I assented, as there was little use in arguing with Mrs. Gilfin, who--as I knew of old--always had an answer to the most pertinent objections. Although not so fat as her spouse, she was still very stout, and her looks, along with those of John, said a good deal for the style of living obtainable at the inn. I engaged the sitting-room in which we had our first conversation and a bedroom immediately over head. Then I had my traps taken into the house, and having stowed away the Rippler in a convenient outhouse, sat down to besiege Burwain in due form. After dinner--and a very good dinner it was too--I told Mrs. Gilfin as much as I thought necessary, which did not include any reference to the discovery of the cloak. "Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Gilfin, who had frequently raised her fat hands at intervals, during my narrative, "to think of the young gentleman, who was so fond of my custards, being in love, and with Miss Gertrude, of all young ladies. Well, she's the beauty of the world, and no mistake, Master Cyrus." "So I thought from the photograph, Cuckoo. By the way, did you not know this poor woman who was murdered?" "Do I know the nose on my face?" asked Mrs. Gilfin, severely. "Of course I knew her well, when she was housekeeper to Mr. Miser Monk." "Miser Monk--you mean Gabriel Monk?" "No I don't, Master Cyrus, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. Gabriel he was christened, I daresay, but Miser he was called by them who knew how he hoarded up money." "He was a genuine miser then?" "Genuine." Mrs. Gilfin's fat hands flew up, and her pigs' eyes twinkled, "he would skin a flea for its hide and squeeze blood out of a stone, and take the trousers off a Highlandman, Master Cyrus. A nasty stooping lean old man, with a black-velvet skull-cap and a stick and a suit of clothes you wouldn't have picked up off the dung-hill. Of good family too," added Mrs. Gilfin, nodding, until her cap-ribbons quivered. "The Monks are an old Essex family, who used to own Burwain and all the land from Gattlingsands to Tarhaven. But they came down in the world, and only The Lodge remained to Mr. Miser Monk, as his father was a spendthrift, and scattered everything. But the miser invested what was left, Master Cyrus, and I believe had an income of five hundred golden pounds a year, although he never spent a penny of it. He never repaired The Lodge, or attended to the garden, or gave a farthing to the poor, but saved and saved. As he lived for eighty years, Master Cyrus, you may guess that his savings came to a pretty penny. He died five years ago, when Anne Caldershaw took her savings and herself to live at Mootley." "What became of his money?" I asked, anxiously.