"There!" wailed Mrs. Dumps, as they went down the grand staircase of the Music Hall, "I thought you'd say that. As if I knew. Zara never said that Osip was with her. If she had I'd have made her come home again. You don't think that I want Twine's child and mine, murdered and stamped with Purple Ferns like a letter. But I'll have it out with her to-night. She'll tell me what she means, by keeping gory assassins from the gallows."
"I shan't, and you shan't either, Mr. Ferdinand. Though why the police--a silly lot, I say--don't spot the man coming forward in that brazen way is more than I know. I saw who he was, the very moment I clapped eyes on him, and though I do owe him seven and sixpence, that's no reason I should disgrace Zara by hanging him. But I'll speak to Zara, when I take her home in that steam engine of hers, as is so expensive and useless. You needn't come, Mr. Ferdinand."
But Clarice did not intend to give up her chase for information yet, especially as she was now on the way to learn much. "Oh, but I must come, Mrs. Dumps," she said, coolly; "you know that I escort Zara home every night." This was a chance shot, but it told.
"I know you do, and why shouldn't you, seeing you are to be my son-in-law," whimpered Mrs. Dumps. "Much as I hate the music-hall, I'd have come myself during the past three weeks to take the child home, rather than let her go alone. But I always trusted that you would look after her, Mr. Ferdinand, though you do know grinning Jezebels behind bars. Here's the stage door--what a hole! Why, my backyard is cleaner, and ain't got such dirt about it. Oh, that a child of Twine should come to this, and him a godly man with a gift of speech surprising, though he did wag his elbow more than he need have done, and was brought to an early grave with a handsome tombstone in consequence."
While Mrs. Dumps ran on in this disconnected fashion, Clarice saw at the far end of the alley, which led to the stage door of the Mascot Music Hall, a smart motor-car in charge of a smart chauffeur. She was about to ask Mrs. Dumps if this was the steam-engine she referred to as belonging to Zara, when the stage door opened, and the girl herself came out, looking wonderfully pretty, and wonderfully angry. She mistook Clarice for her brother, as everyone else had done, and came up to him at once.