“Begging your pardon, Mr. ’Arrison, but was you any relation to the pore gentleman wot died so mysterious?”
“What business is that of yours?” I snapped. She nodded with ghoulish enjoyment.
“Oh, no offence, sir, no offence. There ain’t no need to take a person up so sharp. That was a funny thing, sir, wasn’t it? You’d be ’is son, per’aps?”
“Never you mind who I am,” I said. “Take my card to Mr. Lathom and say I should be glad if he could spare me a few minutes.”
“Oh, ’e’ll spare you a few minutes, sir, I shouldn’t wonder. Look funny if ’e didn’t, sir, wouldn’t it? There’s lots of things as ’ud look funny, I daresay, if we knew the rights on ’em.”
“What are you getting at?” I said, uneasily.
“Ho, nothink, sir! Nothink! If you ain’t a relation it ain’t nothink to you, is it, sir? People do go off sudden-like, sometimes, and nobody to blame. There’s lots of things ’appens every day more than ever gets into the papers. But there! That ain’t nothink to you, sir.”
She sidled away again, grinning unpleasantly. I heard her talking and a man’s voice replying, and presently she shuffled back again.
“ Mr. Lathom says ’e’ll be with you in five minutes, sir, if you will be so good as to wait. ’E’ll come fast enough, sir, don’t you be afraid. A very agreeable gentleman is Mr. Lathom, sir. I been doin’ for ’im over three months, now, ever since ’e come over from France. Some time in October that would be, sir, before this ’ere sad accident ’appened. Mr. Lathom was very much upset about it, sir. You’d ’ardly ’ave known ’im for the same gentleman w’en ’e came back after the inquest. Looked as if ’e’d been seein’ a ghost—that white and strange ’e was. A terrible sight the pore gentleman must ’a’ been. A crool way to die. But there! We must all