t lead into the cellar. Some call it Black-beetle
Hole, and then again some call it the Hole of the Black-beetles. 'Yer
after no good, Mr. Fitzgerald,' says Mrs. McQuade, whose husband keeps
the junk-shop over the Hole, putting her malicious face out of the
window.

"'You're the woman I want, Mrs. McQuade,' says I. 'Don't be puttin' your
foot in the house,' says she. And when I got her temper a little down by
telling her I only wanted to know who lived in the Hole, she swore by
all the saints it had niver a soul in it, and was hard closed up. Being
well up to the dodges of the Points folks, I descended the steps, and
gettin' underground, knocked at the Hole door, and then sent it smash
in. 'Well! who's here?' says I. 'It's me,' says Mrs. Lynch, a knot of an
old woman, who has kept the Hole for many years, and says she has no
fear of the devil."

Madame Montford listens with increasing anxiety; Mr. Detective
Fitzgerald proceeds: "'Get a light here, then;' says I. You couldn't see
nothing, it was so dark, but you could hear 'em move, and breathe. And
then the place was so hot and sickly. Had to stand it best way I could.
There was no standing straight in the dismal place, which was wet and
nasty under foot, and not more nor twelve by fourteen. The old woman
said she had only a dozen lodgers in; when she made out to get a light
for me I found she had twenty-three, tucked away here and there, under
straw and stuff. Well, it was curious to see 'em (here the detective
wipes his forehead with his handkerchief) rise up, one after another,
all round you, you know, like fiends that had been buried for a time,
then come to life merely to get something to eat."

"And did you find the woman--and was she one of them?"

"That's what I'm comin' at. Well, I caught a sight at the woman; knew
her at the glance. I got a sight at her one night in the Pit at the
House of the Nine Nations. 'Here! I wants you,' says I, takin' what
there was left of her by the arm. She shrieked, and crouched down, and
begged me not to hurt her, and looked wilder than a tiger at me. And
then the whole den got into a fright, and young women, and boys, and
men--they were all huddled together--set up such a screaming. 'Munday!'
says I, 'you don't go to the Tombs--here! I've got good news for you.'
This quieted her some, and then I picked her up--she was nearly
naked--and seeing she wanted scrubbing up, carried her out of the Hole,
and made her follow me to my h