Kebby, clinking her newly-received wages in her pocket, hurried out of the square to do her Christmas marketing. As she went down the street which led to it, Blinders, a burly, ruddy-faced policeman, who knew her well, stopped to make an observation.
“Is that good gentleman of yours home, Mrs. Kebby?” he asked, in the loud tones used to deaf people.
“Oh, he’s home,” grumbled Mrs. Kebby ungraciously, “sittin’ afore the fire like Solomon in all his glory. What d’ye want to know for?”
“I saw him an hour ago,” explained Blinders, “and I thought he looked ill.”
“So he do, like a corpse. What of that? We’ve all got to come to it some day. ‘Ow d’ye know but what he won’t be dead afore morning? Well, I don’t care. He’s paid me up till to-night. I’m going to enj’y myself, I am.”
“Don’t you get drunk, Mrs. Kebby, or I’ll lock you up.”
“Garn!” grunted the old beldame. “Wot’s Christmas Eve for, if it ain’t for folk to enj’y theirselves? Y’are on duty early.”
“I’m taking the place of a sick comrade, and I’ll be on duty all night. That’s my Christmas.”
“Well! well! Let every one enj’y hisself as he likes,” muttered Mrs. Kebby, and shuffled off to the nearest public house.
Here she began to celebrate the season, and afterwards went shopping; then she celebrated the season again, and later carried home her purchases to the miserable garret she occupied. In this den Mrs. Kebby, with the aid of gin and water, celebrated the season until she drank herself to sleep.
Next morning she woke in anything but an amiable mood, and had to fortify herself with an early drink before she was fit to go about her business.
It was almost nine when she reached the Nelson Hotel, and found the covered tray with Mr. Berwin’s breakfast waiting for her; so she hurried with it to Geneva Square as speedily as possible, fearful of a scolding. Having admitted herself into the house, Mrs. Kebby took up the tray with both hands, and pushed open the sitting-room door with her foot. Here, at the sight which met her eyes, she dropped the tray with a crash, and let off a shrill yell.
The room was in disorder, the table was overturned, and amid the wreckage of glass and china lay Mark Berwin, with outspread hands—stone dead—stabbed to the heart.

CHAPTER V. THE TALK OF THE TOWN


Nowadays, events, political, social, and criminal, crowd so closely on one another’s heels that what was formerly a nine days’ wonder is scarcely marvelled at the same number of minutes. Yet in certain cases episodes of a mysterious or unexpected nature engage the attention of a careless world for a somewhat longer period, and provoke an immense amount of discussion and surmise. In this category may be placed the crime committed in Geneva Square; for when the extraordinary circumstances of the case became known, much curiosity was manifested regarding the possible criminal and his motive for committing so apparently useless a crime.
To add to the wonderment of the public, it came out in the evidence of Lucian Denzil at the inquest that Berwin was not the real name of the victim; so here the authorities were confronted with a three-fold problem. They had first to discover the name of the dead man; second, to learn who it was had so foully murdered him; and third, to find out the reason why the unknown assassin should have slain an apparently harmless man.
But these hidden things were not easily brought to light; and the meagre evidence collected by the police failed to do away with any one of the three obstacles—at all events, until after the inquest. When the jury brought in a verdict that the deceased had been violently done to death by some person or persons unknown, the twelve good men and true stated the full extent of knowledge gained by Justice in her futile scramble after clues. Berwin—so called—was dead, his assassin had melted into thin air, and the Silent House had added a second legend to its already uncanny reputation. Formerly it had been simply haunted, now it was also blood-stained, and its last condition was worse than its first.
The dead man had been found stabbed to the heart by some long, thin, sharp-pointed instrument which the murderer had taken away with him—or perhaps her, as the sex of the assassin, for obvious reasons, could not be decided. Mrs. Kebby swore that she had left the deceased sitting over the fire at eight o’clock on Christmas Eve, and that he had then been fairly well, though far from enjoying the best of health. When she returned, shortly after nine, on Christmas morning, the man was dead and cold. Medical aid was called in at the same time as the police were summoned; and the evidence of the doctor who examined the body went to prove that Berwin had been dead at least ten hours; therefore, he must have been assassinated between the hours of eleven and twelve of the previous night.
Search was immediately made for the murderer, but no trace could be found of him, nor could it be ascertained how he had entered the house.