I

Mrs. Slater was caretaker at No. 21 March. Square. Old Lady Cathcart
lived with her middle-aged daughter at No. 21, and, during half the
year, they were down at their place in Essex; during half the year,
then, Mrs. Slater lived in the basement of No. 21 with her son Henry,
aged six.

Mrs. Slater was a widow; upon a certain afternoon, two and a half years
ago, she had paused in her ironing and listened. "Something," she told
her friends afterwards, "gave her a start--she couldn't say what nor
how." Her ironing stayed, for that afternoon at least, where it was,
because her husband, with his head in a pulp and his legs bent
underneath him, was brought in on a stretcher, attended by two
policemen. He had fallen from a piece of scaffolding into Piccadilly
Circus, and was unable to afford any further assistance to the
improvements demanded by the Pavilion Music Hall. Mrs. Slater, a stout,
amiable woman, who had never been one to worry; Henry Slater, Senior,
had been a bad husband, "what with women and the drink"--she had no
intention of lamenting him now that he was dead; she had done for ever
with men, and devoted the whole of her time and energy to providing
bread and butter for herself and her son.

She had been Lady Cathcart's caretaker for a year and a half, and had
given every satisfaction. When the old lady came up to London Mrs.
Slater went down to Essex and defended the country place from
suffragettes and burglars. "I shouldn't care for it," said a lady
friend, "all alone in the country with no cheerful noises nor human