was keeping Tommy.
She found that he could make no one hear, and growing suspicious,
called the neighbours. An hour later the police forced the door, and
found Mrs Yabsley dead in bed. The doctor said that she had died in
her sleep from heart failure. Mrs Swadling, wondering what had become
of Miss Perkins, found a note lying on the floor, and wondered no more
when she read:

DEAR MRS YABSLEY,

I am sorry that I can't stay for the outing to-morrow, but my cousin
came out of Darlinghurst jail this morning, and we are going to the
West to make a fresh start. All I told you about my beautiful home was
quite true, only I was the upper housemaid. I am taking a few odds and
ends that you bought for the winter, as I could never find out where
you hid your money. I have searched till my back ached, and quite
agree with you that it is safer than a bank. I left your clothes at
Aaron's pawnshop, and will post you the ticket. When you get this I
shall be safe on the steamer, which is timed to leave at ten o'clock.
I hope someone will read this to you, and tell you that I admire you
immensely, although I take a strange way of showing it.

In haste,
MAY

CHAPTER 17

THE TWO-UP SCHOOL

The silence of sleeping things hung over the Haymarket, and the three
long, dingy arcades lay huddled and lifeless in the night, black and
threatening against a cloudy sky. Presently, among the odd nocturnal
sounds of a great city, the vague yelping of a dog, the scream of a
locomotive, the furtive step of a prowler, the shrill cry of a
feathered watchman from the roost, the ear caught a continuous rumble
in the distance that changed as it grew nearer into the bumping and
jolting of a heavy cart.

It was the first of a lumbering procession that had been travelling all
night from the outlying suburbs--Botany, Fairfield, Willoughby,
Smithfield, St Peters, Woollahra and Double Bay--carrying the patient
harvest of Chinese gardens laid out with the rigid lines of a
chessboard. A sleepy Chinaman, perched on a heap of cabbages, pulled
the horse to a standstill, and one by one the carts backed against the
kerbstone forming a line the length of the arcades, waiting patiently
for the markets to open. And still, muffled in the distance, or
growing sharp and clear, the continuous rumble broke the silence, the
one persistent sound in the brooding night.

Presently the iron gates creaked on rusty hinges, the long, silent
arcades we