The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Part 25

"You did not see the gentleman who came?" said Kilsip, turning again to the old hag.

"Not I, cuss you," she retorted, politely. "'E came about 'arf-past one in the morning, an' you don't expects we can stop up all night, do ye?"

"Half-past one o'clock," repeated Calton, quickly. "The very time. Is this true?"

"Wish I may die if it ain't," said Mother Guttersnipe, graciously. "My gran'darter Sal kin tell ye."

"Where is she?" asked Kilsip, sharply.

At this the old woman threw back her head, and howled dismay.

"She's 'ooked it," she wailed, drumming on the ground with her feet.

"Gon' an' left 'er pore old gran' an' joined the Army, cuss 'em, a-comin' round an' a-spilin' business."

Here the woman on the bed broke out again--

"Since the flowers o' the forest are a' wed awa."

"'Old yer jawr," yelled Mother Guttersnipe, rising, and making a dart at the bed. "I'll choke the life out ye, s'elp me. D'y want me to murder ye, singin' 'em funeral things?"

Meanwhile the detective was talking rapidly to Mr. Calton.

"The only person who can prove Mr. Fitzgerald was here between one and two o'clock," he said, quickly, "is Sal Rawlins, as everyone else seems to have been drunk or asleep. As she has joined the Salvation Army, I'll go to the barracks the first thing in the morning and look for her."

"I hope you'll find her," answered Calton, drawing a long breath. "A man's life hangs on her evidence."

They turned to go, Calton having first given Mother Guttersnipe some loose silver, which she seized on with an avaricious clutch.

"You'll drink it, I suppose?" said the barrister, shrinking back from her.

"Werry likely," retorted the hag, with a repulsive grin, tying the money up in a piece of her dress, which she tore off for the purpose.

"I'm a forting to the public-'ouse, I am, an' it's the on'y pleasure I 'ave in my life, cuss it."

The sight of money had a genial effect on her nature, for she held the candle at the head of the stairs, as they went down, so that they should not break their heads. As they arrived safely, they saw the light vanish, and heard the sick woman singing, "The Last Rose of Summer."

The street door was open, and, after groping their way along the dark pa.s.sage, with its pitfalls, they found themselves in the open street.

"Thank heaven," said Calton, taking off his hat, and drawing a long breath. "Thank heaven we are safely out of that den!"

"At all events, our journey has not been wasted," said the detective, as they walked along. "We've found out where Mr. Fitzgerald was on the night of the murder, so he will be safe."

"That depends upon Sal Rawlins," answered Calton, gravely; "but come, let us have a gla.s.s of brandy, for I feel quite ill after my experience of low life."

CHAPTER XVI.

MISSING.

The next day Kilsip called at Calton's office late in the afternoon, and found the lawyer eagerly expecting him. The detective's face, however, looked rather dismal, and Calton was not rea.s.sured.

"Well!" he said, impatiently, when Kilsip had closed the door and taken his seat. "Where is she?"

"That's just what I want to know," answered the detective, coolly; "I went to the Salvation Army head-quarters and made enquiries about her.

It appears that she had been in the Army as a hallelujah la.s.s, but got tired of it in a week, and went off with a friend of hers to Sydney.

She carried on her old life of dissipation, but, ultimately, her friend got sick of her, and the last thing they heard about her was that she had taken up with a Chinaman in one of the Sydney slums. I telegraphed at once to Sydney, and got a reply that there was no person of the name of Sal Rawlins known to the Sydney police, but they said they would make enquiries, and let me know the result."

"Ah! she has, no doubt, changed her name," said Calton, thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "I wonder why?"

"Wanted to get rid of the Army, I expect," answered Kilsip, drily. "The straying lamb did not care about being hunted back to the fold."

"And when did she join the Army?"

"The very day after the murder."

"Rather sudden conversion?"

"Yes, but she said the death of the woman on Thursday night had so startled her, that she went straight off to the Army to get her religion properly fixed up."

"The effects of fright, no doubt," said Calton, dryly. "I've met a good many examples of these sudden conversions, but they never last long as a rule--it's a case of 'the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,'

more than anything else. Good-looking?"

"So-so, I believe," replied Kilsip, shrugging his shoulders.

"Very ignorant--could neither read nor write."

"That accounts for her not asking for Fitzgerald when she called at the Club--she probably did not know whom she had been sent for. It will resolve itself into a question of identification, I expect. However, if the police can't find her, we will put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers offering a reward, and send out handbills to the same effect. She must be found. Brian Fitzgerald's life hangs on a thread, and that thread is Sal Rawlins."

"Yes!" a.s.sented Kilsip, rubbing his hands together. "Even if Mr.

Fitzgerald acknowledges that he was at Mother Guttersnipe's on the night in question, she will have to prove that he was there, as no one else saw him."

"Are you sure of that?"

"As sure as anyone can be in such a case. It was a late hour when he came, and everyone seems to have been asleep except the dying woman and Sal; and as one is dead, the other is the only person that can prove that he was there at the time when the murder was being committed in the hansom."

"And Mother Guttersnipe?"

"Was drunk, as she acknowledged last night. She thought that if a gentleman did call it must have been the other one."

"The other one?" repeated Calton, in a puzzled voice. "What other one?"

"Oliver Whyte."

Calton arose from his seat with a blank air of astonishment.

"Oliver Whyte!" he said, as soon as he could find his voice. "Was he in the habit of going there?"