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She wanted not to faint, though it was not clear that syncope would make matters any the worse. But the longer he paused before knocking again, the better for Aunt M'riar. The knock came, a crescendo on the previous one. She had to respond some time. Make an effort and get it over! "That * young guttersnipe's given me a bad character," muttered Wix, as he heard the chain slipped into its sheath.
In a short time they found themselves in Little Bourke Street, and after traversing a few dark and narrow lanes by this time they were more or less familiar to Calton they found themselves before Mother Guttersnipe's den. They climbed the rickety stairs, which groaned and creaked beneath their weight, and found Mother Guttersnipe lying on the bed in the corner.
He admitted to Calton, after a good deal of questioning, that he had been at Mother Guttersnipe's on the night of the murder. After he had left Whyte by the corner of the Scotch Church, as the cabman Royston had stated, he had gone along Russell Street, and met Sal Rawlins near the Unicorn Hotel.
She had taken him to Mother Guttersnipe's, where he had seen the dying woman, who had told him something he could not reveal. "Well," said Mr. Calton, after hearing the admission, "you might have saved us all this trouble by admitting this before, and yet kept your secret, whatever it may be.
I'd always pictured his cleverness as being inseparable with at least a decent sort of man, even if he was a rogue and a criminal, but I'm through with that. He's a rotter and a hound of the rankest sort! I didn't think there was anything more vulgar or brutal than murder, but he's shown me that there is. A guttersnipe's got more decency! To murder a man and then boastfully label the corpse is "
Brian Fitzgerald's life hangs on a thread, and that thread is Sal Rawlins." "Yes!" assented Kilsip, rubbing his hands together. "Even if Mr. Fitzgerald acknowledges that he was at Mother Guttersnipe's on the night in question, she will have to prove that he was there, as no one else saw him." "Are you sure of that?" "As sure as anyone can be in such a case.
After your departure from Melbourne every one said, 'The hansom cab tragedy is at an end, and the murderer will never be discovered. I ventured to disagree with the wiseacres who made such a remark, and asked myself, 'Who was this woman who died at Mother Guttersnipe's? Receiving no satisfactory answer from myself, I determined to find out, and took steps accordingly.
Tray darted into the middle of the shop and made a face at the indignant shopman by putting his fingers in his mouth to widen it, and pulling down his eyes. Hokar never smiled, but showed no disposition to move. Bart, angered at this blocking up the doorway, and by Tray's war dance, jumped the counter. He aimed a blow at the guttersnipe's head, but missed it and fell full length.
"I know hardly anything about her," replied Kilsip, "except that she was a good-looking woman, of about forty-nine she come out from England to Sydney a few months ago, then on here how she got to Mother Guttersnipe's I can't find out, though I've tried to pump that old woman, but she's as close as wax, and it's my belief she knows more about this dead woman than she chooses to tell."
"Who was she?" asked Calton, who was putting on his overcoat. "Some relation of Mother Guttersnipe's, I fancy," answered Kilsip, as they left the office.
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