that they have seen better days. But there was still an atmosphere of shabby gentility about it—just as there was about the faded woman who presently opened the door of Number 89.
"Mrs, Creech?" enquired the detective, who, when he called in at the police-station had referred to the directory. "Thank you. Sorry to trouble you, ma'am—I'm a police-officer—Detective Sergeant Wedgwood. There's been a sad accident to your lodger, Mr. Wraypoole, Mrs. Creech. I came to tell you."
Mrs. Creech, one of those women who look as if ill news came to them at regular and periodical times as part of the accepted and necessary things of life, received this announcement with the sigh of one whom nothing surprises.
"Dear-a-dear!" she said. "And him unusual cheerful when he went out this morning! It'll be one of these motor accidents, I suppose? The streets are getting——"
"I'll come in a minute, Mrs. Creech," interrupted the detective. He followed the landlady into a dimly-lighted front parlour. "The fact is, ma'am," he went on, confidentially, "my news is about as serious as can be—Mr. Wraypoole's dead! And what's more, we've very little doubt he's been murdered."
Mrs. Creech, a tall, spare woman, indefinite
