ugh customers were not expected. The girl tried the
door and found it locked--a fact which seemed to indicate that customers
were not even desired. After another hasty look up and down the street
she tapped sharply on the door in a peculiar way.

The door was opened after the lapse of a few minutes by a short thickset
man of over fifty, whose heavy face displayed none of the suavity and
desire to please which is part of the stock-in-trade of the small
shopkeeper of London. A look of annoyance crossed his face at the sight
of the girl, and his first remark to her was one which no well-regulated
shopkeeper would have addressed to a prospective customer.

"You!" he exclaimed. "What in God's name has brought you here? I told you
on no account to come to the shop. How do you know somebody hasn't
followed you?"

"I could not help it, Kincher," the girl responded piteously. "I'm
distracted about Fred, and I had to come over to ask your advice."

"You women are all fools," the man retorted. "You might have known that
I would read all about the case in the papers, and that I'd let you
hear from me."

"Yes, Kincher," she replied humbly, "but they let me see Fred for a
few minutes yesterday at the police court and he told me to come over
and see you. Oh, if you only knew what I've suffered since he was
arrested. Yesterday he was committed for trial. I haven't closed my
eyes for over a week."

"So you attended the police-court proceedings?" said Kemp. And when the
girl nodded her head he went on, "The more fool you. I suppose it would
be too much to expect a woman to keep away even though she knew she could
do no good."

"I knew that, Kincher, but I simply had to go. I should have died if I
had stayed in that dreadful flat alone. I tried to, but I couldn't. I got
so nervous that I had to put my handkerchief into my mouth to prevent
myself from screaming aloud."

"Well, since you are here you had better come inside instead of standing
there and giving yourself and me away to every passing policeman."

He led the way inside, and the girl followed him to a dirty, cheerless
room behind the shop which was furnished with a sofa-bedstead, a table,
and a chair. It was evident that Kemp lived alone and attended to his own
wants. The remains of an unappetising meal were on a corner of the table,
and a kettle and a teapot stood by the fireplace in which a fire had
recently been made with a few sticks for the purpose of boiling a ket