hat business
was it of his to be asking what her name was? Her name was Anne
Burrows, if he liked to call her so. She wouldn't answer him any more
questions. No; she wouldn't say what her name was before she was
married."

Mr. Toffy had his reasons for interrogating this poor woman, but he
did not for a while let any one know what those reasons were. He
could not, however, obtain more information than what is contained in
the answers above given, which were, for the most part, true. Neither
the mother nor the younger woman knew where was to be found, at the
present moment, that hero of adventure who was called the Grinder,
and all the police of Wiltshire began to fear that they were about to
be outwitted.

"You never were at Bullhampton with your husband, I suppose?" asked
Mr. Toffy.

"Never," said the supposed Grinder's wife; "but what does it matter
to you where I was?"

"Don't answer him never another word," said old Mrs. Burrows.

"I won't," said the other.

"Were you ever at Bullhampton at all?" asked Mr. Toffy.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said the younger woman.

"I think you must have been there once," said Mr. Toffy.

"What business is it of yourn?" demanded Mrs. Burrows, senior. "Drat
you; get out of this. You ain't no right here, and you shan't stay
here. If you ain't out of this, I'll brain yer. I don't care for
perlice nor anything. We ain't done nothing. If he did smash the
gen'leman's head, we didn't do it; neither she nor me."

"All the same, I think that Mrs. Burrows has been at Bullhampton,"
said the policeman.

Not another word after this was said by Mrs. Burrows, junior,
so called, and constable Toffy soon took his departure. He was
convinced, at any rate, of this;--that wherever the murderers might
be, the man or men who had joined Sam Brattle in the murder,--for
of Sam's guilt he was quite convinced,--neither the mother, nor
the so-called wife knew of their whereabouts. He, in his heart,
condemned the constabulary of Warwickshire, of Gloucestershire, of
Worcestershire, and of Somersetshire, because the Grinder was not
taken. Especially he condemned the constabulary of Warwickshire,
feeling almost sure that the Grinder was in Birmingham. If the
constabulary in those counties would only do their duty as they in
Wiltshire did theirs, the Grinder and his associates would soon be
taken. But by him nothing further could be learned, and Mr. Toffy
left Pycroft Common with a heavy heart.

CH