"By her manner, sir. Not by much else. But I'll tell you something that
I saw. On the previous Wednesday when I left the afternoon milk at that
tall house just beyond Seaboard Terrace, the family lodging there told
me to call in the evening for the account, as they were leaving the next
day. Accordingly I went; and was kept waiting so long before they paid
me that it was all but dark when I came out. Just as I was passing the
back door at No. 7, it was suddenly drawn open from the inside, and a
man stood in the opening, whispering with one of the girls. She was
crying, for I heard her sobs, and he kissed her and came out, and the
door was hastily shut. He was an ill-looking man; so far at least as his
clothes went; very shabby. His face I did not see, for he pulled his
slouching round hat well over his brows as he walked away rapidly, and
the black beard he wore covered his mouth and chin."
"Which of the maids was it?"
"I don't know, sir. The next day I chaffed them a bit about it, but
they both declared that nobody had been there but the watchmaker, Mr.
Renninson, who goes every Wednesday to wind up the clocks, and that it
must have been him I saw, for he was late that evening. I said no more;
it was no business of mine; but the man I saw go out was just about as
much like Renninson as he was like me."
"And do you fancy----"
"Please wait a minute, sir," he interrupted, "I haven't finished. Last
Sunday evening, upon getting home after service, I found I had left my
prayer-book in church. Not wishing to lose it, for it was the one my
father always used, I went back for it. However, the church was shut up,
so I could not get in. It was a fine evening, and I took a stroll round
the churchyard. In the corner of it, near to Mr. Edmund Peahern's tomb,
they had buried poor Jane Cross but two days before--you know the spot,
sir. Well, on the flat square of earth that covers her grave, stood
Matilda Valentine, the greatest picture of distress you can imagine,
tears streaming down her cheeks. She dried her eyes when she saw me, and
we came away together. Naturally I fell to talking of Jane Cross and the
death. 'I shall do as much as lies in my power to bring it to light,'
I said to Matilda; 'or people may go on doubting me to the end. And I
think the first step must be to find out who the man was that called in
upon you the previous Wednesday night.' Well, sir, with that, instead of
making any answering remark as a Christian would, or a rational being,
let us say, Matilda gives a smothered shriek and darts away out of the
churchyard. I couldn't make her out; and all in a minute a conviction
flashed over me, though I hardly know why, that she knew who was the
author of the calamity, and was screening him; or at any rate that she
had her suspicions, if she did not actually know. And I think so still,
sir."