“We must search the house,” the inspector said; and Mrs. Jorrocks having been brought out of her room, and having forthwith fainted and been revived again, was ordered to accompany the police in their investigation, which she did in a very dazed and stupefied manner.  Indeed, not a word could be got from her until, entering the dining-room, she perceived her bottle of Hollands upon the table, on which she raised up her voice and cursed the whole company, from the inspector downwards, with the shrillest volubility of invective.  Having satisfied her soul in this manner, she wound up by a perfect shriek of profanity, and breaking away from her guardians, she regained the shelter of her room and locked herself up there, after which they could hear by the drumming of her heels that she went into a violent hysterical attack upon the floor.

Kate had, however, recovered sufficiently to be able to show the police the different rooms, and to explain to them which was which.  The inspector examined the scanty furniture of Kate’s apartment with great interest.

“You say you have been living here for three weeks?” he said.

“Nearly a month,” Kate answered.

“God help you!  No wonder you look pale and ill.  You have a fine prospect from the window.”  He drew the blind aside and looked out into the darkness.  A gleam of moonlight lay upon the heaving ocean, and in the centre of this silver streak was a single brown-sailed fishing-boat running to the eastward before the wind.  The inspector’s keen eye rested upon it for an instant, and then he dropped the blind and turned away.  It never flashed across his mind that the men whom he was hunting down could have chosen that means of escape, and were already beyond his reach.

He examined very carefully the rooms of Ezra and of his father.  Both had been furnished comfortably, if not solidly, with spring mattresses to their beds and carpets upon the floor.  The young man’s room had little in it beyond the mere furniture, which was natural, as his visits were so short.  In the merchant’s chamber, however, were many books and papers.  On the little square table was a long slip of foolscap covered with complex figures.  It appeared to be a statement of his affairs, in which he had been computing the liabilities of the firm.  By the side of it was a small calf-bound diary.  The inspector glanced over one of the pages and uttered an exclamation of disgust.  “Here are some pretty entries,” he cried. “’Feel the workings of grace within me!’ ’Prayed that I might be given a livelier interest in the Holy Scriptures!’ The book’s full of that sort of thing!” he added, turning over the leaves.  “The fellow seems to have played the hypocrite even with himself, for he could never have known that other eyes would rest upon this.”

“Dere’ll be some queer company among de elect if he is dere!” Von Baumser remarked.

“What’s all this?” asked the inspector, tumbling a heap of clothes out of the corner with his foot.  “Why, here’s a monk’s dress!”