The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly respectable, replied bluntly, in a pronounced Lancashire dialect,—
“Yes, I do. What may you want with him?”
“I want to see him on some important business,” was my vague reply. “Is he at home?”
“No, he ain’t,” was the woman’s response. “Mr Denton lodges with me, but ’e’s up in London just now, and ’e’s been there this four months.”
“In London!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, but I don’t know his address. When he goes away ’e never leaves it. He’s lodged with me this two years, but I don’t think ’e’s been here more than six months altogether the whole time.”
“Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?”
“Yes, quite a lot,” answered the good woman. The letter sent by the dead man might be among them!
“It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton—about a registered letter. I’ve come from London on purpose.”
“From London!” ejaculated the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.