By PAUL SUTER
“You haven’t told me yet how it happened,” I said to Mrs. Malkin.
She set her lips and eyed me, sharply.
“Didn’t you talk with the coroner, sir?”
“Yes, of course,” I admitted; “but as I understand you found my uncle, I thought——”
“Well, I wouldn’t care to say anything about it,” she interrupted, with decision.
This housekeeper of my uncle’s was somewhat taller than I, and much heavier—two physical preponderances which afford any woman possessing them an advantage over the inferior male. She appeared a subject for diplomacy rather than argument.
Noting her ample jaw, her breadth of cheek, the unsentimental glint of her eye, I decided on conciliation. I placed a chair for her, there in my Uncle Godfrey’s study, and dropped into another, myself.
“At least, before we go over the other parts of the house, suppose we rest a little,” I suggested, in my most unctuous manner. “The place rather gets on one’s nerves—don’t you think so?”
It was sheer luck—I claim no credit for it. My chance reflection found the weak spot in her fortifications. She replied to it with an undoubted smack of satisfaction: