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him by being seen in Bow Street, where they would know who she was, even if she did not actually ask for him at the desk. More important, they might remember that she was Pitt's maid and assume that that was why she was there to see Tellman, which could make things very awkward for him with his new superintendent.

So she ended up standing on the pavement outside his lodging house in the early evening, staring up at the windows of his room on the second floor and seeing only darkness where, were he at home, there would be slits of light between the curtains.

She stood uncertainly for several minutes, then realized that he could be an hour or more yet, or if he was on a serious case, even longer. She knew there was a pleasant tearoom only a few hundred yards away; she could spend a little time there, and return later to see if he was home yet.

She had walked fifty yards when she thought how easy it would be to return half a dozen times before she found him, or on the other hand, wait far too long. She turned and walked back, knocked on the door, and when the landlady came told her very politely that she had important information for Inspector Tellman and she would be waiting for him in the tearoom, if he could come and find her there.

The landlady looked a trifle dubious, but she agreed, and Gracie left feeling satisfied with the arrangement.

Tellman came in tired and cold almost an hour after that. He had had a long and tedious day, and he was more than ready to eat a brief supper and go to bed early. She knew as soon as she saw his face and the stiffness of his body that he remembered their quarrel and was not at all sure how to speak to her now. The fact that she had come to start the whole subject again was only going to make it worse, but she felt no choice at all. Martin Garvie's life might be at stake, and what was anyone's love or comfort worth if, when faced with unpleasantness or difference of opinion, it crumbled and fell away?

"Samuel," she began as soon as he was seated opposite her and had given his order to the waitress.

"Yes?" he said guardedly. He seemed about to add something, then bit it off.

There was nothing to it but to plunge in. The longer she sat there with either silence between them or stilted conversation, saying one thing and thinking and caring about another, the worse it would get. "I bin ter the Garrick 'ouse," she said, looking across the table at him. She saw him stiffen even more, his fingers white where his hands were clenched on the table. "I just went ter the kitchen," she hurried on. "I asked the cook an' the scullery maid, on account o' Tilda bein' ill an' Martin was the only family she got."

"Is she ill?" he said quickly.

"Only wit worry," she answered honestly. "But I said as she 'ad a bad fever." Now she was embarrassed. He would not approve of lying, and she wished she did not have to tell him that she had done so. But not to would mean lying to him, and that was something she was not prepared to do. She went on quickly to cover it. "I jus' asked where Martin were, so's I could tell 'im. They dunno, Samuel, I mean really dunno! They're worried too." She leaned forward, closer to him. "They said as Mr. Stephen drinks far too much an' 'as terrible tempers, and black moods o' misery wot are summink awful. No one can 'elp 'im, 'cept Martin, an' 'e'd never put Martin out, 'cos o' that." She stared at him, seeing the worry and the disbelief struggling in his eyes.

"You sure they told you all these things?" he said with a frown. "If they said that to anyone that came to the door, Mr. Garrick would throw them out without a character. I never met servants who would say anything about their household, unless they'd already been dismissed and were looking to make trouble."

"They didn't say it like that," she explained patiently. "I sat in the kitchen an' they gave me a cup o' tea while I told 'em 'bout Tilda, an' they was tellin' me 'ow good Martin were. It jus' sort o' come out wot sort o' good 'e