My indifference piqued the good woman. If I had betrayed any interest, she would probably have closed up like an oyster. As it was, she positively bridled.

“I should say you did, miss! It’s been in all the newspapers. The Daily Budget ’s out still to catch the man who did it. It seems, according to them, as our police are no good at all. Well, I hope they’ll get him⁠—although a nice-looking young fellow he was and no mistake. A kind of soldierly look about him⁠—ah, well, I dare say he’d been wounded in the war, and sometimes they go a bit queer afterwards, my sister’s boy did. Perhaps she’d used him bad⁠—they’re a bad lot, those foreigners. Though she was a fine-looking woman. Stood there where you’re standing now.”

“Was she dark or fair?” I ventured. “You can’t tell from these newspaper portraits.”

“Dark hair, and a very white face⁠—too white for nature, I thought, and her lips reddened something cruel. I don’t like to see it⁠—a little powder now and then is quite another thing.”