Adventures of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison Page B

have you known Mr. Pullin?”
    Mrs. Beckle faltered and returned Hewitt’s steadfast gaze with a quick
glance of suspicion. “Oh,” she said, “I have known him, on and off, for a
long time.”
    “A connection by marriage, of course?” Hewitt’s hard gaze was still upon
her.
    Mrs. Beckle looked from him to the inspector and back again, and the
corners of her mouth twitched. Then she sat down and rested her head on her
hand. “Well, I suppose I must say it, though I’ve kept it to myself till
now,” she said resignedly. “He’s my brother-in-law.”
    “Of course, as you have been told, you are not obliged to say anything
now; but the more information you can give the better chance there may be of
detecting your brother-in-law’s murderer.”
    “Well, I don’t mind, I’m sure. It was a bad day when he married my sister.
He killed her—not at once, so that he might have been hung for it, but
by a course of regular brutality and starvation. I hated the man!” she said,
with a quick access of passion, which however she suppressed at once.
    “And yet you let him stay in your house?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. I was afraid of him; and he used to come just when he
pleased, and practically take possession of the house. I couldn’t keep him
away; and he drove away my other lodgers.” She suddenly fired up again.
“Wasn’t that enough to make anybody desperate? Can you wonder at
anything?”
    She quieted again by a quick effort, and Hewitt and the inspector
exchanged glances.
    “Let me see, he was captain of the sailing ship Egret, wasn’t he?”
Hewitt asked. “Lost in the Pacific a year or more ago?”
    “Yes.”
    “If I remember the story of the loss aright, he and one native
hand—a Kanaka boy—were the only survivors?”
    “Yes, they were the only two. He was the only one that came back to
England.”
    “Just so. And there were rumours, I believe, that after all he
wasn’t altogether a loser by that wreck? Mind, I only say there were rumours;
there may have been nothing in them.”
    “Yes,” Mrs. Beckle replied, “I know all about that. They said the ship had
been east away purposely, for the sake of the insurance. But there was no
truth in that, else why did the underwriters pay? And besides, from what I
know privately, it couldn’t have been. Abel Pullin was a reckless scoundrel
enough, I know, but he would have taken good care to be paid well for any
villainy of that sort.”
    “Yes, of course. But it was suggested that he was.”
    “No, nothing of the sort. He came here, as usual, as soon as he got home,
and until he got another ship he hadn’t a penny. I had to keep him, so I
know. And he was sober almost all the time from want of money. Do you mean to
say, if the common talk were true, that he would have remained like that
without getting money of the owners, his accomplices, and at least making
them give him another ship? Not he. I know him too well.”
    “Yes, no doubt. He was now just back from his next voyage after that, I
take it?”
    “Yes, in the Iolanthe brig. A smaller ship than he has been used
to, and belonging to different owners.”
    “Had he much money this time?”
    “No. He had bought himself a gold watch and chain abroad, and he had a
ring and a few pounds in money, and sonic instruments, that was all, I think,
in addition to his clothes.”
    “Well, they’ve all been stolen now,” the inspector said. “Have you missed
anything yourself?”
    “No.”
    “Nor the other lodgers, so far as you know?”
    “No, neither of them.”
    “Very well, Mrs. Beckle. We’ll have a word or two with the servant now,
and then I’ll get you to come over the house with us.”
    Sarah Taffs was the servant’s name. She seemed to have got over her
agitation, and was now sullen and uncommunicative. She would say nothing.
“You said I needn’t say nothin’ if I didn’t want to, and I won’t.” That was
all she would say, and she