“What I like,” observed Kilsip, in his soft, purring tone, “is the sell it will be for that Gorby.  He was so certain that Mr. Fitzgerald was the man, and when he gets off to-morrow Gorby will be in a rage.”

“Where was Sal the whole time?” asked Calton, absently, not thinking of what the detective was saying.

“Ill,” answered Kilsip.  “After she left the Chinaman she went into the country, caught cold by falling into some river, and ended up by getting brain fever.  Some people found her, took her in, and nursed her.  When she got well she came back to her grandmother’s.”

“But why didn’t the people who nursed her tell her she was wanted?  They must have seen the papers.”

“Not they,” retorted the detective.  “They knew nothing.”

“Vegetables!” muttered Calton, contemptuously.  “How can people be so ignorant!  Why, all Australia has been ringing with the case.  At any rate, it’s money out of their pocket.  Well?”

“There’s nothing more to tell,” said Kilsip, “except that she turned up to-night at five o’clock, looking more like a corpse than anything else.”

When they entered the squalid, dingy passage that led to Mother Guttersnipe’s abode, they saw a faint light streaming down the stair.  As they climbed up they could hear the rancorous voice of the old hag pouring forth alternate blessings and curses on her prodigal offspring, and the low tones of a girl’s voice in reply.  On entering the room Calton saw that the sick woman, who had been lying in the corner on the occasion of his last visit, was gone.  Mother Guttersnipe was seated in front of the deal table, with a broken cup and her favourite bottle of spirits before her.  She evidently intended to have a night of it, in order to celebrate Sal’s return, and had commenced early, so as to lose no time.  Sal herself was seated on a broken chair, and leaned wearily against the wall.  She stood up as Calton and the detective entered, and they saw that she was a tall, slender woman of about twenty-five, not bad-looking, but with a pallid and haggard appearance from recent illness.  She was clothed in a kind of tawdry blue dress, much soiled and torn, and had over her shoulders an old tartan shawl, which she drew tightly across her breast as the strangers entered.  Her grandmother, who looked more weird and grotesquely horrible than ever, saluted Calton and the detective on their entrance with a shrill yell, and a volley of choice language.

“Oh, ye’ve come again, ’ave ye,” she screeched, raising her skinny arms, “to take my gal away from ’er pore old gran’mother, as nussed ’er, cuss her, when ‘er own mother had gone a-gallivantin’ with swells.  I’ll ’ave the lawr of ye both, s’elp me, I will.”

Kilsip paid no attention to this outbreak of the old fury, but turned to the girl.

“This is the gentleman who wants to speak to you,” he said, gently, making the girl sit on the chair again, for indeed she looked too ill to stand.  “Just tell him what you told me.”