'I never tell tales about my gentlemen,' she said, 'especially when they
are young and handsome, like you. A pore laundress has eyes and ears and
hands, but she hasn't got a tongue. If she had, there might be terrible,
terrible trouble. Oh! dear--yes. But Mr. Gray isn't a young gentleman.
He's old, and it isn't the same thing.'
'Then,' said George, 'how and when can I find him?'
'I was coming to that. You can't find him. Sometimes he comes, and
sometimes he doesn't come.'
'Oh! He doesn't live in the rooms, then!'
'No. He doesn't live in the rooms. He uses the rooms sometimes.'
'What does he use them for?'
'How should I know? All the gentlemen do things with pens and paper. How
should I know what they do? They make their money with their pens and
paper. I dun know how they do it. I suppose Mr. Gray is making his money
like the rest of them.'
Oh! he goes to the Chambers and writes?'
'Sometimes it's weeks and weeks and months and months before he comes at
all. But always my money regular and beforehand sent in an envelope and
a postal order.'
'Well, what is his private address? I suppose he lives in the country?'
'I don't know where he lives. I know nothing about him. I go there every
morning, and I do the room. That's all I know.'
There was no more information to be obtained. Sometimes he came to the
Inn; sometimes he stayed away for weeks and weeks, and for months and
months.
'I might ha' told you more, young gentleman,' murmured the old woman,
'and I might ha' told you less. P'raps you'll come again.'
He went back to Lincoln's Inn, and set down his facts.
First, there was a forgery in the year 1882, in which the name of Edmund
Gray was used. Next, in the series of forgeries just discovered, not
only was the name of Edmund Gray used throughout, but the handwriting of
the letters and cheques was exactly the same as that of the first
cheque, with the same peculiarities in the signature. This could hardly
be a coincidence. The same man must have written the whole.
Then, who was Edmund Gray?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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