“I’m going to be very interested in Elizabeth,” said Leslie, her steady eyes on the woman. “You won’t mind if I come round sometimes to see how she is getting on?” Mrs. Inglethorne made a fearful grimace which was intended to express her pleasure. “How many children have you?” “Five, miss.” The woman was looking at her curiously, possibly fascinated by her first meeting with the female of the hated species. “Five in this little house?” Leslie raised her eyebrows. “Where do you keep them all?” Again the woman wriggled, this time uncomfortably. “In the kitchen, miss, except the two girls; they sleep in my room.” “I’d like to have a look at your kitchen.” “It’s a bit late and you’d wake ’em up,” said Mrs. Inglethorne after hesitation. But Leslie waited, and reluctantly Mrs. Inglethorne went down the stairs, the girl following. The kitchen was at the back of the house, approached by a narrow passage. It was a room barely ten feet square, cold and miserably furnished. In the unsatisfactory light of the oil lamp the woman carried she saw not three but four little bundles; one, a child which could not have been three years old, slept in a soap box on the floor. Its coverlet was a strip of dusty carpet which had been roughly cut to fit the shape of the box. Two children were huddled together under the table, wrapped in an old army overcoat. The fourth lay in a corner under a flour sack, so still that she might have been dead: a girl of eleven, sandy-haired, sharp-featured, who shivered and groaned in her sleep as the light of the lamp came upon her face. “It’s very ’ard on a woman who’s got five mouths to fill,” complained Mrs. Inglethorne, “but I wouldn’t part with ’em for the world! And it’s warm in the kitchen when we’ve had a coke fire going all evening.” Leslie went out of that sad little room sick at heart. Poverty she had seen and understood. Possibly these unfortunate children were as well off as thousands of others in the great metropolis. The weaklings would die; the fittest would survive and drag their stunted bodies to a free school where they would be taught just enough to enable them to write their betting slips and read the football reports intelligently. Peter was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. “I think I’ll go home now. I’m rather tired,” she said. “Most likely you will be interrogated to-morrow either by Mr. Coldwell or an officer from the Yard. I think the best thing you can do is to go up and interview him.” And then, abruptly: “Have you seen your mother since you have been free?” He shook his head. “My parent has expressed her wishes on the matter in unmistakable terms. We were never _en rapport_, so to speak, and perhaps it is a little too late now to attempt to arrive at a mutual understanding.” She looked down at the floor, her lips pursed. “I wonder,” she said, and held out her hand. “Good-night, Peter Dawlish.” He took the hand, held it for a second, and then: