It has been already said that at this time Mrs. Burrows did not live
alone. Residing with her was a young woman, who was believed by Mr.
Toffy to be the wife of Richard Burrows, alias the Grinder. On his
first visit to Pycroft no doubt, Mr. Toffy was mainly anxious to
ascertain whether anything was known by the old woman as to her son's
whereabouts, but the second, third, and fourth visits were made
rather to the younger than to the older woman. Toffy had probably
learned in his wide experience that a man of the Grinder's nature
will generally place more reliance on a young woman than on an old;
and that the young woman will, nevertheless, be more likely to betray
confidence than the older,--partly from indiscretion, and partly,
alas! from treachery. But, if the presumed Mrs. Burrows, junior, knew
aught of the Grinder's present doings, she was neither indiscreet nor
treacherous. Mr. Toffy could get nothing from her. She was sickly,
weak, sullen, and silent. "She didn't think it was her business to
say where she had been living before she came to Pycroft. She hadn't
been living with any husband, and had got no husband that she knew
of. If she had she wasn't going to say so. She hadn't any children,
and she didn't know what business he had to ask her. She came from
Lunnun. At any rate, she came from there last, and she didn't know
what business he had to ask her where she came from. What business
was it of his to be asking what her name was? Her name was Anne
Burrows, if he liked to call her so. She wouldn't answer him any more
questions. No; she wouldn't say what her name was before she was
married."
Mr. Toffy had his reasons for interrogating this poor woman, but he
did not for a while let any one know what those reasons were. He
could not, however, obtain more information than what is contained in
the answers above given, which were, for the most part, true. Neither
the mother nor the younger woman knew where was to be found, at the
present moment, that hero of adventure who was called the Grinder,
and all the police of Wiltshire began to fear that they were about to
be outwitted.
"You never were at Bullhampton with your husband, I suppose?" asked
Mr. Toffy.
"Never," said the supposed Grinder's wife; "but what does it matter
to you where I was?"
"Don't answer him never another word," said old Mrs. Burrows.
"I won't," said the other.
"Were you ever at Bullhampton at all?" asked Mr. Toffy.
"Oh dear, oh dear," said the younger woman.
"I think you must have been there once," said Mr. Toffy.
"What business is it of yourn?" demanded Mrs. Burrows, senior. "Drat
you; get out of this. You ain't no right here, and you shan't stay
here. If you ain't out of this, I'll brain yer. I don't care for
perlice nor anything. We ain't done nothing. If he did smash the
gen'leman's head, we didn't do it; neither she nor me."
"All the same, I think that Mrs. Burrows has been at Bullhampton,"
said the policeman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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