Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/112

108 opened the door, and who stood looking at the detective with no very friendly expression of countenance. He was dressed in a greasy brown velvet coat, much patched, and a black wide-awake hat, which was pulled down over his eyes. He looked like one of those Italians who retail icecream on the street, or carry round organs with monkeys on them, and his expression was so scowling and vindictive that the barrister thought it was not very hard to tell his ultimate destiny—Pentridge, or the gallows.

As they entered, the fortune-teller raised her head, and, shading her eye with one skinny hand, looked curiously at the new comers. Calton thought he had never seen such a repulsive looking old crone; and, indeed, she was worthy of the pencil of Dore to depict, such was the grotesque ugliness which she exhibited. Her face was seamed and lined with innumerable wrinkles, clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; bushy gray eyebrows, drawn frowningly over two piercing black eyes, whose light was undimmed by age; a hook nose, like the beak of a bird of prey, and a thin-lipped mouth, with two long yellow tusks sticking out like those of a wild boar. Her hair was very luxurious and almost white, and was tied up in a great bunch by a greasy bit of black ribbon. As to her chin, Calton, when he saw it wagging to and fro, involuntarily quoted Macbeth's lines about the witches—

And, indeed, she was no bad representative of the weird sisters.

This lady looked viciously at them when they entered, and demanded sulkily—"What the 'ell they wanted?"

"Want your booze," cried the child, with an elfish laugh, as she shook back her tangled hair.

"Get out, you whelp," croaked the old hag, shaking one skinny fist at her, "or I'll tear your heart out, cuss you."

"Yes, she can go," said Kilsip, nodding to the girl, "and you can clear, too," he added, sharply, turning to the young man, who still stood holding the door open. At first he seemed inclined to dispute the detective's order, but ultimately obeyed him, muttering as he went out,