“Concerning the Purcells.”
The sea-captain looked at him sharply.
“What?”
“Anne Purcell died of the small-pox a month ago.”
“Anne Purcell!”
“Yes; it would have been the talk of the town but for this furious belcher of accusations, even the man Oates.”
John Gore looked at him in silence.
“She was found dead in her bed in her house in Pall Mall. All the servants had fled, and the house had been rifled. But there also appears to be a mystery about the daughter. The lawyers have discovered that she was put away in the autumn for being of unsound mind; and now that all the property seems to have fallen to her, not a living soul knows what has become of the girl.”
The sea-captain smiled very slightly, with a grim light in the eyes.
“Who has the control of the matter?” he asked.