Mrs. Hill kept a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to supplement her husband’s wages by a little earnings of her own in order to support her child.  Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and catered mainly for the ha’p’orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture house next door, it was called “The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium,” and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters.  Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty shop, and rapped sharply on the counter.

A little thin woman, with prematurely grey hair, and a depressed expression, appeared from the back in response to the summons.  She started nervously as her eye encountered the police uniform, but she waited to be spoken to.

“Is your name Hill?” asked the inspector sternly.  “Mrs. Emily Hill?”

The woman nodded feebly, her frightened eyes fixed on the inspector’s face.

“Then I want to have a word with you,” continued the inspector, walking through the shop into the parlour.  “Come in here and answer my questions.”

Mrs. Hill followed him timidly into the room he had entered.  It was a small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and the inspector’s massive proportions made it look smaller still.  He took up a commanding position on the strip of drugget which did duty as a hearth-rug, and staring fiercely at her, suddenly commenced: 

“Mrs. Hill, where was your husband on the night of the 18th of August, when his employer, Sir Horace Fewbanks, was murdered?”

Mrs. Hill shrank before that fierce gaze, and said, in a low tone: 

“Please, sir, he was at home.”

“At home, was he?  I’m not so sure of that.  Tell me all about your husband’s movements on that day and night.  What time did he come home, to begin with?”

“He came home early in the afternoon to take our little girl to the Zoo—­which was a treat she had been looking forward to for a long while.  I couldn’t go myself, there being the shop to look after.  So Mr. Hill and Daphne went to the Zoo, and after they came home and had tea I took her to the pictures while Mr. Hill minded the shop.  It was not the picture-palace next door, but the big one in High Street, where they were showing ‘East Lynne,’ Then when we come home about ten o’clock we all had supper and went to bed.”

“And your husband didn’t go out again?”

“No, sir.  When I got up in the morning to bring him a cup of tea he was still sound asleep.”

“But might he not have gone out in the night while you were asleep?”

“No, sir.  I’m a very light sleeper, and I wake at the least stir.”

Mrs. Hill’s story seemed to ring true enough, although she kept her eyes fixed on her interrogator with a kind of frightened brightness.  Inspector Chippenfield looked at her in silence for a few seconds.

“So that’s the whole truth, is it?” he said at length.

“Yes, sir,” the woman earnestly assured him.  “You can ask Mr. Hill and he’ll tell you the same thing.”