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I found the house where Olinto lived--a small, smoke-blackened,
semi-detached place standing back in a tiny strip of weedy garden, with
a wooden veranda before the first floor windows. The house, according to
the woman who kept a general shop at the corner, was occupied by two
families. The "Eye-talians," as she termed them, lived above, while the
Gibbonses rented the ground floor.
"Oh, yes, sir. The foreigners are respectable enough. Always pays me
ready money for everythink, except the milk. That they pays for weekly."
"I understand that the wife has disappeared. What have you heard about
that?"
"They do say, sir, that they 'ad some words together the other day, and
that the woman's took herself off in a tantrum. Only you can't believe
all you 'ear, you know."
"Did they often quarrel?"
"Not to my knowledge, sir. They were really very quiet, respectable
persons for foreigners."
I repassed the house of the dead woman, and then regaining the busy
Camberwell Road I took an omnibus back to the Hotel Cecil in the Strand
where I had put up, tired and disappointed.


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