“When they brought the body ’ome this afternoon,” Crass went on, “Snatchum tried to get the stifficut orf ’er, but she’d been thinkin’ things over and she was a bit frightened ’cos she knowed she’d made arrangements with me, and she thought she’d better see me first; so she told ’im she’d give it to ’im on Thursday; that’s the day as ’e was goin’ to ’ave the funeral.”
“He’ll find he’s a day too late,” said Misery, with a ghastly grin. “We’ll get the job done on Wednesday.”
“She didn’t want to give it to me, at first,” Crass concluded, “but I told ’er we’d see ’er right if old Snatchum tried to make ’er pay for the other coffin.”
“I don’t think he’s likely to make much fuss about it,” said Hunter. “He won’t want everybody to know he was so anxious for the job.”
Crass and Sawkins pushed the handcart over to the other side of the road and then, lifting the coffin off, they carried it into the house, Nimrod going first.
The old woman was waiting for them with the candle at the end of the passage.
“I shall be very glad when it’s all over,” she said, as she led the way up the narrow stairs, closely followed by Hunter, who carried the tressels, Crass and Sawkins, bringing up the rear with the coffin. “I shall be very glad when it’s all over, for I’m sick and tired of answerin’ the door to undertakers. If there’s been one ’ere since Friday there’s been a dozen, all after the job, not to mention all the cards what’s been put under the door, besides the one’s what I’ve had give to me by different people. I had a pair of boots bein’ mended and the man took the trouble to bring ’em ’ome when they was finished—a thing ’e’s never done before—just for an excuse to give me an undertaker’s card.
“Then the milkman brought one, and so did the baker, and the greengrocer give me another when I went in there on Saturday to buy some vegetables for Sunday dinner.”
Arrived at the top landing the old woman opened a door and entered a small and wretchedly furnished room.
Across the lower sash of the window hung a tattered piece of lace curtain. The low ceiling was cracked and discoloured.