gerard promised, and then Mr. Leopold, instead of taking his departure, made himself quite at home in the surgeon’s arm-chair, and stirred the small fire with so reckless a hand that poor Gerard trembled for his weekly hundred of coals. The solicitor seemed in an idle humour, and inclined to waste time. Honest Tom Sampson wondered at his frivolity.
The conversation naturally turned upon the deed which had given that house a sinister notoriety. Gerard found himself talking freely of Madame Chicot and her husband; and it was only after Mr. Leopold and his companion had gone that he perceived how cleverly the experienced lawyer had contrived to cross-question him, without his being aware of the process.
After this evening Gerard watched the newspapers for any report of the Chicot case. He read of John Treverton’s appearance at Bow Street, and saw that the inquiry had been adjourned for a week. At Mrs. Evitt’s particular request he read the report of the case in the evening papers on the night after the inquiry. She seemed full of anxiety about the business.
‘Do you think they’ll hang him?’ she asked eagerly.
‘My good soul, they’ve a long way to go before they get to hanging. He is not even committed for trial.’
‘But it looks black against him, doesn’t it?’
‘Circumstances certainly appear to point to him as the murderer. You see there seems to be no one else who could have had any motive for such an act.’
‘And you say he has got a sweet young wife?’