She thought that if
a gentleman did call it must have been the other one."
"The other one?" repeated Calton, in 8 puzzled voice. "What other one?"
"Oliver Whyte."
Calton arose from his seat with a blank air of astonishment.
"Oliver Whyte!" he said, as soon as he could find his voice. "Was he in
the habit of going there?"
Kilsip curled himself up in his seat like a sleek cat, and pushing
forward his head till his nose looked like the beak of a bird of prey,
looked keenly at Calton.
"Look here, sir," he said, in his low, purring voice, "there's a good
deal in this case which don't seem plain--in fact, the further we go
into it,--the more mixed up it seems to get. I went to see Mother
Guttersnipe this morning, and she told me that Whyte had visited the
'Queen' several times while she lay ill, and that he seemed to be
pretty well acquainted with her."
"But who the deuce is this woman they call the 'Queen'?" said Calton,
irritably. "She seems to be at the bottom of the whole affair--every
path we take leads to her."
"I know hardly anything about her," replied Kilsip, "except that she
was a good-looking woman, of about forty-nine--she come out from
England to Sydney a few months ago, then on here--how she got to
Mother Guttersnipe's I can't find out, though I've tried to pump that
old woman, but she's as close as wax, and it's my belief she knows more
about this dead woman than she chooses to tell.
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