The door was
locked on her. (There was no lock; the door was merely bolted.) She
lived on fragments of a quartern loaf and water '_in a pitcher_,' with
the mince-pie bought for her naughty little brother. She escaped about
four in the afternoon of January 29. In the room were 'an old stool or
two, _an old picture_ over the chimney,' two windows, an old table,
and so on. She forced a pane in a window, 'and got out on a small shed
of boards or penthouse,' and so slid to the ground. She did not say,
the alderman added, that there was any hay in the room. Of bread there
were 'four or five' or 'five or six pieces.' '_She never mentioned the
name of Wells._' Some one else did that at a venture. 'She said she
could tell nothing of the woman's name.' The alderman issued a warrant
against this Mrs. Wells, apparently on newspaper suggestion.
The chief points against Elizabeth were that, when Wells's place was
examined, there was no penthouse to aid an escape, and no old picture.
But, under a wretched kind of bed, supporting the thing, was a
picture, on wood, of a Crown. Madam Wells had at one time used this
loyal emblem as a sign, she keeping a very ill-famed house of call.
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