Mrs. Rickett took comfort, and fervently declared that her visitor was a real gentleman. She offered him a cup of tea, which he tactfully accepted, and then fortified her inner self with one, preliminary to making her statement.
"I'm that flustered I 'ardly know what I'm doing," she began, wiping her lips with a corner of her apron. "As to why I didn't speak before, it's just this, sir. I liked that young man's face, 'im I met comin' out of my 'ouse that night, and I thought afterward the woman might 'ave done 'im a bitter wrong, which, of course, ain't excusin' 'im for the dreadful crime of murder, and I wouldn't 'ave you think it—"
"Then you know something that might be harmful to Mr. Vernon?" Jimmie interrupted. He began to suspect the situation.
"That's it, sir!"
"But, my good woman, Mr. Vernon is absolutely innocent. Take my word for it. The other man, who left the house just before my friend, is the guilty person."
"I didn't believe in that other man at first," Mrs. Rickett replied; "but it looks like the story might be true, after all. And if it is—"
"Well?"
"Then I can tell something about him; leastwise I think so."
"Go on!" Jimmie said, eagerly.
"I 'eard it from that French woman, Dinah Mer—I never can pernounce the name," continued Mrs. Rickett. "Pore creature, what a 'orrible end; though it's a mercy it was so sudden like. But, as I was saying, sir, she lodged in my 'ouse last spring, and she come back only three days before the murder. She never 'ad much to say for 'erself, an' I judged she was stiff and proud. You'll believe I was taken all aback, then, when she walked into this 'ere very room one evening—it was last Thursday, the day before the murder—an' takes off her cloak as cool as you please. 'Mrs. Rickett,' she says, 'I'm feelin' badly. Can you give me a cup of tea?' Of course I says yes. I was 'aving my own tea at the time, and I asked 'er to join me, sociable like. By an' by she got to tellin' me about 'erself. It appears she wasn't really French, but was born at Dunwold, a village in Sussex, an' lived there till she was grown up, after which she went abroad. Then she says to me, of a sudden: 'I met a man to-day—'"