“Sit down,” said Kemp.  There was an old chair near the fireplace and he pushed it towards her with his foot.  “What’s brought you over here?”

The girl sank into the chair and began to cry.

“I can’t help it, Kincher,” she said.  “I don’t know what to say or do.  Fancy Fred being charged with murder!  Oh, it’s too dreadful to think about.  And yet I can think of nothing else.”

“Crying your eyes out won’t help matters much,” replied the unsympathetic Kemp.

The girl did not reply, but rocked herself backwards and forwards on the chair.  She sobbed so violently that she appeared to be threatened with an attack of hysteria.  Kemp watched her silently.  The cat on the sofa-bedstead, as if awakened by the noise, got up, yawned, looked inquiringly round, and then with a measured leap sprang into the girl’s lap.  She was startled by his act and then she smiled through her sobs as she stroked the animal’s coat.

“Poor old Peter!” she exclaimed.  “He wants to console me! don’t you, Peter?  I say, Kincher, I wish you’d give me Peter; you don’t want him.  Oh, look at the dear!” The cat had perched himself on one of her knees to beg, and he sawed the air appealingly with his forepaws.  “I must give him a tit-bit for that.”  She eyed the remains of the meal on the table disdainfully.  “No, Peter, there is nothing fit for you to eat—­positively nothing.  Why, he understands me like a human being,” she continued in amazement as the huge cat dropped on all fours and deliberately sprang back to the sofa-bedstead.  “I say, Kincher, you really want a woman in this place to look after you.  It’s in a most shocking state—­it’s like a pigsty.”

Kemp made no reply but continued to watch her.  Her tears had vanished and she sat forward with her dark eyes sparkling, one hand supporting her pretty face as she glanced round the room.

“Have you a cigarette?” she asked suddenly.

Kemp went into the shop and came back with a packet of cheap cigarettes.  The girl pushed them away petulantly.

“I don’t like that brand,” she said; “haven’t you anything better?”

The man shook his head.

“No?  Then here goes—­I must have a smoke of some sort.”  She stuck one of the cheap cigarettes daintily into her mouth.  “A match, Kincher!  Why, the box is filthy!  You must have a woman in to look after you, even if I have to find you one myself.”

“I don’t want any woman in the place,” retorted Kemp.  “There is no peace for a man when a woman is about.  But let us have no more of this idle chatter.  What’s brought you over here?  I suppose it’s about Fred.”

“Poor Fred!” The girl looked downcast for a moment, then she tossed her head, puffed out some smoke, and exclaimed energetically, “But he’s not guilty, Kincher, and we’ll get him off, won’t we?”

“Not merely by saying so,” replied Kemp.  “But you’d better tell me how it came about that he was arrested for the murder.  The police gave away nothing at the police court.  Bill Dobbs was down there and he told me they let out nothing, except that their principal witness against Fred is that fellow Hill.  I always knew he’d squeak.  I told Fred to have nothing to do with the job.”