She sent Peter to the police station, and went down to interview the children. A grubby lot of little people they were, very pale, very starved looking, except one who apparently was in charge in Mrs. Inglethorne’s absence. She was the little girl, Leslie learned later, who had slept in the woman’s bed, and, unlike the others, she bore a striking facial resemblance to her mother. “You didn’t find nothing, did you?” She was frankly hostile. “You’ve got to be up very early to catch my old woman, missis!” And then, turning to the silent semi-circle of children who constituted the remainder of Mrs. Inglethorne’s family, she ordered them peremptorily away. “Go and play in the back yard.” Poor little starvelings! Leslie’s heart ached to see them. She sought, by delicate inquiry, to discover where Elizabeth had been taken, but the preternatural cunning of the child she questioned baffled her. Peter came back in a very short time, accompanied by a uniformed inspector and a plain-clothes officer. They made an inspection of the silk and carried it off with them to the station. “This may affect you a little, Peter Dawlish,” said Leslie when they were alone. “The children will be removed to the workhouse this afternoon, and Mrs. Inglethorne will be arrested immediately on her return, so that you will have the house to yourself.” He laughed. “I’m not depressed,” he said. He walked with her as far as Westminster Bridge Road, and at parting she asked him a curious question. “What would you do if you had half a million pounds?” He looked at her in astonishment and laughed. “That isn’t my favourite dream,” he said. “But I think the first thing I should do would be to send to America to discover whether I have been, as you would say, ‘well and truly’ divorced.” “Indeed?” Her tone was a trifle cold. “Is that necessary when Jane Raytham is within a penny bus ride?” And with a nod she was gone. Peter returned to the house and found it very difficult to resume his work or concentrate his mind upon lists. He had hardly started before the police officials came with an omnibus to take away the children, and they departed with no visible reluctance, except in the case of the girl whom Leslie had interviewed. At four o’clock in the afternoon Mrs. Inglethorne came into the house in triumph, and without going into the kitchen mounted the stairs and stood, arms akimbo, her red face made hideous by a self-satisfied smirk, confronting her lodger. “Well, did you bring in the police?” she demanded. “And what are you going to do with Elizabeth?” And, when he did not answer, she shook her fist at him. “Out you go, out of my house, you police informer. I’ll learn you to go prying around and threatening me! You leave this room at once or I’ll send for a policeman.” “I think I’ll stay,” he said good-humouredly. “Oh, will you?” She went to the door and called: “Emma.” There was no answer.