Dredge nodded. "I hear Miss Destiny knows something about that."
At this moment, as if in answer to her name, the little old lady stepped daintily into the back room. She looked as shabby and frail as ever, but she undoubtedly was a gentlewoman, and her eyes still revealed a strong vitality. With a curtsey to me and to Cannington, she addressed herself graciously to Inspector Dredge.
"My trap is at the door, sir, and I am anxious to return to my home at Burwain, since this poor woman I came to see is unfortunately dead."
Miss Destiny blinked with her wonderfully youthful eyes, and recoiled with a nervous gesture of her hand. "Murdered," she whispered, half to herself. "They did not tell me that."
"Who did not tell you, ma'am?" demanded the Inspector brusquely.
"Lucinda, my servant, Mr. Giles and his wife," she replied brokenly. "How was she murdered, sir?"
"An ordinary hat-pin with a blue glass bead for a head was thrust into her heart, ma'am. She must have died immediately."
"How dreadful. But why should she be murdered, poor soul?"
"So far as I can gather, on account of her glass eye, which is missing. I should like to hear what you have to say on that point, ma'am?" and Dredge fixed his stern eyes inquisitively on the little old lady.
Miss Destiny sat down quietly, and appeared to make an effort to recover her composure, which had been sorely shaken, and very naturally, by the news of the strange murder. "All I can say is, that Anne had a glass eye to which she appeared to attach a ridiculous value"--at this point I became aware that she was repeating word for word her speech of the previous night, and certain of it, when she continued. "Anne often declared that she would not lose it for a fortune. Now it is lost, and she is dead. Dear me!"
"It has been stolen, and she has been murdered," corrected the Inspector smartly. "I should like to know why Mrs. Caldershaw attached such value to the eye?"
"I can't tell you that, Mr. Inspector, because I do not know. Anne was always very close and kept her business to herself."
"Who is the woman?" asked Dredge impatiently.
"Who _was_ the woman, you mean, sir," corrected Miss Destiny smartly in her turn. "I can tell you that. She was my brother's housekeeper at Burwain for many years. When he died five years ago, more or less," added Miss Destiny precisely, "she retired with her savings to this place, which was her native village, and here set up this shop."