herself was seated on a broken chair, and leaned wearily against the wall. She stood up as Calton and the detective entered, and they saw that she was a tall, slender woman of about twenty-five, not bad-looking, but with a pallid and haggard appearance from recent illness. She was clothed in a kind of tawdry blue dress, much soiled and torn, and had over her shoulders an old tartan shawl, which she drew tightly across her breast as the strangers entered. Her grandmother, who looked more weird and grotesquely horrible than ever, saluted Calton and the detective on their entrance with a shrill yell, and a volley of choice language.
“Oh, ye’ve come again, ‘ave ye,” she screeched, raising her skinny arms, “to take my gal away from ‘er pore old gran’mother, as nussed ‘er, cuss her, when ‘er own mother had gone a-gallivantin’ with swells. I’ll ‘ave the lawr of ye both, s’elp me, I will.”
Kilsip paid no attention to this outbreak of the old fury, but turned to the girl.
“This is the gentleman who wants to speak to you,” he said, gently, making the girl sit on the chair again, for indeed she looked too ill to stand. “Just tell him what you told me.”
“‘Bout the ‘Queen,’ sir?” said Sal, in a low, hoarse voice, fixing her wild eyes on Calton. “If I’d only known as you was a-wantin’ me I’d ‘ave come afore.”
“Where were you?” asked Calton, in a pitying tone.
“Noo South Wales,” answered the girl with a shiver. “The cove as I went with t’ Sydney left me—yes, left me to die like a dog in the gutter.”
“Cuss ‘im!” croaked the old woman in a sympathetic manner, as she took a drink from the broken cup.
“I tooked up with a Chinerman,” went on her granddaughter, wearily, “an’ lived with ‘im for a bit—it’s orful, ain’t it?” she said with a dreary laugh, as she saw the disgust on the lawyer’s face. “But Chinermen ain’t bad; they treat a pore girl a dashed sight better nor a white cove does. They don’t beat the life out of ‘em with their fists, nor drag ‘em about the floor by the ‘air.”
“Cuss ‘em!” croaked Mother Guttersnipe, drowsily, “I’ll tear their ‘earts out.”
“I think I must have gone mad, I must,” said Sal, pushing her tangled hair off her forehead, “for arter I left the Chiner cove, I went on walkin’ and walkin’ right into the bush, a-tryin’ to cool my ‘ead, for it felt on fire like. I went into a river an’ got wet, an’ then I took my ‘at an’ boots orf an’ lay down on the grass, an’ then the rain comed on, an’ I walked to a ‘ouse as was near, where they tooked me in. Oh, sich kind people,” she sobbed, stretching out her hands, “that didn’t badger me ‘bout my soul, but gave me good food to eat. I gave ‘em a wrong name. I was so ‘fraid of that Army a-findin’ me. Then I got ill, an’ knowd nothin’ for weeks. They said I was orf my chump. An’ then I came back ‘ere to see gran’.”
“Cuss ye,” said the old woman, but in such a tender tone that it sounded like a blessing.
“And did the people who took you in never tell you anything about the murder?” asked Calton.
Sal shook her head.
“No, it were a long way in the country, and they never knowd anythin’, they didn’t.”
“Ah! that explains it,” muttered Calton to himself.
“Come, now,” he said cheerfully, “tell me all that happened on the night you brought Mr. Fitzgerald to see the ‘Queen.’”
“Who’s ‘e?” asked Sal, puzzled.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, the gentleman you brought the letter for to the Melbourne Club.”
“Oh, ‘im?” said Sal, a sudden light breaking over her wan face. “I never knowd his name afore.”
Calton nodded complacently.
“I knew you didn’t,” he said, “that’s why you didn’t ask for him at the Club.”
“She never told me ‘is name,” said Sal, jerking her head in the direction of the bed.
“Then whom did she ask you to bring to her?” asked Calton, eagerly.
“No one,” replied the girl. “This was the way of it. On that night she was orfil ill, an’ I sat beside ‘er while gran’ was asleep.”
“I was drunk,” broke in gran’, fiercely, “none of yer lies; I was blazin’ drunk.”
“An’ ses she to me, she ses,” went on the girl, indifferent to her grandmother’s interruption, “‘Get me some paper an’ a pencil, an’ I’ll write a note to ‘im, I will.’ So I goes an’ gits ‘er what she arsks fur out of gran’s box.”
“Stole it, cuss ye,” shrieked the old hag, shaking her fist.
“Hold your tongue,” said Kilsip, in a peremptory tone.
Mother Guttersnipe burst into a volley of oaths, and having run rapidly through all she knew, subsided into a sulky silence.
“She wrote on it,” went on Sal, “an’ then arsked me to take it to the Melbourne Club an’ give it to ‘im. Ses I, ‘Who’s ‘im?’ Ses she, ‘It’s on the letter; don’t you arsk no questions an’ you won’t ‘ear no lies, but give it to ‘im at the Club, an’ wait for ‘im at the corner of Bourke Street and Russell Street.’ So out I goes, and gives it to a cove at the Club, an’ then ‘e comes along, an’ ses ‘e, ‘Take me to ‘er,’ and I tooked ‘im.”
“And what like was the gentleman?”
“Oh, werry good lookin’,” said Sal. “Werry tall, with yeller ‘air an’ moustache. He ‘ad party clothes on, an’ a masher coat, an’ a soft ‘at.”
“That’s Fitzgerald right enough,” muttered Calton. “And what did he do when he came?”
“He goes right up to ‘er, and she ses, ‘Are you ‘e?’ and ‘e ses, ‘I am.’ Then ses she, ‘Do you know what I’m a-goin’ to tell you?’ an’ ‘e says, ‘No.’ Then she ses, ‘It’s about ‘er;’ and ses ‘e, lookin’ very white, ”Ow dare you ‘ave ‘er name on your vile lips?’ an’ she gits up an’ screeches, ‘Turn that gal out, an’ I’ll tell you;’ an’ ‘e takes me by the arm, an’ ses ‘e, ”Ere git out,’ an’ I gits out, an’ that’s all I knows.”
“And how long was he with her?” asked Calton, who had been listening attentively.
“‘Bout arf-a-hour,” answered Sal. “I takes ‘im back to Russell Street ‘bout twenty-five minutes to two, ‘cause I looked at the clock on the Post Office, an’ ‘e gives me a sov., an’ then he goes a-tearin’ up the street like anything.”
“Take him about twenty minutes to walk to East Melbourne,” said Calton to himself “So he must just have got in at the time Mrs. Sampson said. He was in with the ‘Queen’ the whole time, I suppose?” he asked, looking keenly at Sal.
“I was at that door,” said
