oney in gold.
The significance of this evidence immediately transpired: a constable
succeeded the bank-manager and testified that after searching the
prisoner after his arrest he found on him over twenty pounds in
sovereigns and half-sovereigns, placed in a wash-leather bag.

Brereton immediately recognized the impression which this evidence made.
He saw that it weighed with the half-dozen solid and slow-thinking men
who sat on one side or the other of Mallalieu on the magisterial bench;
he felt the atmosphere of suspicion which it engendered in the court.
But he did nothing: he had already learned sufficient from Avice in a
consultation with her and Bent's solicitor to know that it would be very
easy to prove to a jury that it was no unusual thing for Harborough to
carry twenty or thirty pounds in gold on him. Of all these witnesses
Brereton asked scarcely anything--but he made it clear that when
Harborough was met near his cottage at daybreak that morning by two
constables who informed him of what had happened, he expressed great
astonishment, jeered at the notion that he had had anything to do with
the murder, and, without going on to his own door, offered voluntarily
to walk straight to the police-station.

But when Miss Pett--who had discarded her red and yellow turban, and
appeared in rusty black garments which accentuated the old-ivory tint of
her remarkable countenance--had come into the witness-box and answered a
few common-place questions as to the dead man's movements on the
previous evening, Brereton prepared himself for the episode which he
knew to be important. Amidst a deep silence--something suggesting to
everybody that Mr. Bent's sharp-looking London friend was about to get
at things--he put his first question to Miss Pett.

"How long have you known Mr. Kitely?"

"Ever since I engaged with him as his housekeeper," answered Miss Pett.

"How long since is that?" asked Brereton.

"Nine to ten years--nearly ten."

"You have been with him, as housekeeper, nearly ten
years--continuously?"

"Never left him since I first came to him."

"Where did you first come to him--where did he live then?"

"In London."

"Yes--and where, in London?"

"83, Acacia Grove, Camberwell."

"You lived with Mr. Kitely at 83, Acacia Grove, Camberwell, from the
time you became his housekeeper until now--nearly ten years in all. So
we may take it that you knew Mr. Kitely very well indeed?"

"As well as anybody could k