“Well, that I never will believe! Not if the King himself come out of Buckingham Palace and commanded me so to do! I’ve read pretty well heverything that’s been written about this ’ere so-called mystery. I makes a special study of murders. Always ’ave done so, though it turns me faint to drown a new-born kitten in warm water. I’ve been found right many a time, and that afore the judge and jury ’ave made up their minds!”
“And what d’you think now?” asked Jean eagerly.
“More than once I’ve hasked myself whether that forward hussy, Jean Bower, did it? She ’ad every reason to want the poor soul out of the way, but it don’t look at present as if she’d hever ’ad the chance.”
“No,” said Bet Chart quietly, “Jean Bower never even saw Mrs. Garlett.”
“That, beggin’ your pardon, Bet, may be a tale! I don’t see ’ow you could know, anyway. It would ’a’ been strange if they’d never met, living in the same place, and both being gentry. And she the doctor’s niece! What’s she like? I suppose you’ve seen ’er?”
“Yes,” said Jean. “I’ve seen her. She’s just ordinary—like everybody else.”
“They’re generally the worst,” said Mrs. Lightfoot. “Very much the worst—if you’ll believe me. I’ve given a lot o’ study to that girl. There’s some one a protectin’ ’er, not a doubt of it! Else why wasn’t she called when that man ’Enry Garlett was committed for his trial? She ought to ’a’ been! They did their level best to try and compel my poor top floor to go to Grendon town. She ’ad to ’ave a doctor, and ’e ’ad to give ’er a certificate. And even that wasn’t enough! We ’ad a lawyer ’ere—a man from the Crown, he called ’isself—but I don’t believe for one minute the King knew the way ’e went on. ’Ow ’e worried that poor young woman! She made me stay in the room all the time—and a good thing, too. There ’e was, close up to ’er bed, with a big book and a fountain pen—why it wasn’t decent. She wouldn’t eat any supper after that. She cried and cried, and I was fair tormented about ’er! Yet they left that Bower girl—that forward sly ’ussy—habsolutely alone. What d’you say to that?”
“They didn’t leave her absolutely alone,” said Jean slowly. “Some one came from the Crown to see her and cross-examine her, too.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Mrs. Lightfoot, “very glad, indeed! That’s the best word I’ve ’eard you say, Bet Chart, about the whole business. I’m intending to get in at that trial even if I’m crushed to death doing so! It’ll take the place of my summer outing. I don’t often go in for that sort o’ treat, but I did see The Brides in the Bath man. I saw him black-capped.”
“How dreadful!” whispered the help, and she turned even whiter than she had been before.