On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse. Here lived Mrs and Miss Meager¹ — and also on occasions Mr Meager, who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance² in the world, going about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse places, and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked women — mother and daughter — who endeavoured to get their living by letting lodgings³. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who do are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be considered in the rent. But Mr Emilius, when the cruelty of his wife’s friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion⁴ in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs and Miss Meager for all his domestic comforts. Mr Emilius was always a favourite with new friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss⁵ rubbed altogether off him when Mr Bonteen was murdered. As it happened, on that night, or rather early in the day, for Meager had returned to the bosom⁶ of his family after a somewhat prolonged absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially⁷ remarkable⁸ in the Meager family from the double event — Mr Meager had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out of the question. Whereupon Mr Meager had endeavoured to force the lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some slight personal encounter — after which he had had some gin and had gone to bed. Mrs Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted for her black eye by a

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