ened to it
by a chain and padlock, had sunk deep into the soft mud, and might have
remained there till it rotted. A valuable gold repeater, that Jetson
remembered young Hepworth having told him had been a presentation to
his father, was in its usual pocket, and a cameo ring that Hepworth had
always worn on his third finger was likewise fished up from the mud.
Evidently the murder belonged to the category of crimes passionel. The
theory of the prosecution was that it had been committed by a man who,
before her marriage, had been Mrs. Hepworth's lover.

The evidence, contrasted with the almost spiritually beautiful face of
the woman in the dock, came as a surprise to everyone in court.
Originally connected with an English circus troupe touring in Holland,
she appears, about seventeen, to have been engaged as a "song and dance
artiste" at a particularly shady cafe chantant in Rotterdam, frequented
chiefly by sailors. From there a man, an English sailor known as
Charlie Martin, took her away, and for some months she had lived with
him at a small estaminet the other side of the river. Later, they left
Rotterdam and came to London, where they took lodgings in Poplar, near
to the docks.

It was from this address in Poplar that, some ten months before the
murder, she had married young Hepworth. What had become of Martin was
not known. The natural assumption was that, his money being exhausted,
he had returned to his calling, though his name, for some reason, could
not be found in any ship's list.

That he was one and the same with the man that Jetson had watched till
the door of the Hepworths' house had closed upon him there could be no
doubt. Jetson described him as a thick-set, handsome-looking man, with
a reddish beard and moustache. Earlier in the day he had been seen at
Hampstead, where he had dined at a small coffee-shop in the High
Street. The girl who had waited on him had also been struck by the
bold, piercing eyes and the curly red beard. It had been an off-time,
between two and three, when he had dined there, and the girl admitted
that she had found him a "pleasant-spoken gentleman," and "inclined to
be merry." He had told her that he had arrived in England only three
days ago, and that he hoped that evening to see his sweetheart. He had
accompanied the words with a laugh, and the girl thought--though, of
course, this may have been after-suggestion--that an ugly look followed
the laugh.

One imagines