“Then you know something that might be harmful to Mr. Vernon?” Jimmie interrupted.  He began to suspect the situation.

“That’s it, sir!”

“But, my good woman, Mr. Vernon is absolutely innocent.  Take my word for it.  The other man, who left the house just before my friend, is the guilty person.”

“I didn’t believe in that other man at first,” Mrs. Rickett replied; “but it looks like the story might be true, after all.  And if it is—­”

“Well?”

“Then I can tell something about him; leastwise I think so.”

“Go on!” Jimmie said, eagerly.

“I ’eard it from that French woman, Dinah Mer—­I never can pernounce the name,” continued Mrs. Rickett.  “Pore creature, what a ’orrible end; though it’s a mercy it was so sudden like.  But, as I was saying, sir, she lodged in my ’ouse last spring, and she come back only three days before the murder.  She never ’ad much to say for ‘erself, an’ I judged she was stiff and proud.  You’ll believe I was taken all aback, then, when she walked into this ’ere very room one evening—­it was last Thursday, the day before the murder—­an’ takes off her cloak as cool as you please.  ‘Mrs. Rickett,’ she says, ‘I’m feelin’ badly.  Can you give me a cup of tea?’ Of course I says yes.  I was ’aving my own tea at the time, and I asked ‘er to join me, sociable like.  By an’ by she got to tellin’ me about ’erself.  It appears she wasn’t really French, but was born at Dunwold, a village in Sussex, an’ lived there till she was grown up, after which she went abroad.  Then she says to me, of a sudden:  ’I met a man to-day—­’”

“One moment!” Jimmie interrupted.  He took a note-book and pencil from his pocket, and jotted down a few lines.  “Please resume now,” he added.  “What did the deceased tell you?”

“She told me that she’d met a man on Regent street from her native English village, meaning Dunwold,” Mrs. Rickett went on, “and that he give her a bad fright.  ‘Is he an enemy of yours?’ I asked.  ’Yes, a bitter one,’ she says, ‘an’ I’m mortal afraid of him.  An’ the worst of it is I’m sure he saw me, though I give ’im the slip by going into Swan and Edgar’s at one door and out at another.  If he finds me, Mrs. Rickett, ‘e’ll kill me.’  I told ’er not to worrit ‘erself, an’ I clean furgot the matter till the next night, when the pore dear creature was stabbed to the ’eart.  I thought I should ’ave lost my ’ead, what with the crowds that gathered, an’ the police in the ‘ouse, an’ the doctors a viewin’ the departed corpse, an’—­”

Jimmie checked her by a gesture.

“Are you sure you have told me everything?” he asked.

“Every blessed word, sir.  It’s the first and only time the woman spoke to me of ’erself.”

Jimmie jotted down a few more notes, and his hand shook like a leaf, so greatly was he thrilled by the value of his discovery.  Then he put Mrs. Rickett through a cross-examination, in what he flattered himself was a strictly legal style.  Certainly Mr. Tenby could not have done it better, for the landlady had nothing more to tell.