Edward Clare contemplated this shining brass plate with the blank gaze of disappointment. He concluded, not unnaturally, that the whole house had passed into the possession of Mr. Gerard, surgeon, and that Mrs. Evitt had gone forth into the wilderness of London, where she would be more difficult to find than poor Hagar and her son in the sandy wastes of the great desert. While he stood ruminating upon this apparent change in the aspect of affairs, his eye wandered to a window looking upon the area beneath the parlour, from which there came a comfortable glow of light. The occupant of the basement had not drawn down the illuminated blind which generally shaded her domesticity from the vulgar eye; and, seated by her kitchen fire, indulging in the inexpensive luxury of slumber, Edward beheld that very Mrs. Evitt whom he had supposed lost in the metropolitan labyrinth. He had no doubt as to those corkscrew curls, that vinegar visage. This was the woman with whom he had talked for half-an-hour one bleak March morning, when he had inspected the scene of the murder, under the pretence of looking for lodgings. He went up the steps to the door. There were two bells, one labelled ‘SURGERY,’ the other ‘HOUSE.’ Edward rang the latter, which was answered after an interval by the landlady, looking cross and sleepy. At the sight of Mr. Clare, with his travelling bag in his hand, she scented a lodger, and brightened. ‘Have you a decent bedroom to let, on your second floor?’ he asked, for although he was no believer in the influences of the spirit world, he would have preferred spending the December night upon the bleakest and windiest of the bridges to lying down to rest in the room where La Chicot had been slain. ‘I’ve got my first floor empty,’ said Mrs. Evitt, ‘beautiful rooms, all new papered and painted.’ ‘I’d rather go higher up,’ answered Edward. ‘You had a lodger named Desrolles. What has become of him?’ ‘Gone to travel in foreign parts,’ replied the landlady. ‘I believe he had money left him. He was quite a gentleman when he started--everything new, from his portmanchew to his railway rug.’ ‘Can I have his rooms for a few nights? I am only in town as a bird of passage, but I don’t want to go to an hotel.’ ‘Their charges are so ’igh, and there’s no privacy in ’em,’ said Mrs. Evitt, with a sympathetic air, as if she divined his inmost feelings. ‘You can have Mr. Desrolles’ rooms, sir, and we shan’t quarrel about the rent.’ ‘The rooms are clean, I suppose?’ Edward hazarded. ‘Clean!’ exclaimed Mrs. Evitt, lifting up her eyebrows with the indignation of outraged innocence. ‘Nobody that has ever lodged with me would ask that question. Clean! No house of mine ever ’arboured dirt.’ ‘I should like to see the bedroom,’ said Edward. ‘The sitting-room matters very little. I shall be out all the day.’ ‘If you’ll wait while I fetch a candle, I’ll show you both rooms,’ replied the landlady. ‘I suppose you want to come in at once?’