"Jim Peabody fast enough, Mr. Narkom," commented Cleek, when they were left together beside the dead man. "Changed, of course, in all the years, but still poor old Jim. Good-hearted, honest, but illiterate. Could barely more than write his name, and even that without a capital, poor chap. Let me look at the hand. A violet smudge on the top of the thumb as well as those marks on the palm, I see. Hum-m-m! Any letters or writing of any sort in the pockets when found? None, eh? That old bone-handled pocket knife there his? Yes, I'd like to look at it. Open it, please. Thanks. I thought so, I thought so. Those the socks he had on? Poor wretch! Down to that at last, eh?--down to that! Let me have one of them for a day or so, will you? and--yes--the photographs of the other four, please. Thanks very much. No, that's all. Now then, to call on Miss Valmond, if you don't mind. Right you are. Let her go, Lennard. Down with the blinds and open with the locker again, Mr. Narkom, and we'll 'dig' Mr. George Headland out of his two-months' old grave." And at exactly ten minutes after eight o'clock, Mr. George Headland _was_ 'dug up' and was standing with Mr. Narkom in Rose Valmond's house listening to Rose Valmond's story from her own lips, and saying to himself, the while, that here surely was that often talked-of, seldom-seen creature, a woman with an angel's face.
How it distressed her, to tell again this story which might take away a human life, was manifest from the trembling of her sweet voice, the painful twitching of her tender mouth, and the tears that rose so readily to her soft eyes.
"Oh, Mr. Headland, I can hardly reconcile myself to having done it even yet," she said pathetically. "I do not know this Mr. Barrington-Edwards but by sight, and it seems such a horrible thing to rise up against a stranger like that. But I couldn't keep it any longer; I felt that to do so would be equivalent to sharing his guilt, and the thought that if I kept silent I might possibly be paving the way to the sacrifice of other innocent lives almost drove me out of my mind."
"I can quite understand your feelings, Miss Valmond," said Cleek, touched to the very heart by the deep distress of her. "But may I say I think you have done right? I never yet knew Heaven to be anything but tender to those who do their duty, and you certainly have done yours--to yourself, to your fellow creatures, and to God!"