d.

"Humph," said the Inspector, "the assassin had time to escape."

"Begging your pardon, sir, them, or him, or her, or it as murdered
master was below in the cellar when we saw the corp--not that it was
what you'd call a corp then."

"Will you say precisely what you mean?"

Deborah did so, and with such wealth of detail that even the hardened
Inspector felt the creeps down his official back. There was something
terribly merciless about this crime. The man had been bound like a
sheep for the slaughter; his mouth had been sealed with the brooch so
that he could not cry out, and then in the sight of his child and
servant he had been slowly strangled by means of the copper wire which
communicated with the cellar. One of the policemen brought up an auger
which evidently had been used to bore the hole for the wire to pass
through, for the fresh sawdust was still in its whorls. "Who does this
belong to?" Prince asked Deborah.

"It's Bart's," said Deborah, staring; "he was using it along with other
tools to make some deal boxes for master, who was going away. I expect
it was found in the cellar in the tool-box, for Bart allays brought it
in tidy-like after he'd done his work in the yard, weather being fine,
of course," ended Deborah, sniffing.

"Where is this Bart?"

"In bed like a decent man if he's to be my husband, which he is," said
Miss Junk, tartly. "I told one of them idle bobbies to go and fetch him
from Bloomsbury."

"One has gone," said another policeman. "Bart Tawsey isn't he?"

"Mr. Bartholemew Tawsey, if you please," said the servant, grandly. "I
only hope he'll be here soon to protect me."

"You're quite safe," said Prince, dryly, whereat there was a smile on
the faces of his underlings, for Deborah in her disordered dress and
with her swollen, flushed, excited face was not comely. "But what about
this brooch you say is the cause of it all?"

Deborah dropped with an air of fatigue. "If you kill me I can't talk of
it now," she protested. "The brooch belonged to Mr. Paul Beecot."

"And where is he?"

"In the Charing Cross Hospital if you want to know, and as he's engaged
to my pretty you needn't think he done it--so there."

"I am accusing no one," said the Inspector, grimly, "but we must get to
the bottom of this horrible crime."

"Ah, well you may call it that," wailed Deborah, "with that serping on
his poor mouth and him wriggling like an eel to get free. But 'ark,
there's my pretty a-calling