mbered an
arrangement which Madge had made, and which up till now had slipped his
memory.

"Mrs. Sampson," he said, turning round at the door, "I am going to
bring Mr. Frettlby and his daughter to have a cup of afternoon tea
here, so you might have some ready."

"You 'ave only to ask and to 'ave," answered Mrs. Sampson, hospitably,
with a gratified crackle of all her joints. "I'll make the tea, sir,
an' also some of my own perticler cakes, bein' a special kind I 'ave,
which my mother showed me 'ow to make, 'avin' been taught by a lady as
she nussed thro' the scarlet fever, tho' bein' of a weak constitootion,
she died soon arter, bein' in the 'abit of contractin' any disease she
might chance on."

Brian hurried off lest in her Poe-like appreciation of them, Mrs.
Sampson should give vent to more charnel-house horrors.

At one period of her life, the little woman had been a nurse, and it
was told of her that she had frightened one of her patients into
convulsions during the night by narrating to her the history of all the
corpses she had laid out. This ghoul-like tendency in the end proved
fatal to her professional advancement.

As soon as Fitzgerald had gone, she went over to the window and watched
him as he walked slowly down the street--a tall, handsome man, of whom
any woman would be proud.

"What an awful thing it are to think 'e'll be a corpse some day," she
chirped cheerily to herself, "tho' of course bein' a great swell in 'is
own place, 'e'll 'ave a nice airy vault, which 'ud be far more
comfortable than a close, stuffy grave, even tho' it 'as a tombstone
an' vi'lets over it. Ah, now! Who are you, impertinence?" she broke
off, as a stout man in a light suit of clothes crossed the road and
rang the bell, "a-pullin' at the bell as if it were a pump 'andle."

As the gentleman at the door, who was none other than Mr. Gorby, did
not hear her, he of course did not reply, so she hurried down the
stairs, crackling with anger at the rough usage her bell had received.

Mr. Gorby had Been Brian go out, and deeming it a good opportunity for
enquiry had lost no time in making a start.

"You nearly tored the bell down," said Mrs. Sampson, as she presented
her thin body and wrinkled face to the view of the detective.

"I'm very sorry," answered Gorby, meekly. "I'll knock next time."

"Oh, no you won't," said the landlady, tossing her head, "me not 'avin'
a knocker, an' your 'and a-scratchin' the paint off the door,