silk handkerchief round her neck. I shouted out blue murder, and Mrs.
Krill with the kid came tumbling down. I was so feared," added Jessop,
wiping his forehead at the recollection, "that I ran out of doors."

"What good would that do?"

"Lor', I dunno," confessed the man, shivering, "but I wos skeered out of
my life. It wos rainin' pitchforks, as y'might say, and I raced on
through the rain for an hour or so. Then I thought, as I wos innocent,
I'd make tracks back, and I did. I found Krill had cut."

"Did his wife tell you?"

"Oh, she wos lying on the floor insensible where he'd knocked her down.
And the kid--lor'," Jessop spat, "she was lying in the corner with her
lips fastened together with the brooch."

"What?" cried Hurd, starting to his feet. "The same as her--the same as
Norman's was?"

Jessop nodded and drank some rum. "Made me sick it did. I took th'
brooch away and slipped it into my pocket. Then the kid said her father
had fastened her lips together and had knocked her mother flat when she
interfered. I brought Mrs. Krill round and then left her with the kid,
and walked off to Southampton. The police found me there, and I told
them what I tell you."

"Did you tell about the brooch?"

"Well, no, I didn't," confessed Jessop, coolly, "an' as the kid and the
mother said nothing, I didn't see why I shouldn't keep it, wantin'
money. So I went to Stowley and pawned it, then took a deep sea voyage
for a year. When I come back, all was over."

"Do you think Krill murdered the woman?" asked Hurd, passing over for
the moment the fact that Jessop had stolen the brooch.

"He said he didn't," rejoined the man with emphasis, "but I truly
believe, mister, as he did, one of them times, when mad with drink and
out of the room. He wanted the brooch, d'ye see, though why he should
have lost the loot by sealin' the kid's mouth with it I can't say."

"When did you come across Krill again?"

"Ho," said Jessop, drawing his hand across his mouth, "'twas this way,
d'ye see. I come round here lots, and a swell come too, a cold--"

"Grexon Hay," said Hurd, pointing to the photograph.

"Yes. That's him," said Jessop, staring, "and I hated him just, with his
eye-glass and his sneerin' ways. He loved the kid, now a growed, fine
gal, as you know, and come here often. In June--at the end of it
anyhow--he comes and I hears him tells Mrs. Krill, who was always
looking for her husband, that a one-eyed bookseller in Gwynne Stre