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By Root 782 0

“And when isn’t it left on my shoulders, I should like to know? A lot Miss Elma troubled herself about the house. Might be a man for all the help she was. Now the poor Admiral, he liked to have things pleasant about him, and for all he was sharp in his ways, it was a pleasure to serve him. Many’s the time I’ve had to speak sharp to Emery, for I could see as his shiftless ways was a hard trial to the master—but there! Emery’s but a poor creature, though he is my husband. The Admiral, he gave him notice to leave at the end of the month but there! I didn’t pay no attention. I just cooked him a nice dinner, such as he had a fancy for, and he said to me, ‘Mrs. Emery, tell that blistering swab of a husband of yours that he can stay on and here’s half a guinea for you to buy a bit o’ ribbon.’ He was a good master, and I’d say so if I was on my death-bed.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Rudge, sympathetically. He felt that he had unaccountably neglected Mrs. Emery. If you want the truth about a man’s character, he had always maintained, ask the servants. He now had two testimonies in the Admiral’s favour and he felt they were to be relied upon. Neddy Ware had echoed the opinion of the Admiral’s own crew—and a crew is seldom mistaken about its captain. And Mrs. Emery’s evidence agreed with theirs.

“I suppose,” he said, “that Admiral Penistone was a bit short-tempered at times, eh?”

“I don’t think none the worse of him for that,” retorted Mrs. Emery. “I’d rather a man was short-tempered than poor-spirited any day. And the master had a lot to put up with. What with Miss Elma treating him so bad, and his worries and one thing and another—”

“What worries were those?”

“Well, now, Inspector, I don’t know as I could rightly say what worries. But I did hear as he hadn’t been treated proper by the Admiralty when he was a young man, and he never rightly got over it. Something to do with foreign parts, it was, and he’d say that he’d get himself set right yet, if it took him a lifetime. But Miss Elma, she hadn’t no more sympathy with him than a man hasn’t when you’re fratcheted to death with babies.” Without pausing to explain this obscure comparison, Mrs. Emery went on still more rapidly. “She wouldn’t listen to a word, Miss Elma wouldn’t, just sat there looking as sulky as a cow and wouldn’t so much as put her hand to a duster or put up a vase of flowers to make the place look homelike. And sorry I’m sure I am for Mr. Holland, and him such a nice gentleman, if he marries our young lady, though what he could see in her I don’t know. It’s a miracle to me, with all these decent, sensible girls about that a man will always pick on the wrong sort, and as to being good-looking, I never could see it.”

“Well,” said Rudge, “it’s past praying for now. They were married this morning.”

“Well, I never,” said Mrs. Emery. “That’s what your sergeant was looking so sly about! ‘There’s a surprise in store for you, ma’am,’ he says, ‘but I’ll not tell you,’ he says, ‘for you’ll be hearing it soon enough.’ Fancy! But if that isn’t just like Miss Elma, before her poor uncle’s cold as you might say, the ’eartless ’ussy! And surprised I am at Mr. Holland doing such a thing, but there! Anything she said he followed like a lamb with a blue ribbon round its neck, but them big fellows is often the meekest when it comes to a woman.”

“You think Mr. Holland is very fond of Miss Fitzgerald, then?” suggested Rudge. Would he ever get to the bottom of the relations between this pair? No two people seemed to agree about them.

“Fond he was,” said Mrs. Emery, “and is, I’ve no doubt, though how long it lasts is another matter. She took it cool enough, but that’s her way. Herself and her fancies, that’s all that young lady ever was in love with, if you ask me, and he’ll soon find it out. Things look different when you’re married. Artful she was, too, leading him on and putting him off as the fancy took her. But as to caring for him, no, and the master knew that as well as anybody. If he’d been alive they wouldn’t have got married so easy, and that’s a fact, but to go right off